“He used to work for you, no?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t get hurt while working for me.”
“But you still see him.”
Ridgeway looks down at me the way a shark might eye a smaller fish. Cold, detached. Thankfully, the lustful appraisal has vanished, but this stare—with his lips thinning in irritation—isn’t a good one, either. “I hardly know him,” he says. “And why the hell would you come all the way over here to ask about some guy getting hurt on the job?”
“Just for his history. His capabilities in the past compared to now. How many hay bales could he lift? Simple questions.” I rattle off a few more. Did he handle the horses? Did he stoop over fences all day, repairing them?
He holds up a hand. “I’m not the guy to talk to about what kind of a worker he was. If you want, you can talk to our head guy.”
“But you’re close to him, aren’t you?”
“Close?” He pulls his head back. “Hell no.”
“Oh.” I fake surprise. “I happened to see you at the café. Seemed like you two know one another pretty well.”
Ridgeway stares at me with disgust, like I just stole a puppy from a kid. “You stalking me?”
“Absolutely not. Small town. Only so many cafés. Very coincidental.”
“So you’re stalking Lasserio?”
“Well, thatiswhat I’m paid to do.” I’m getting better at believing the lie myself. My words sound confident, but his gaze is now drenched in skepticism, as it should be. My relationship with the truth is a tenuous thing. Let’s saysituational.
“You need to leave. I don’t have time for this.” Ridgeway starts toward me. I back up, but I’m in the foyer, so his coming toward me is his aim for the front door.
“There’s another thing I need to know.” I step forward again, toward him.
“Time’s up.”
“Clarissa Haynes.” I know better than to blurt her name out like this, but I may not get another chance to confront him. And when I say her name, I make sure I’m looking right at him to gauge his reaction.
He stops dead in his tracks. Something uncertain flutters across his face, just for a fraction of a second, before he shakes his head. “Who?”
“Surely you remember her. From Browning? She pressed you about the fragile habitat on your property.”
He goes back and grabs his rifle. My breath hitches at the not-so-subtle warning. He marches past me and opens the front door without saying a word.
I check my notebook. “On June 27?”
“News to me,” he says. “But clearly, this is all bullshit about Aaron’s so-called injuries.” He motions with his head for me to leave and moves from cradling his rifle in both hands to laying the fore-end of the stock into the crook of his elbow without the muzzle pointing down as it should. Like he’s about ready to lift it and aim. At me. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Rage pumps through me. Who the hell does he think he is? Trying to frighten me like this? Packing a rifle around in his oversize house just to instill the fear of God into me? “It’s a sad story,” I say, calling his bluff.“Shortly after she came here, she drowned. She was a big deal on the rez. Her brother claims she chatted with you the week before she died.”
“She might be a big deal on the rez,” he says. “But not anywhere else.”
“Wasa big deal.”
“Indians die every day from overdoses, car crashes, drunk driving. She was probably blotto, like the rest of ’em.”
My nostrils flare. My teeth grit. “Native American,” I say as calmly as I can, trying not to show the rage coiling inside me, wanting to strike. “And no alcohol in her system.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t buy into gossip, especially when you’re not even from around here.”
“I have more than one source that says Clarissa came here and spoke—”
“I don’t care about your sources.” His jaw goes hard as a rock. He grips his rifle tighter. His ice-blue eyes go dead with a clear message:Don’t fuck with me. “Look, Miss PI. I’m wealthy. And successful. That makes me a target. Got it? It’s the way of the world.”
