He had no idea what was going on here. Callie had never once talked about Gloria Pritchard in their time together, but it sounded as if there was a blood connection between these two.
Was Callie Gloria’s niece?
If so, that would make Meg Pritchard her cousin. And that was a clear conflict of interest.
“Is there something we need to talk about?” he said to Callie.
“No. Nothing.”
But as much as she tried to hide it, he knew she wasn’t being straight with him, and behind the quiet anger there was vulnerability in her eyes. A vulnerability he recognized.
She and Gloria spent the next few seconds silently eyeballing each other, until Harlan said, “So what are you trying to tell me, Ms. Pritchard? That because you come from outlaw stock that this somehow made Jonah respect a punk like Billy Boy?”
“Jonah grew up worshipping his grandfather and his outlaw ways. He was always drawn to people who rebelled against authority. People like Billy and his friend. And Megan, of course.”
“So then what happened? What went wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I was upstairs and heard them shouting and when I came down to the living room, Meg had a gun pointed at my father.”
“And where were Billy Boy and Brett?”
“They were in the room, too. Billy Boy egging her on, telling her to pull the trigger. I think they may have been high.”
“And you have no idea what the problem was? Did Meg say anything? Want anything?”
Gloria stiffened. “What difference does it make? She shot him, then turned the gun on me. That’s all that matters.”
“I’m just trying to make sense of it,” Harlan said. “If Jonah admired these people and was willing to help them out of a jam, why would they suddenly turn on the two of you? Why would your own daughter want you dead?”
Gloria averted her gaze now. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Come on, Ms. Pritchard, your mouth is saying one thing, but your eyes are telling me something else altogether. What happened in that room?”
Gloria was silent. Struggling. Then she said, “I think I’d like to sleep now. Could you two please leave?”
“Not until you’ve answered the—”
Callie touched his shoulder, stopping him. “It’s okay, Harlan. I think I may already know.”
He looked at her and saw that her anger had abruptly disappeared, her expression now softened by a mix of surprise and empathy, as if something she had long wondered about suddenly made sense.
He waited for her to continue, but she said nothing, turning instead to Gloria. “The rumors are true, aren’t they? About Jonah’s…preferences.”
Gloria frowned. “What would you know about it?”
“This town doesn’t have many secrets, Gloria. We’ve all heard the whispers at one time or another.”
“That doesn’t mean a damn thing,” she snapped. “And it certainly doesn’t make it any of your business.”
Harlan’s voice was gentle but firm. “Look, Ms. Pritchard, I know you’re hurting, but a murder victim loses all right to privacy the moment we walk in the door. That’s the only way we can build a case against a potential—”
“Go away,” she said. “Please.”
Harlan took a deep breath, then exhaled. “All right, let’s put the motive aside for now. What we really need to know is where Meg and her friends were headed when they left. Did they say anything? Give any indication about where they might be going?”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me. I’d like to you leave.”
“Not until you tell us—”
“Get out,” she shouted. “Get out of my room!”
“Ms. Pritchard—”
“Get out!” She pulled herself upright, her IV rattling, her face turning crimson. Tears filled her eyes, spilling down her cheeks as she continued to shout at them. “Leave me alone!”
Whatever she was hiding, it was ugly and painful, so painful that she seemed unaware of the wound in her thigh which was starting to bleed, staining her blankets.
Harlan and Callie backed away from her now as the room began to fill with hospital personnel, people in scrubs telling them to go, now, as they moved to the bed to try to calm Gloria down.
And as he and Callie retreated into the hallway, Harlan could only thank God that the troubles he’d seen in his own life seemed tame in comparison to what this woman must be going through. The memories they had triggered were ripping her up inside, and even though it couldn’t be helped, he felt a twinge of guilt for pushing her.
He looked at Callie, saw the dismay on her face, and thought she must be thinking the very same thing. And despite all they’d been through in their time, Harlan suddenly realized that they were the lucky ones.
Very lucky indeed.
Chapter Eleven
“That went well,” Harlan said. “You want to clarify for me what just happened back there?”
Callie felt sick to her stomach. There had long been rumors about Jonah Pritchard, but she’d never really believed them. She had always thought it was nothing more than vicious small town gossip, whipped up out of boredom and envy.
Yet Gloria’s reaction to their questioning seemed to be confirmation of those rumors. Which would explain Megan Pritchard’s rebelliousness over the span of her life. If Meg had finally had enough of her grandfather’s “attention,” then that would surely be a motive to pick up a gun and shoot the old man.
But what about Gloria? Was she complicit in her father’s crimes? Is that why she’d reacted so violently? If so, then it was no wonder that she’d been shot as well.
Callie’s gut churned. The thought that she shared DNA with these people made her want to throw up.
She and Harlan were back in her SUV, headed to the ranch to pick up Harlan’s cruiser, his question still hanging in the air.
“Well?” he said.
