Chapter Thirteen
“Cory Miller said he didn’t see anyone with Zachary and Trevor, but they rode west and he didn’t have his eyes on them the whole time.” Harlan cut the truck engine and gazed up at the small apartment complex on the eastern edge of town. It was far nicer than the building where he and Matt rented apartments, he noted with surprise. Either horse grooming paid more than he realized, or Trevor Lewis had another source of income.
“It could’ve been another ranch hand,” Parker McKenna said over the phone. “Zachary probably doesn’t know them all by sight.”
“But why was he talking about getting the bitch out of the way?” There was a measure of viciousness in the phrase that Harlan found chilling in light of everything else that had happened to Lila Lockhart over the past few days.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t troubling.”
“If Lewis is at home, he’s not answering his door. And I don’t see his Honda in the lot.” Harlan cranked his truck. “I’ve spent the whole afternoon trying to track down the guy, and meanwhile, Stacy and Zachary are alone.”
“You don’t think someone’s deliberately sent us on a wild-goose chase, do you?”
“No-if Zachary hadn’t randomly asked his mother about what the strange man said, we’d never even know about it.” Still, he didn’t like being away from Stacy and Zachary this long. Even if Lewis turned out to be harmless, Stacy and Zachary were still prime targets for whoever was coming after the governor.
“Let’s move Lewis to the head of the background check list,” Harlan told Parker. “Top priority.”
“Will do.” Parker hung up.
He called Stacy next. She answered on the second ring. “I haven’t been able to track down Trevor Lewis.”
“You don’t have to,” she answered.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s standing right here.”
WHEN HARLAN WALKED into the house, Stacy could see he didn’t find the misunderstanding quite as humorous as she did. But she had to convince him Trevor was harmless before he started throwing punches and asking questions later. “Zachary misunderstood. It’s really kind of funny-”
“What’s he doing here?” Harlan asked softly, looking at Trevor, who sat on the sofa, looking at Zachary’s favorite horse book with her son.
“He went back to the stable for something and Cory mentioned you were looking for him. He came here to find you.”
“And you let him in?”
“He was horrified Zachary misunderstood what had been said.”
“Who was the big guy?”
“Trevor says it was one of the new cowboy hires-Trevor and Zachary ran across him during their ride. He was repairing an old fence in the lower pasture. What the guy actually said was ‘get that pitch out of the way’-the pitch he and another cowboy were using to weatherproof the fence.”
Harlan glanced at Trevor again. “Damned convenient.”
“I do know that old fence was due to be fixed. Maybe you could check into that tomorrow?”
“I’ve put Trevor to the front of the background check list,” Harlan murmured.
“You must be the guy who’s looking for me.”
Stacy turned to find Trevor standing only a couple of feet away, his hand outstretched.
Harlan hesitated, then shook Trevor’s hand. “Stacy just told me what happened.” He gave a nod toward the door. “If you don’t mind, I’ll walk you out. I have a couple more questions.”
Stacy made a face at Harlan as he and Trevor went outside, hoping he’d read her warning expression correctly. The last thing he needed to do was rough up one of the governor’s employees over something as stupid as a little boy misunderstanding an innocent comment.
“Trevor said I could go riding again tomorrow,” Zachary said from the sofa.
“Zachary, you’re already going riding this Friday, remember?”
“But he said I could go riding. He’s good with it.”
Still on edge, despite Trevor’s reassurances, Stacy lost her cool. “Zachary, I’m not good with it. You can’t do everything you want to do just because you want to do it. Sometimes you have to make compromises.”
Zachary rolled onto his back on the sofa, kicking the cushions. “I have to ride tomorrow. The horses depend on me!”
“I think the horses can do without you for a day.”
“No, I promised I’d go riding.” He started flapping his arms against the sofa cushions. “I promised.”
Stacy closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Zachary, we can talk about this later.”
“I promised! I promised the horses, Mommy. I promised the horses. I promised the horses.”
“Okay, Zachary, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“You can’t break a promise, Mommy. Remember? You can’t break a promise. I promised the horses. I promised them, Mommy.” He was crying now, his words coming out in hitching sobs. He was approaching meltdown, and fast.
Stacy went to the desk by the window and pulled out a binder she kept there. She took it over to Zachary, who was writhing on the sofa, still crying about his promise to the horses. “Remember our schedule?”
“I promised.”
“Tomorrow, we’re supposed to spend the day at home, see?”
He sniffled but paid attention when she showed him their visual calendar for the week. Wednesday was their at-home day, symbolized by a photo of a house. “You know how you don’t like to change our schedule.”
“But the horses need me! I promised.”
The front door opened and Harlan entered. Stacy felt her stress level rise another notch as he stopped in the middle of the room, staring at Zachary’s tantrum with a look of growing concern.
“We’re going riding Friday. I’ll even take the afternoon off Friday so I can be there to watch you the whole time. But I can’t take off tomorrow afternoon.”
“Why not? I promised the horses!”
“I have to work.”
“Can’t you work another time? The horses are expecting me.” Zachary hadn’t worked himself back up into shouting again, but she could see the signs.
“Zachary, why don’t we discuss this later? Wouldn’t you rather go to your room and watch your horse show DVD? You don’t even have to take a nap this afternoon if you’ll go watch the DVD. How about that?”
Sniffling, Zachary nodded. “I promised the horses,” he reminded her as she walked him to his bedroom. But he went inside and pulled the DVD from his shelf. He knew how to work the machine by himself, and she knew what he needed right now was to be alone, doing something he enjoyed, to reduce the stress that was working him up to a meltdown.
Rubbing her temples to fight against the headache starting to throb behind her eyes, Stacy returned to the living room and almost bumped into Harlan.
He caught her elbows to steady her. “Is he okay?”
She nodded, dropping her hands, which forced him to let his own hands fall away. She found herself missing the touch. “Too much change in his routine over the past few days. It’s a lot of stress for an aspie.”
He frowned. “Aspie?”
“It’s what people with Asperger’s syndrome call themselves. A lot of adult aspies think it’s the rest of us who are weird. They call us Neurotypicals.”
He grinned. “I like that. Who says everybody has to think the same way?” He headed into the kitchen.
Her eyebrows lifted with surprise. “Says the guy who used to march and chant in step with the rest of his
