The Bear leaned forward, making forceful eye contact with me. “You had better not miss that flight at eleven forty-two tonight.”
I nodded. “Did Corbin get anything off of the computer or the phone?”
Vic shrugged. “Nothing on the computer yet, but he did get the information from the server on the phones; both of them are registered to Deke Delgatos, paid for by Deke Delgatos—”
“How about a listing of most recent calls?”
She slapped a Post-it onto my dash with the number engraved in the paper and a period that looked like it might’ve been made with an ice pick. “One number; the pay phone at the Sixteen Tons Bar.”
After getting the crate for Dog, some toiletries and essentials along with a couple of carry-ons for Vic and Henry, and a cheap work jacket and pair of gloves for me, I pulled the Bullet to a stop as we found ourselves on the wrong side of another of those mile-long coal trains. “It’s somebody in Arrosa.”
“Yes.”
Listening to the claxon warning and the thundering momentum of steel wheels, I glanced at him. “Any ideas?”
Both he and Vic shot me a look and then continued watching the passing train. “We have not met any of them to have any ideas.”
“Oh, right.” We watched the train together. Fingering the vents, I turned up the heat. “So Roberta Payne was sold to Willie and then taken by Deke.”
Vic fingered the Post-it fluttering in the hot air. “I really called the folks over at First Interstate and guess what?”
Henry’s voice rumbled. “The money from the trust ran out.”
Vic nodded. “Yeah.” She turned and looked straight at me. “You said he said he’d been studying you.”
“Yep, but maybe that had to do with something else.” I thought about it some more. “Maybe Roberta Payne was thrown in as a bonus, but after the money ran out—”
Henry asked, “Which would mean that the other women are alive?”
“Possibly.”
“For what reason?”
“The answer to that might be on those DVDs.”
Vic added, “You don’t suppose you’re pinning your hopes on that because it might mean that the victims are still alive?”
Both of them were looking at me now. “Maybe.”
—
“Just remember that the cock crows at eleven forty-two post meridian, which does not mean that you arrive at the airport at eleven forty-one.”
“Yep.”
He glanced up at the sky. “Not to worry.”
Henry had called the airport to check to make sure the airplanes were still flying, but although the snow had been steady, it hadn’t been windy, so the plows were able to keep up, and flights were leaving relatively on time—but it was more than that. He breathed in through his mouth, and I watched him taste the frigid air. “It will stop snowing before midnight.”
I watched as the Cheyenne Nation lifted the large crate onto his shoulder like it was a shoebox and led Dog into the airport on the leather leash, his back apparently feeling better.
My undersheriff stepped into my view as I sat there in the driver’s seat. “Hey . . .” She glanced back and watched as Henry and Dog negotiated with the skycap at the outside desk, something I’d never seen at a Wyoming airport. “What are you going to do?”
I glanced at the Post-it, still stuck to my dash. “Just go over there again and poke around. That pay phone is outside the door of the bar, so I’m sure nobody’s going to know who was using it or admit to it, but you never know.”
She turned back to look at me and handed me her cell phone. “Take this. I gave the number to Dougherty so that if he found anything, he could get in touch with you.”
I knew better than to fight. “Okay.”
She studied me until I started to squirm. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Define stupid.”
“Getting shot.”
I popped the phone in my coat pocket and reached over and adjusted my arm sling. “Done that.”
“Getting stabbed, getting punched, getting run over—or anything that might physically impair you any further.”
“Right.”
“Where the hell is Lucian?”
“Last I heard he was playing chess at the Wrangler Motel, but that was hours ago.”
“You might want to find him and have him give you a ride back here to the airport.”
“Right.”
She reached over and pulled my face toward hers, the tarnished gold enveloping the world. “Walt, let’s be clear about this. You are on somebody’s hit list.”
“We don’t know—”
Her grip drew tighter. “A professional killer’s list; just remember that.”
“I will.”
“And be on that plane at eleven forty-two or you won’t have to worry about who’s got a contract out on you.”
“I promise.”
“And make sure you don’t stick your dick in a hornet’s nest.”
I nodded. “Something, I can assure you, I will endeavor to never do.”
“Good, because I have plans for it.” Her fingers dug into the back of my neck as she kissed me, her lips against mine as I gasped, breathing in her scent for the road. “By the way, happy New Year’s.”
I watched her walk into the airport with the two bags after Henry and Dog, and sat there, feeling like the loneliest man in the world. I thought about just parking my damn truck and running after them, but instead, I did what my daughter accused me of doing and put it on autopilot—I tugged the truck down into gear and pulled out.
—
The quickest way back to Arrosa was the interstate highway, but when I got to the on-ramp, the gate was down and an HP was sitting crossways, blocking the road. I peeled to the side and lowered my window, squinting into the stinging flakes. “What’s up?”
The older trooper smiled at me. “Closed for business. How you doin’, Walt?”
“Hey, Don. What’s the weather report?”
“Shitty, with scattered shitty and more shittiness till sometime tonight.”
“I’ve got to get a plane at midnight but first have to get over to Arrosa; any way you’d let me up on the big road?”
He shook his head. “Can’t do it. They’re plowing in tandem up there and they might push you into the guardrails.”
I started rolling up my window. “Thanks anyway.”
“Be careful with your radio, those old transponders down near there gave out; they’re working on getting them going again, but I wouldn’t count on my radio or cell phone if I was you.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I heard your daughter was having a baby?”
“That’s it; rub it in.” He gave me a quizzical look as I backed up and spun around one-handed, taking the surface roads to Boxelder and heading east, hoping that he and Henry were right that the weather would break before midnight—like eighteen minutes before midnight, to be exact.
There weren’t very many cars on the road, and I made a little more time by cheating and jumping on the highway for the last few miles. As I slipped off the interstate, I thought about how I wouldn’t make it to Philadelphia by tomorrow morning if I kept driving east and about all the players in this case and about how hard it was to keep a secret in a small town.
My shortcut turned out not to be such a great idea as I sat there watching another coal train pass by.
It can take three to four minutes for the average train, which weighs more than three thousand tons, to pass through a crossing. It takes a full mile or more for a train to stop; that’s sixteen football fields; that’s even after it’s struck something. According to the Department of Transportation, the drivers of automobiles cause 94 percent of all grade-crossing accidents, and approximately every two hours in this country, a collision occurs between a train and either a pedestrian or a vehicle—that’s twelve incidents a day. More people die in highway-rail crossings in the United States each year than in all commercial and general aviation crashes combined.