“You’re a reasonably intelligent man,” she told him. “I think you can figure it out.”
He shook his head in disgust. “I was hoping I was wrong. Makes me feel a little guilty for pushing her buttons like that.”
“Imagine how I feel.”
He turned to her now, those blue eyes of his studying her as she gripped the wheel. “Gloria isn’t the only one keeping secrets, is she?”
“It isn’t exactly a secret. It’s just not something I talk about.”
“Are you ready to talk about it now?”
She shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell. My mother and Gloria’s brother were an item in high school, and she and Gloria were best friends. Until she got pregnant, that is.”
“And that was your mother’s fault, right?”
“Gloria thought so, and never forgave her for it. She looks at me and all she sees is the reason her brother is dead.”
“Why? What happened to him?”
“Jonah made him enlist in the army when they found out my mom was pregnant and he got killed in a truck accident. Which is a shame, because Nana Jean says he was the only decent Pritchard this side of Sheridan. Didn’t have that air of entitlement the rest of them do. It would’ve been nice to have gotten to know the man.”
Callie had never really missed her parents because she’d grown up without them, but she did sometimes let the “what ifs” occupy her mind.
She looked at Harlan and couldn’t be sure, but thought he might be upset by these revelations.
“Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “It’s just that I can’t believe we were together for nearly two and a half years and you never said a word to me about any of this.”
“It didn’t really affect us, and I didn’t want to burden you with my family drama.”
“That’s just it,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been a burden. I was in love with you, Callie. I wanted to know everything there was to know about you.”
She looked at him again—at those blue eyes still fixed on her—and she remembered that beneath his hard exterior he had alw
ays had a soft heart. Gentle. Empathetic.
He’d been a kind lover, too. Aggressive but never rough, and always attentive to her needs, physically and emotionally. So of course he would want to know everything about her.
That was who Harlan was.
Remembering this, Callie felt her heart kick up. She had been in love, too. The kind of love that made her anxious to wake up every morning. To see him. Touch him. Feel the embrace of those eyes. Those lips.
Those hands.
She missed that feeling. Missed the comfort of it. The excitement.
But after Treacher had been killed, all of that had stopped. Grief had consumed her, made her impossible to be around. The circumstances surrounding his death had made her cruel and judgmental and inconsolable. She hadn’t wanted Harlan anywhere near her.
Who would have thought that the loss of a close friend could do that to her? To them? Yet it had. And in the process she’d not only lost someone she’d thought of as a brother, but also the man she loved.
Two for the price of one.
Returning her attention to the road, she wondered why she still felt so angry at Harlan.
Did he really deserve her scorn?
Wasn’t it time to forgive and forget?
Her feelings for him hadn’t vanished—anyone paying close attention knew that. Otherwise she’d be indifferent to him, unwilling to waste any mental bandwidth thinking about him. And it was becoming more and more apparent that Harlan was using up the majority of that bandwidth.
She simply had no choice in the matter.
No choice at all.
Harlan sobered and said, “I guess there’s no point in dwelling on the past, is there?”
“I try not to.”
“But based on what you’ve told me, I think you need to consider removing yourself from this case.”
Cue the record scratch.
Callie swiveled her head toward him. “What?”
“One of the perpetrators is your cousin, Callie. The victim is your aunt. I felt the tension between you two even before Gloria went ballistic. If you keep going like this, your judgment could be impaired.”
Callie couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
So much for forgiving and forgetting.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“It doesn’t help that you and I aren’t exactly a loving couple anymore. We probably shouldn’t even be working together.”
“You were the one who wanted to tag along, remember? You can leave anytime you want to.”
“I’m serious, Callie.”
“So am I.”
Harlan sighed. “Look, maybe you and your boss don’t see it, but there’s a clear conflict of interest here and your involvement in this case is just a bad idea all around.”
All right. Enough was enough.
Without even thinking about it, Callie suddenly slammed the brakes, bringing the SUV to a hard stop in the middle of the road.
“Get out of the car,” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, Harlan, but this isn’t Colorado, and there’s only one person in this case who falls under your jurisdiction. Billy Boy Lyman. So why don’t you concentrate on catching him and leave the rest to the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office.”
She reached to the armrest and popped the locks on the doors. “Now get out of the car.”
MOMENTS AFTER LEAVING HARLAN in the middle the road, Callie started having second thoughts.
What was she doing?
Her actions only proved that he was right about this. That she was too emotionally involved to make smart, rational judgments. Leaving him stranded was not only childish, it was unbecoming of a Williamson County Sheriff’s deputy. A senior one, at that.
As Harlan shrank to a pinprick in her rearview mirror, Callie made a vow not to let him get under her skin, then eased off the accelerator and made a quick U-turn.
A moment later she was pulling up alongside him, once again popping the locks as she rolled down her window.
“I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to do.”
Harlan shrugged it off. “We all do stupid things. I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge you.”
