You Can't Escape (9781420134650)

by Bush, Nancy

  “Martin? Oh, no.” Pru drew her head back as if the very thought made her recoil. “That can’t be right. Emily was too into herself then to date Martin.”

  “She was into Martin for a while,” Nate snapped impatiently.

  “Was she? Well, she wasn’t picky, that’s for sure.” Hearing herself, she added, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”

  “That’s all right. I just can’t quite remember who she was seeing,” Jordanna pressed, but Pru shook her head and Nate had grown totally bored by the conversation. Soldiering on, Jordanna added, “She basically told me she’d joined the God squad that last year, I was thinking maybe it was someone—”

  “Emily didn’t come to any of our prayer meetings,” Pru interrupted, as if that were the answer to everything.

  “Maybe it was a different religious group,” Jordanna suggested.

  Pru seemed disconcerted by the idea, and it took her a moment before she said, “Well, your sister was always full of secrets, wasn’t she?” She looked at her husband, whose gaze was focused somewhere in the middle distance, as if he were lost in thought. “You remember Emily, Nate? She was the really pretty one?”

  “We all knew Emily,” he said.

  “I think Pete Drummond had a thing for her,” Pru recalled.

  Mr. Shitface. “Pete Drummond,” Jordanna inserted quickly. “He’s with the Rock Springs PD now, I heard. The name seems familiar, but I don’t think I know him. Think he was her boyfriend?”

  Pru looked unsure, but Nate suddenly came back from wherever his thoughts had taken him. “The chief gave him that job with the police,” he said, barely hiding a sneer. “And he’s no more qualified that Pru is.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Pru said.

  “Wasn’t meant to be nice,” he said, uncaring.

  If he was a member of the Green Pastures Church, Jordanna thought he might have to work on his piety.

  Pru, clearly uncomfortable, asked Jordanna, “How’s Kara? The last time I saw her was a couple of Christmases ago.”

  “She was at the wedding,” Jordanna said.

  “Oh, yes, that’s true. I kind of forgot.” She tugged at one of her earlobes until Jordanna worried she would pull the silver hoop with the row of small diamonds right off.

  “She’s traveling,” Jordanna said, dragging her gaze away from Pru’s tugging hand.

  “You Treadwell girls like to stay away,” Nate observed. “Surprised you’re here. Something happen?”

  “I’m following a story,” Jordanna improvised. “The homeless man whose body was found near the old homestead.”

  Pru frowned. “Really? That was years ago. You mean the one found behind your mother’s family’s place?”

  Jordanna didn’t immediately answer. She’d always thought of the house as her father’s. She also hadn’t realized that Rusty’s homeless man was old news.

  Pru confirmed, “The one that was branded, right?”

  Jordanna looked at her. “The body was branded? You mean like, from a branding iron?”

  Pru demurred, “Well, I thought so.” She glanced at Nate a little desperately.

  He rescued her with, “The guy was just a fool hiker. Fell off a cliff on government property off Summit. Maybe some relative of yours that lost his way, huh?”

  “Nate, don’t be mean,” Pru said.

  Jordanna ignored his tone. “But the body was branded,” she repeated. “I never saw that on the news, and a branding is pretty newsworthy.”

  “You should ask Martin about it,” Pru put in quickly. “He’s the one that told us about it. He’s divorced now, y’know? She wasn’t a good woman. So, if you’re around for a while, maybe we could all get together? We do a lot of Sunday potlucks after church, and Sunday’s just a few days away.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure I’m going to still be here Sunday, but thanks,” Jordanna said.

  “If circumstances change . . .” she suggested.

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Jordanna lied to her. Tomorrow was Friday and Kara had said she would be around, meaning Laurelton, for the weekend, so Jordanna was half-planning a quick trip back to her apartment, possibly on Saturday. It wasn’t inconceivable that Dance would want to go back with her, if he felt strong enough to face the Saldanos, which she hoped wouldn’t be the case yet, but who knew?

