The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

Chapter 4

The man standing with his back to the door pretending to study the large topographical map of Hart County and its environs hanging on the wall behind the desk jerked around when Roan walked in, then pushed past the corner of the desk and came toward him.

He was a tall man, similar to Roan in both height and build, but now he seemed to have folded in on himself, so that his buff-colored Western-style suede jacket hung from his broad shoulders like a coat on a rack. His normally strong-sculpted features appeared shrunken, too, and his skin, yellowed and darkened to the color of old parchment, draped across them in ill-fitting folds and hollows. Only his eyes seemed as sharp and intense as Roan remembered, their ice-blue glare glittering out of shadowed sockets like the eyes of a starving wolf homed in on his prey.

He’s aged twenty years, Roan thought. But he wasn’t all that surprised. He’d seen the look before, on his father-in-law, Boyd Stuart’s face, right after Erin had died-the look of a man fixing to bury his child.

“Good to see you, Senator,” he said as he clasped the big, rawboned hand. “Just wish it didn’t have to be for this. Can’t tell you how sorry I am.” He meant it sincerely. He hadn’t had much use for Jason Holbrook, but he wouldn’t wish the pain of losing a child on any man.

Holbrook gripped Roan’s hand tightly in both of his-a politician’s handshake-then released it. “Hell of a thing,” he muttered as he swiped a hand over hair that was still luxuriant but more silver now than gold. “Just a hell of a thing.” He coughed loudly and abruptly, then narrowed his wolf’s stare at Roan. “Tell me you’re gonna find whoever did this. Tell me you’re gonna get the son of a bitch that shot my boy.”

Roan met the older man’s gaze with an almost identical one and quietly replied, “I mean to. I believe I will.” He laid his Stetson on the top of his desk as he rounded its corner and pulled out his chair.

Senator Holbrook was pacing again. He paused to frown distractedly at nothing. “You’ve called in the state boys-that’s good. That’s good. That detective that picked me up at the airport-seems like a good man. Seems to know his stuff.”

Roan nodded and sat. “I think he does. Name’s Kurt Ruger. Partner’s name is Roger Fry-he’s not here right now. I sent him with the forensics evidence to the lab in Helena. They’re both good men.”

Holbrook aimed the scowl at him again. “Sure that’s going to be enough manpower? I can have the FBI in here by tomorrow morning. In fact, if this was in some way directed at me…”

The chair creaked as Roan leaned back in it, deliberately adopting a casual attitude, masking the tension he felt with calm eyes and even tone. “At this point there’s nothing about the shooting that would indicate a national security connection. In fact, we’re pretty certain this was local.”

“Local…as in…”

“Personal.”

“Ah.” The senator’s mouth tightened. Then he rubbed a hand hard across his eyes, as though the fire in them burned even him. “I see,” he said heavily, and hauled in a breath. “Well…okay then, I don’t want to step on your toes, Roan. Just trying to help. You let me know if you need anything, now, you hear me? Anything at all. Just find this guy.”

“Oh,” Roan said softly, “I’ll do that.”

Instead of leaving then, the senator jerked out one of the chairs that faced Roan’s desk and perched himself on the edge of the seat, then leaned forward with shoulders hunched and hands clasped. “Okay, so tell me what you’ve got so far. Any leads? Any suspects?”

Getting down to brass tacks, thought Roan. The fact that he’d anticipated this didn’t make it any more welcome. He shifted warily. “Now, Cliff, you know I can’t-”

Holbrook silenced him with an impatient gesture and grimace. “Don’t give me that, Roan. You think I can’t get access to anything you or those state boys have got? Take me one phone call. I hope you’re not gonna make me do that. Lord, son, this is family.”

Family. Roan let out a breath, hating the jolt that had kicked inside him at the word. He doubted the senator, given his current frame of mind, even realized the implications of what he’d said. No sense making anything of it.

He shrugged. “We’ve got some ideas. Pretty good idea what happened, anyway. For starters, it looks like Jason most likely knew the person that shot him.”

The senator’s eyes narrowed. “That’s why you’re saying it was personal.”

Roan nodded. “He was shot at fairly close range, no sign of any struggle-in fact, it looks like Jase may not have known he was in serious danger, not until it was too late.”

Holbrook let out a groaning breath and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head.

“And,” Roan added reluctantly, “some of the forensic evidence suggests there may have been a woman involved.”

The senator’s grunt didn’t sound surprised by that information; the man knew his son as well as anybody did. He put a hand over his eyes and said tiredly as he rubbed, “So…you’re looking at, what, a jealous boyfriend? Husband?”

It was the moment and the question Roan had been dreading, but he didn’t see how he could avoid answering it. He couldn’t explain his reluctance, or the pulse tapping in his belly, as if he were about to betray a personal confidence. From a woman he’d just met, and a suspect to boot. Weird.

“Could be. Seems he had an altercation with a woman outside Buster’s last night.” He cleared his throat, but the words still came hard. “This woman seems to be the last person to have seen Jason alive.”

Holbrook’s head jerked up and his eyes sparked like coals coming to life. “So? Why isn’t she in here? Why aren’t you questioning her?” He paused, then did a double take and said incredulously, “Are you telling me a woman might have done this?”

Roan made a gesture of impatience that rocked his chair, making it squeak again. “I’m not saying that, no. At this point, anything’s possible.” He reined himself in, leaned forward and placed his clasped hands on his desktop. “Cliff, I’ve just come from questioning the woman. She’s voluntarily turned over her gun and a DNA sample, both of which will be on their way to the lab first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, we’re running a check on her-appears she’s new in town, hasn’t lived here more than a few months.” He paused, hating, for the senator’s sake, what he had to say now. Whatever else Jason Holbrook may have been, it didn’t change the fact that he was this man’s child. He coughed, then spat it out. “There’s something you need to know. There’s a good possibility Jason may have assaulted this woman. May even have raped her.”

“Lord.” Holbrook ran a hand over his eyes. Then he looked up at Roan and his eyes hardened, became splinters of cold steel. His voice, hushed to begin with, rose with anger to a muted roar. “Are you saying this was…what, some kind of self-defense?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. I don’t think it was, not in the legal sense. I’m just-”

The senator’s clenched fist thumped the desktop. “She-or somebody-shot my son, dammit.” He pushed himself upright, leaning on that closed fist, until he loomed above Roan like a thunderhead. His voice grated harshly between clenched teeth. “Jason wasn’t any saint. Hell, I know that. But he was my son. I want whoever did this to pay for it. If this woman shot my boy-no matter what he did, she had no right to take his life. I want her arrested, prosecuted and locked up, you understand me?” He straightened, and his rugged face spasmed with grief as he turned to go. Then he paused, and his voice quivered slightly as he added, “You do this for me, son. I’m countin’ on you.”

Roan sat still while a storm raged inside him, gripping the arms of his chair to hold himself steady against the battering of the anger and too many other emotions he couldn’t name. Through a shimmering haze he watched the other man walk toward the door, the man he’d looked up to as a boy and young man and secretly believed-or perhaps wished-was his own biological father, seeing him suddenly stooped and old. He heard himself ask, in a hard, cracking voice, “Where are you staying? You realize your house is still being processed as a crime scene?”

Cliff Holbrook hesitated, then turned to look back at him. He seemed dazed. Almost…lost.

Vulnerable. Roan didn’t want to think it. Couldn’t help it.

“Tell you the truth, I…hadn’t really thought,” the senator said, smiling slightly.