“You’re Cain, right? Joshua Cain?” The man was midthirties, average height, nothing much different about him except his interest.
“That’s right.”
“You were a friend of Pete Saldana’s?” It sounded like a question but it wasn’t.
“Right again. Who are you?”
“Detective Craig Milburn, Fairfield PD. You got a minute?”
“If it’ll help you find the prick who murdered Pete, I’ve got all the time you need.”
They walked a little ways away, out of earshot of the dispersing crowd. Josh lifted his white cap to catch a little of the breeze, then settled it back on his head.
“Any reason you can think of that someone might want to murder your friend?” the detective asked.
Josh shook his head. “Everybody loved Pete. He was just one of those guys, you know? His nickname in the Corp was Amigo. He was a friend to everyone.”
“Yeah, that’s the picture we’ve been getting. You know he was killed execution-style? Forty-five-caliber slug to the back of the head. Looks like he walked out of the bar for a smoke and the guy came up behind him. A hit like that . . . it makes us think he was involved in some kind of criminal activity. Drugs, maybe. Could be a lot of different things.”
Josh started shaking his head. “Not Pete. He was a hero, straight shooter all the way. He had kids. He wanted them to look up to him, be proud of him. He was determined to be a good role model.”
“Good role models don’t usually end up getting their brains blown out.”
Josh’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like this guy or the direction this conversation was taking. And it certainly wasn’t the time or place. “You’re wrong. Do your job and prove it.” Turning, he walked away.
What the hell had happened to Pete? Had he pissed someone off badly enough to get himself killed? Everything inside Josh urged him to find out.
But he wasn’t in the marines anymore and Pete was no longer one of the men who fought beside him. The Josh he was now had responsibilities, a ranch to run, a young woman and her daughter to look after. He needed to let the police handle Pete’s murder.
From the cemetery, he and Coy and the other guys stopped by Pete’s house to pay their respects to Dolores and the rest of Pete’s family. From there they went to one of the local saloons to toast their friend and drown their grief.
Josh had a couple of beers and headed home. As a kid he had never really had a home, just a place to eat and sleep. He and his mom had lived in a fleabag apartment where his drunken dad dropped by once in a while to beat up on his wife and son.
Josh thought of the ranch he was building, thought of Tory and Ivy, and was surprised to discover how eager he was to get back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ham called the next morning, disturbing the big workday Josh had planned, work that needed to be done for the barn raising on Saturday.
According to his last conversation with Ham, there hadn’t been any new leads in the investigation. Lisa had left for New York, but had never recovered her memory.
Josh pressed the phone against his ear. “Hey, Ham, what’s up?”
“Could be nothing. Saw something on the news last night. Probably doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to Lisa Shane, but I figured you’d want to know.”
Unease crawled through him. “Tell me.”
“A girl went missing. Early twenties, waitress at a dive bar out in Carefree. She left around two A.M. after her shift was over and just disappeared. Apparently, it wasn’t unusual for her to go home with some guy from the bar so no one worried when her car was still in the lot the next day. When she didn’t show up for her next shift, I guess one of her friends got worried. No sign of her since the night she disappeared.”
“Carefree’s not far off I-17. Easy access to the mountains up north. Could be the same guy who took Lisa.”
“Could be. Bridger’s still in Phoenix. I’ve been checking on him off and on. He’s still going to the office, hasn’t changed his routine. I wouldn’t have called except . . .”
“What is it?”
“The thing is, Josh, this girl . . . she was a pretty little redhead about Tory’s size.”
The news felt like a kick in the stomach. “Jesus.”