  There’d been a steady stream of people pushing through the saloon doors, and with relief Jordanna looked over to see that the latest newcomer was Rusty. She waved at him, and Pru and Nate turned around as one to see who it was. Nate immediately swung back to Jordanna and said, “Don’t believe everything he tells you. He’s a drunk and a liar.”

  “He’s your friend,” Pru declared, but she looked at Rusty with distaste.

  “Be careful,” Nate added, making eye contact with Jordanna before steering his wife away to a table as far from the bar as possible.

  Rusty moved up to Jordanna, his strawberry-blond hair catching the light from the overhead wagon-wheel fixture. He dropped his bulk into the seat next to her, but his eyes were following the Calversons’ quick exit. “I see Nate’s hustling his little lady away from me,” he observed.

  “She’s not a fan?” Jordanna asked.

  “He doesn’t want her to know that he and I have shared more than a few drinks together.”

  “Ahhh . . . not lemonade, I take it.”

  “Brewskies.”

  “He told me you were a drunk and a liar,” Jordanna related.

  Rusty nearly choked on his laughter. “Well, now that might be true, but he only knows ’cause of our poker games. And Pru doesn’t know about the drinking or the poker.”

  “I’ve been questioning Nate’s commitment to the church,” she said.

  He gave her an appreciative look. “You were always smart. Why’d you stay away so long?”

  Jordanna shrugged. Rusty had been a big goof-off at school, but he wasn’t nearly the redneck hick he seemed to want everyone to believe. “Pru said something about that homeless man being branded. Is that true?”

  “Yep.” He nodded.

  “When was the body found?”

  “A couple years ago, maybe?”

  “I never saw that anywhere on the news.”

  “Oh, the chief didn’t want the branding let out to the press. I think he mighta thought it would look bad for the town, or that it was something to hold back if it turned out to be a homicide and he wanted to catch the killer. Who knows. But in any case, he kept that out of the news.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be a well-kept secret around here,” Jordanna pointed out.

  “You can lay the blame on Mr. Shitface for that.” Rusty gave several deep nods.

  “Pete Drummond. In my sister Emily’s class.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You think it was a homicide?”

  “Probably not. Nobody ever said so.”

  “Sounds like a story.” She thought about her pretty elder sister and said, “Wish my sister was still around to give me an intro, since Pete had a thing for her.”

  Rusty’s brows knit. “Drummond had a thing for your sister . . . Emily? You mean in high school?”

  “That’s what Pru said.”

  “I don’t remember that.” He shot her a sympathetic look. “It was a shame, what happened to her.”

  Jordanna nodded. Everyone remembered Emily’s fatal car accident the spring of her senior year.

  “I wouldn’t take the Drummond thing seriously. He has a thing for all pretty girls. If you talk to him, be mindful.” He held up a finger. “He’s not to be trusted.”

  “Everyone keeps warning me about everyone else,” she remarked. “I thought your cousin was coming.”

  He snorted. “Todd’s straddling the fence between church and tavern. You go one way or the other in this town, and he can’t make up his mind. His kind of church is more like communing with nature, which I can get behind. Better than a lot of the really strict one
s around here. I mean, they are NO FUN.”

  “I guess that puts us firmly on the tavern side,” she said, looking around.

  “You got that right.” He drummed his palms on the bar like he was playing the bongos and yelled, “Danny, over here. You blind?”

  The barkeep gave him a short nod as he served up Budweiser on tap to a young couple who’d just arrived.

  “Do you know how it was determined the man was homeless?” Jordanna asked.

  “It’s been a few years ago. I don’t think anyone ever claimed the body, so that was the theory.”

  “Pru also mentioned that Martin Lourde was the one who told her the man was branded.”

  “Sounds just like him, but Lourde’s a . . .” He searched around at length and then finally came up with “putz.”

  Jordanna smiled. “And here I thought you were going to say something more colorful.”

  “Because I call Drummond Mr. Shitface? Hey, I’m not all bad,” he assured her. “Lourde’s just a putz. If you’re really following this thing, you’d probably get more information from Drummond.”

