“Where is Mills now?” I ask, worried I already know the answer. “And Joanie?”
“Joanie’s on maternity leave. Mills, damn, it’s been too long without word from him, so we’re guessing he’s dead.”
“You keep saying ‘we’,” I tell him, wanting to know more about what’s going on.
“Some of my friends and me, we’re doing what we can to build evidence and disrupt their shipments.”
“Shipments?”
“I told you it started with a newcomer buying up failing businesses and land. Next thing we know, Mills and Woody are gone. Now, Joanie got ahold of Woody, he moved across the country and won’t say a word about why he took early retirement. Next, someone up high took a deputy who was suspended from Codington County and made him our sheriff, and this May guy brought in Davis and demoted the other deputies to running speed traps,” Dad quickly briefs me as he pulls my truck into an open bay in the industrial sized garage that’s been empty since Eda’s husband passed a couple of years ago.
“We have two theories—that a geological survey turned up something interesting, which was easy to eliminate. The second is smuggling, since we’re perfectly located off an artery that comes straight down from Canada.”
“Canada?” I mumble. What are they smuggling, syrup? I bite down on that thought, with what I’ve seen tonight, this situation is too serious for my sarcasm.
“Come on, let’s go talk to Eda,” he says, opening his door. “We’ll stay here tonight and hopefully things will die down.”
“We have to make sure that, God, I don’t even know his name. What do you think the sheriff will do to him?” I ask, feeling the panic start to overwhelm me again as I follow him through the garage.
“Jessup,” Dad fills in the man’s name while leaving my question unanswered. “You are my priority, Everly. You’re going to laylow for a day or two, then I’ll get someone to help me escort you back to Wyoming.”
“I’m not leaving until I know he’s alright,” I insist as he opens the back door and points to the barn. “He was trying to help me when that guy wasn’t backing off.”
“There’s not exactly a police blotter here anymore. I can’t ask around without drawing attention to you,” he snaps at me before taking a breath. “I’m sorry. We’re doing what we can.”
“And what’s that? Ducking? Staying out of sight?”
“We’re trying to get enough evidence to bring to a federal agency, Everly. There’s more at stake than one man here.”
I open my mouth to reply before remembering something Dad would always say when my temper flared up at someone, ‘Give them a little grace, Everly. You don’t know what they’re going through.’.
And that’s as true now as it always was. I don’t know what Dad and his friends have been going through these past months. But I know damn good and well, that I’m not leaving here until I know Jessup is alright.
Chapter 3
Rage
Trouble, I thought the moment that the tall woman strode into the bar. Her light brown hair was braided tightly on one side and curved around her head to flow over her opposite shoulder. She walked into the bar with all the confidence of someone who had done it a thousand times before, expecting to know everyone in the room.
It wasn’t until after she got to the bar and the owner called out a greeting, that she seemed to pick up on the fact that she had more or less run into a keg of dynamite.
I’d been sitting here for nearly an hour trying to make heads and tails of what I’d come across during the day, barely touching the beer in front of me even after finishing off some quesadillas. The locals were subdued, barely looking up from their tables and flinching when the outsiders would laugh and get rowdy.
It’s not that I know everyone in town, but I’ve been around here enough to know that the ten men scattered around the room were not from here and I’d bet my Harley that most of them had served time in prison. If not for a break in the storm system we’d been getting and the early hour, I imagine they’d be the only ones in here.
There was a definite pecking order to the group, and I’d already pegged the man with the dark eyes and weasel-like expression at being near the top. More so when he decided to shoot his shot with the perfect ten who was waiting for her order at the bar.
She tried her damnedest not to engage with him but when panic shot across her face, I found myself crossing to her without thought.
Her amber eyes lit up when I mentioned Joanie, so I was glad I’d thought to name drop Mills’ assistant. Unlike my brother, I never made it to six feet, I wish I was, but today the inch I have on the woman before me is enough, especially when we both stretch to our full height at the same time to lord it over the schmuck in front of us.
Unfortunately, the second she spit out her final ‘nope’, I saw the appreciation in his eyes change to hate and knew he’d never let it go.
Not ten minutes later, he proved me right when he and his friends were kicking the shit out of me in the parking lot. My heart nearly stopped when I saw her brake lights illuminate the dark road and I tried to yell, “Go!”, until a boot caught me in the jaw, and everything went dark.
*
The next time I start to wake up, I’m being pulled out of the trunk of a car. My head, ribs and shoulder are throbbing in pain, and it doesn’t feel too good being dropped on my ass.
