Cowboy sat on the bed across from me.
“Jessy Bell and Teeth are being held in the county lock up, now. They’ve questioned them. The police are combing the whole county, but those agents seem to believe the kidnappers handed off the baby to someone else.”
“A buyer?” My heart stopped.
“Maybe?”
“So, why Arizona?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Anarchy?”
I was speechless. The Feds had ratted me out. They told me if I really wanted to find my baby I needed to tell them all I could, so I had. I told them about Anarchy, telling me she was pregnant. Is that why his eyes were wet? Was he crying for her?
“She asked me not to tell you. She said she’d tell you in her own time.”
“You should have said something.”
“Why? You didn’t tell me you killed my niece.” She hadn’t been blood, but I’d thought of her that way.
“What are you talking about?”
“Were you at the Devil’s Den five years ago when Scar came to rescue me?”
“Yeah…” he answered, timidly.
“You know, I was there. Do you remember what happened? Scar, he’d picked me up by the hair on my head. He noticed my blonde hair and threw me down.”
“That was you?”
“Yep. Good thing he didn’t kill me.”
“Scar could never kill a woman after seeing your mama die.”
“I can’t blame him.” I started crying. “I saw someone die that night. She was just five years old. Same age I was when the devils took me. Little Betty. I called her Little Betty Boop. I was supposed to babysit her that weekend, like I always did.”
Cowboy made no move to say anything. His face emotionless, hard, stared off into the distance.
“You killed her, didn’t you?” I screamed in his face.
He searched my face, looking so put out, he didn’t have to answer, answering me all the same.
“Get out,” I screamed at him.
Cowboy
I couldn’t believe something that has haunted me so long would come back on me and bite me in the ass this hard.
Karma was a bitch.
No, it was more like I was Karma’s bitch.
Mounting the General’s old Harley, I knew I deserved every bit of this misfortune and more. A lump in my throat, I hadn’t been able to even answer Halley. I understood as soon as I did, she’d see me in a different light.
I didn’t have to answer her. Searching her wet eyes, I was no longer her rescuer, her prince charming, her white night. I was a murderer. I’d murdered a child. What else would she think me capable of?
Still, she wouldn’t get rid of me so easily. I wanted to ride back to her right away, explain myself, but I wassure there was nothing I could say that would erase her pain. Giving Halley time to cool off, I rode for hours and spent the night at another crappy motel, twenty miles away from her. I slept the next day away. I probably wouldn’t have gotten up the next morning if the phone hadn’t rang. I didn’t recognize it, but it was a Reno number. I answered.
Halley called me from the hotel room. “We need to talk.”
