by Mark Stevens
And her. She heard it. And what if she hadn’t?
Then what? Maybe somebody would have found Rocky’s shot-up body in the spring and maybe all the same questions would have been asked, maybe all the same answers would have been found. On the other hand, maybe Grumley would have returned and found time to dig an even deeper, more permanent grave. Maybe Rocky would have disappeared forever.
What if she had left it alone? What about Weaver, Alvin? What about Bear? Did her questions lead to their ...?
She couldn’t answer that question. She wouldn’t answer that question. How far back in the phrase “chain reaction” did one have to travel to find the source? The airplane crash had led to years of legal hassles and assigned blame. An arbitrary dollar amount was set to balance the big scales in the sky, to make her whole. Nearly half of the nine hundred thousand dollars was now committed as a hefty down payment on Weaver’s ranch. Justice, in theory, was done.
Really? Was it?
Had she sought more, she realized now, studying the beat-up shell from the bullet, she might actually think the government was the enemy or, at least, a fearful master. She made a silent promise. The money would be used for a perfectly good government cause. The money would underwrite her time on the Flat Tops. She would be an unofficial sentry, an extra pair of ears and eyes. The money would be invested, essentially, in protecting a government asset. It was money well spent. Even if nobody ever knew her role, it would be her way of justifying the fact that she’d cashed the check.
She put the shell in her pocket as a reminder and headed off. She would find a place for it on her own little mantle.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to all my friends in writing and fiction: Mark Graham, Gary Reilly, Mike Keefe, Phil Reed, Ted Conover, Laura Snapp, Mike Booth, Bill Briggs, Ralph Beall, Mark Eddy, Diane Carman, Irv Moskowitz, Allyn Harvey, John Hickenlooper, Helen Thorpe, Mark and Wendy Klemick, Steve Metzger, Gregg Mundt, Ann LaBotz, Bruce Caughey, Dixie Good, Phil Good, Marilyn Saltzman, Ted and Susan Pinkowitz, Dan Slattery and Parry Burnap. Thanks also to Nick Zelinger for inspired imagery for the cover and to Melanie Mulhall and Betsy Zelinger for their tenacious, thoughtful editing. Many thanks also to Catherine Lutz for a solid read-through and spiffy improvements for the paperback edition.
Read Buried by the Roan, book two in The Allison Coil Mystery Series
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Book 3: Trapline
Book 4: Lake of Fire