  “But be careful around him.”

  “He’s dumb as a box of rocks and can’t keep his mouth shut, no way, no how, but he thinks he’s a player.” He drank half his beer down in a couple long swallows, then set the glass on the bar again with a little more force than necessary. “You should really talk to Todd. He was being all closed up this mornin’, but he’s got information.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “He hikes all over these mountains and talks to people. He pays a helluva lot more attention to things than I do. I get bored.”

  She smiled. She could believe that.

  “You got a cell phone number?” Rusty asked, pulling his own mobile phone from his pocket.

  “Um . . . sure . . .”

  She was usually far more careful about giving out her digits than she’d been today, but she figured if Jennie had her number, she might as well give it to Rusty, too. She recited her digits, and Rusty, in turn, gave her his.

  “I’ll have Todd call you,” he said.

  “You also mentioned the missing Fread girl. A runaway,” Jordanna reminded him.

  “Well, I don’t know for sure she’s a runaway, but if I were Bernadette, I’d just hightail it out of there before my crazy religious father locked me up, or hit me again, or something. Old man Fread’s a real case. Forbade her from seeing her boyfriend, Chase Sazlow, who’s a damn nice kid, actually. But Fread just lost it when he caught them together. I heard Reverend Miles had to have a little talk with him, as Mr. Fread was bordering on abusive.”

  “Reverend Miles of the Green Pastures Church.”

  “That’s the one.” He finished the rest of his beer, and Jordanna swallowed the last bit of her own drink as well.

  “How do you know so much about Bernadette Fread?”

  “My mom was good friends with Bernie’s. They knew each other from grade school. But then Bernie’s mom married Abel Fread just out of high school and they went all religious. But I don’t think it took too well, ’cause Bernie and her mom would stop by, kind of sneakily-like, whenever they could.” He made a face. “But they’re all part of Green Pastures now.”

  “Is your friend Todd any part of that church?”

  “God, no. You have to be fuckin’ crazy to go there, and he’s not crazy.” Hearing himself, he added, “And neither are you, Jordanna Winters. You weren’t when you were in high school. You’re not now.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said, meaning it.

  “Todd takes his religion seriously, but it’s a make-it-up-as-you-go kind of thing. Nature, being a good neighbor, getting to your core truth, you know what I mean?”

  She nodded. Todd Douglas’s unstructured spirituality appealed to her.

  Rusty went on, “You gotta be way, way out there to belong with the Green Pastures flock. I’ll allow that Reverend Miles did a good thing for Bernadette, but get too close to that kind of religion?” He shook his head. “I’d break out in hives.”

  “What kind of religion is it, exactly?”

  “The kind that makes up all the rules and spends too much time telling you what you shouldn’t do or you’ll burn in hell.”

  They talked for a while more, veering off the subject of missing Bernadette Fread and her apparently Bible-thumping, authoritative father. Jordanna left about an hour later and drove back to the old homestead under a dark sky, watching as raindrops, driven by a strong wind, raced across her windshield in squiggly lines. When she entered the living room once more, she saw that Dance was out of bed and stretched out asleep on the couch, and that the woodstove needed to be fed. The room was toasty, though, so she only added one more chunk of fir, listening to it spit and crackle as she turned away from its heat to look down at him.

  Dance’s eyes shot open. “You’re back.”

  “Yep.”

  Catching his sudden wince of pain, she asked, “How’s the pain? You need another pill?”

  He swore, then said belligerently, “I’m not taking any more pills.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t think it was a good idea, but she didn’t appreciate him acting like it was her fault somehow.

  Hearing himself, he muttered, “Thanks for getting them, but I need a clear head.”

  “Let me just say, you’re supposed to keep ahead of the pain.”

  “I’m doing just fine,” he said shortly, looking up at her.

  “Yeah, well . . .” She moved over to the hard wooden bench on the opposite side of the room, the only other piece of furniture she could sit on. “You don’t have to be a hero. You just have to heal.”