“The problem is, you’re right,” she said. “I should recuse myself.” She smiled tersely. “But I’m not going to.”
He didn’t seem surprised. “You wouldn’t be the Callie Glass I once knew and loved if you did.”
They both let that percolate for a moment, then she gestured. “So are you just going to stand there gawking at me or get back in the car?”
He gave her a salute, then moved around to the passenger side and climbed in next to her.
They said nothing as she made another U-turn and headed toward Pritchard Ranch. The Bighorn Mountains loomed beyond—a dark, jagged line silhouetted against the night sky.
She thought back to what Gloria had said about her great-grandfather being an outlaw. When Callie was a child, she had heard stories about Jeremiah Pritchard and his gang of thieves roaming these mountains. He was often called the Robin Hood of Williamson County, using the money he’d robbed from banks and trains to help his friends buy land in the area, long before Williamson was what it was today.
It was a legend the Pritchards had traded on for decades. And Callie, knowing that she, too, was related to Jeremiah, had sometimes imagined herself riding with the gang, robbing banks, running from the law and…
A sudden thought occurred to her. “Oh, my God,” she murmured.
Harlan turned. “What?”
“I think I may know where our fugitives went.”
Harlan’s eyebrows raised. “What? Where?”
Callie punched the accelerator and blasted down the road, taking the curve toward Pritchard Ranch. A few moments later she pulled through the gate to find Harlan’s cruiser and only a single fire truck parked in front of the smoldering remnants of the house. She pulled in next to the cruiser and killed the engine.
Unlatching her glove compartment, she pulled out a flashlight and said, “Follow me.”
Then she had her door open and was out of the SUV, Harlan moving alongside her as she crossed past the fire truck, then flicked on the flashlight and headed down a sloping patch of lawn toward a large wooden structure sitting a few hundred yards away.
“The stable?” Harlan said. “The place has already been searched, top to bottom.”
“I know,” Callie told him, “but they were searching for the wrong thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were searching for people.”
They reached the stable and Callie threw open the doors, shining her flashlight around until she found a light switch mounted on a wooden post inside. She flicked the switch and overhead fluorescents came to life.
The stable was empty. No sign of any livestock.
“Remember what Landry told us?” Callie said. “That he was feeding the horses when the fire started?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
Callie gestured. “So do you see any horses here?”
Harlan looked around. “You think he was lying?”
Callie shook her head. “This is the Pritchard’s private stable, remember? Which means Meg would likely have a horse housed here, along with Gloria’s and Jonah’s rides. And it looks like someone took them after Landry ran up to the house. Three fugitives, three horses.”
Harlan was skeptical. “Or he could’ve left the doors open and the horses got spooked. They could be anywhere.”
“There’s one way to find out.”
Callie pulled out her cell phone and dialed. A moment later, Rusty was on the line. “Wilcox.”
“Rusty, this is Callie. Where’d they take Landry Bickham after we left?”
“Sheriff Mercer released him. He didn’t have a place to stay, so I drove him to the Cottonwood Motel.”
“Do me
a favor and call him over there, then call me back and put us on conference.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain later,” she said, then hung up.
As they waited for the return call, Harlan moved around the stable, poking his head into the empty stalls. Callie watched him, once again thinking how well he had aged. Thinking how he still had that fluid, effortless way of moving, as if he were completely in tune with his body.
Then her cell phone rang, interrupting the thought, and she clicked it on. “Glass.”
“Hey, Callie, I’ve got Landry on the line.”
“Thanks, Rusty. Can you hear me, Landry?”
“I hear you,” a familiar voice said, and he didn’t sound happy. “And I’m seriously thinking about filing a lawsuit for harassment.”
“Oh, grow up. I just need you to answer one more question.”
He sighed. “Which is?”
“When you heard the gunshots and ran up to the house, did you leave any of the stable doors open?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“You sure? Even in the heat of the moment?”
“Is that some kind of sick joke?”
She saw his point, but didn’t feel like dealing with his nonsense. “Landry, will you please just answer the—”
“No,” he said. “Not even in the heat of the moment. You work for the Pritchards, you learn good habits or you’ll be looking for another job. Doesn’t matter what’s goin’ on around you, closing up the stable is second nature, like zipping up your fly after you’ve done your business.”
Thanks for the visual, Callie thought.
“And the horses were here when you left?”
“Of course they were. I said I was feeding ’em, didn’t I? What’s this all about?”
“Stay on the line a minute. Rusty, you there?”
“I’m here,” Rusty said.
“Is Katie Patterson still head honcho over at the Williamson County Library?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Good. I need you to track her down and get to the library ASAP. And swing by the Cottonwood and take Landry with you.”
“Me?” Landry said. “What do you need me for?”
“Your expertise,” Callie told him, then disconnected before he could object.
A_Wanted Man - Alana Matthews Page 7