“Yes. Whatever you want.” She followed his orders. Now was not the moment to show any animosity. At least, none she couldn’t back up.
The three of them followed Papa C to his office. Once inside, Partner took off his overcoat and handed it to Betsy. Authoritatively, he pointed for her to put it on the coat rack, then pointed to the chair in front of the desk. She sat quickly and quietly. The game had begun, and she needed to cooperate. Sooner or later, someone would find her. No matter where they took her, someone would find her.
Partner laughed as he watched Papa C tip three books on the bookcase behind his desk, then pull a statue forward. Instantly the bookcase clicked open to reveal a safe hidden behind it. “Didn’t know you were this clever, brother.”
“We’ll need to stop by the house for the other safe’s contents, too.” Papa C laid a stack of papers and money and flash drives on his desk. Tossed his briefcase to Betsy. “Fill it up.”
With no complaint, she did as told.
“You seem to have calmed the beast here. She may be a lot of help to us.” Partner watched Betsy, then smiled as she closed the briefcase. “She’s smart. Compliant. Probably learned that from her dad. Makes me think I may have missed a chance with that FBI agent years ago.”
Betsy leaned back in the chair and waited for the next command. He seemed to know a lot about her family. About her background. Seemed to enjoy taunting her with conversation.
Partner motioned for her to hold his coat up for him, then slid into it like the most important man in the world. After tugging on his leather gloves, he stared at Betsy once again until she finally stared right back.
He laughed. “Yeah, I should have tried negotiating with your dad. Too bad I had him killed instead.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Cain had spent the last hour driving to Nature’s Crossing, and as he closed in on the location, he still couldn’t stop puzzling together everything that had happened in the Crayton case. They were close, but missing parts were still out there. Hopefully, some out-of-sight clues might unexpectedly fall into their hands. Finding others would require some outside-the-box thinking. Right now, though, when, where and who kept evading him.
He needed to free his mind. Let it wander. That’s one reason he’d brought his motorcycle along. This time of year, he tended to feel cooped up by the cold and ice and snow. His riding coveralls hadn’t been cheap, but they were worth it when he chanced a road trip on the cycle in this weather.
Although today, the sun had made an appearance. Felt like a false spring day. Especially since the forecast was for more freezing rain and snow.
He’d fill up his thermos at Red’s Corner Market where he was supposed to meet Wheat McIntosh. He was a state trooper with the Missouri Highway Patrol, and also the owner of the acreage for sale. Some kind of inheritance he was splitting into a few one-fifty- to two-hundred-acre plots.
Which brought him to the other reason he’d wrangled the motorcycle into the truck bed. Of course, he’d done that so many times, it all fell into place like clockwork because his truck bed had been specially fitted for an on-off ramp, wheel chock and tie-down straps and hooks. Since he didn’t have a Gator yet, riding the land on the cycle would give him at least a partial view of the pros and cons.
Cain had been looking for land like this for years. He’d shared with Betsy how much this would mean to him, to his planned business, to the family he hoped to raise one day. She’d listened, even seemed to understand. Yet the way she’d responded this morning when he asked her to come along to view the property, he’d evidently misread what he thought they had been building in their relationship. Evidently, his dreams and hers had split. Or maybe his plans had never been her vision and she’d only pretended.
Come to think about it, she never talked about the future. She was all about the past. Taking care of top priorities ASAP. Making sure she could take care of Sadie, Marcy and Summer. And she’d also included Truman, JB, Joanie, and her uncle, along with his family, under her umbrella of responsibility.
Life hadn’t been kind to her at times, but it hadn’t always been kind to him either. He’d learned a long time ago that all you can do is learn from the past and move forward. Embrace the hopes and dreams and plans with open arms, because the past would beat you to the ground and stomp on you if you didn’t learn to fight back.
“Damn it, Betsy. What are you doing?” He slammed his palm against the side of the steering wheel. “I’m right here for you. Why can’t you see that? Why? Don’t you know I need you just as much as you need me?”
The Nature’s Crossing Welcome sign greeted him, and the flashing stop light signaled he was at the four-way junction. And there it was—Red’s Corner Market. Cain checked how long the trip had taken and calculated when he would need to leave by to make the meeting with Earl Millerton and his attorney back at the Crayton Police headquarters. A little longer than he’d anticipated, but he’d slowed down at times to avoid damaging the cycle. He’d have to amp it up on the way back.
Stretching as he walked to the small grocery’s front door, he smiled at the porcupine boot and shoe mud scraper next to the doormat. Pausing only a moment, he stepped inside the door and was greeted by an alert bell and a large sleeping dog near the end of the counter. He liked the town already.
“Cain. Cain Connery.” The greeting came from the opposite direction, where a man stepped towards him.
His hand automatically jerked toward his side a second before he paused. Grinned and held out his hand for a brothers-in-arms shake to the CIA agent he’d worked alongside on a couple of cases a few years back. “Mark. Mark Garmund. I didn’t know this is where you lived now.”
Mark returned the gesture, and the two men slapped each other on the shoulder. “Good to see you, man. When Wheat said you were coming to look at his property, I knew I had to be here. That was before he got called out for an emergency. He asked Red and me to make you feel at home. Show you around.”
“Red? I don’t think I know him,” Cain said.
Mark stepped around the dog.and nodded towards the man coming out of the curtained doorway behind the front counter. “Cain, this is Patrick ‘Red’ Horton. CIA for a whole lot of years before he retired and moved to Nature’s Crossing.”
Cain grinned, again. He knew the man, knew his reputation anyway, knew his courage in battle. He took the offered handshake. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet the man behind the newspaper photos.”
All three of them laughed at the memory of the case involving wrong photos in Washington, D.C., years ago. Red filled mugs for the three of them while they lingered over stories of previous assignments, pausing just long enough to tend to customers that came and went. Something inside Cain slowly eased.
He liked the men standing in front of him. Liked how their wives had already taken Betsy in without even meeting her. Liked what he'd seen of Nature's Crossing so far. If the land lived up to his expectations, he'd finally found his place. Found what he'd been looking for. His boss at the DEA would be happy for him.
Would Betsy? If only she'd come with him today. If only?—