  He snorted. “How’d it go with your friends?” he asked shortly, deliberately changing the course of the conversation.

  Jordanna said, “I don’t have any friends in this town.”

  “So, you sat alone?”

  “There were a few people from high school that I talked to,” she allowed. “You know that homeless man I learned was found just east of here? In the foothills? Rumor is that he was branded.”

  Dance’s interest sharpened. “Branded . . . before or after death?”

  “A question I don’t know the answer to, yet. Let me get you another pill.”

  “Don’t,” he said, but she was already on her feet and heading into the kitchen.

  She returned with a bottle of plain water and one of the prescription painkillers, which she pressed into his palm. “I really don’t care if you take it, or if you’d rather bite on a bullet or scream into a pillow, or just go into frozen shock. Do what you gotta do. But know this, I’m not taking you to the clinic in town unless you’re at death’s door, and even then, I’ll think about it. My father runs the clinic, and I am not going there. So, take the drugs, don’t take the drugs, whatever. Just don’t count on me.”

  She sat back down on the bench as she spoke but only looked at him when she finished her speech. She’d scared a smile out of him, she saw, and that made her look away from the attractiveness of the man. It was easy to deal with cold, angry, or clinical Jay Danziger, but with the warm, attractive, sexy Dance, it was not.

  “I’m going to do some research on the branded man,” she told him. “The chief kept that tidbit out of the papers, but it’s an open secret around here. There’s a story there.”

  He nodded, thinking that over. “You giving up on the Saldanos?”

  “Nope. Just gonna follow your lead on that one. When you’re ready, I’m ready.”

  “I need a few more days,” he said. “I need to walk better, but even if that takes a while, I’ll go back next week sometime.”

  “You going to confront them?”

  “I’m going to talk to Max, and see where that takes me.”

  “You should have the police with you,” she said, feeling a renewed wave of fear, the same sensation that had driven her to pluck him from the hospital.

  “That won’t really work if I want answers.”
<
br />   “Let me go with you, then. You shouldn’t go alone.”

  “You’re going to protect me?” he asked, his mouth curved ever so faintly.

  He had her number. At least he knew that she wanted a story, and maybe he’d even guessed she’d suffered feelings of adoration, which was downright embarrassing. “I want the truth to come out about them, and I want to be a part of bringing that truth to light. So, when you’re ready, I’m in.”

  He met her gaze silently, and she suspected he was weighing her worth. She stared right back, but in the end she was the first one to break. “In the meantime, I might as well look into what’s going on in Rock Springs.”

  “I’d like to help,” he said.

  Surprised, Jordanna realized he was serious. Apparently he’d found her worthy. Or, maybe this was his way of killing time while he worked through the Saldano case and let his body heal. “Okay,” she told him happily. “I’ll do some legwork and let you know what I come up with.”

  Chapter Ten

  Randall from Pacific Power came by the next morning at eight and explained that the electrical wires from the property to the road had been unhooked, either by vandalism or by someone’s choice, but that he would have everything put together again in a couple of hours. He was as good as his word and at ten he came to the front door and Jordanna stepped out onto the porch to meet him. “Coulda been Mother Nature,” he said, forestalling Jordanna’s first question before she could even utter it. “If someone purposely undid those wires, they took a big risk.” He shook his balding head. “You Mrs. Winters, then?” he asked her.

  “Oh. Um . . . no.”

  “Is Mr. Winters here to sign the paperwork?”

  “Can I sign it?”

  “He’s the one who called.”

  “I’m here,” Dance said from the interior of the house. He thumped his way over and took the pen and clipboard from the lineman’s hands, signing in an unrecognizable scrawl.

  When Randall was inside his truck, firing the engine, Jordanna followed Dance back inside. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Not a problem. I’ve pretended to be a lot of people along the way.”

  “Guess I’m on that path, too,” she said. “Let’s turn on the heat and hope the furnace works.”