“To face whatever is going on there by yourself? Hell no,” Cash said, stepping into his boots. “Do these texts even sound like your grandmother?”
“No, they don’t. I think someone else is telling her what to say or is using her phone.”
“Text back that you’re on your way. Alone.”
Cash let Dude out and packed up his bowls and dog food. Tracy threw her freshly laundered Western clothes along with some other things into her bag. She locked the front door, and they headed outside to Cash’s Mustang. Leaving through the front gate, to which Cash had remembered the code that morning, he headed straight for the interstate. They soon took a cutoff and headed to Triple C-East. Using his hands-free method of calling his brother-in-law, Cash contacted Derek. They listened to his advice.
Wringing her hands, Tracy said to the men, “Wild Horse is an unincorporated ghost town. There are no local police to do a wellness check, Derek.”
Derek suggested they call the Cheyenne County Sheriff’s Department to check things out. He said to be sure to mention his name as well as that of Owen Custis.
“How far away is the sheriff’s department from your grandmother’s house?” Cash asked.
“At least forty miles.”
“We’ll get there before the cops can.”
Derek wanted to go with them. But he and Owen were in Denver delivering eight Percherons to the Denver Police Department. Transporting them on Sunday meant the horses would be well-rested for the police on Monday morning. In any event, Derek and Owen wouldn’t be back at Triple C-West for several hours. Cash and Tracy thanked Derek and promised to keep him posted.
“Should we tell Chase what’s going on?”
“He’d want to go, too, but he and Bob are in the north forty driving cattle and it would take him too long to get to Triple C-East.” Indicting the glove box, Cash said, “There are two guns in there. Mine and yours. We’re gonna fly and take them by surprise.”
“We’re not goingto the trouble of burying him,” Donna snickered, taking over where Winston had left off. She laughed as she and Gerald sat at the Dalton kitchen table. “Dear old daddy can burn when we set fire to the shed he painted with that flammable paint.”
“I thought you said your father had already murdered the old woman,” Gerald said.
“It was a guess. He was planning to burn the shed down with her in it after he found the money. He wanted her to sign the property over to him so he could live in the house. But obviously none of that happened.”
“Just because I’m a closet junkie doesn’t mean I’m a psycho killer like the two of you,” Gerald said as he twirled Winston’s gun around his finger.
“Don’t…” Donna pointed her gun at him. “Don’t ever call me a psycho again.” When Gerald held up a hand, she set her gun between her cell phone and Tammy Dalton’s. Gerald did the same and then they both snorted lines of coke off the table. As the feeling of power and energy hit her, Donna spewed, “Yeah, baby!”
“I’m not going back to jail!” Gerald howled. “I’m an editor!”
“Youwerean editor, Gerald. A lousy one,” Donna snapped. “Your credentials were fake, and nobody at the magazine liked you. Why do you think Devereux planned to ship you off to North Dakota?”
“Because of you,” Gerald said, his pupils enlarging into what detox had called cocaine eyes. If I hadn’t gotten mixed up with you and this get-rich-quick scheme?—”
“You wouldn’t have blown through so much coke so fast?”
“I wouldn’t have been fired,” Gerald finished his sentence as he scraped another hit of cocaine into a line. “I wish you’d never found me working at that magazine.”
“But you liked my get-rich-quick scheme enough to hire me, and now you’re a jobless accessory to murder.” Donna laughed in the way Gerald had said made his skin crawl. “Can’t you see we have to kill Tammy and Tracy? Or don’t you want your share of the Dalton money?”
“How does getting Tracy here equal getting the money?”
“That old bitch you locked in the shed will tell us where the money is buried when you put a gun to her Dalton Darling’s head.”
“Funny how you made sure I’m the only one the old woman has seen so far,” he said. “Makes me wonder if you’ll stab me in the back like yourdear old daddyand Tracy.”
“Winston had it coming to him, and so does Tracy.”
“Too bad about Tracy, though. She would have been a sensational screw.”
“You’ve got me, Gerald!” Donna spat. “I don’t want to hear you speak her name again.”
“Yeah, okay,” Gerald said. He snorted his white line and shouted, “We’re in godforsaken nowhere!” Wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he said, “By the time anyone comes this way, we’ll be lost in the land of drugs aplenty living like royalty.”
