“I don’t believe that,” Mo said.
“What do you know about anything?” the man demanded.
“I know she’s your only child and if there is something wrong with her, then you have to share in that blame.”
The man narrowed his eyes, anger making his nose flare. “Leave my property before I get my gun and run you off. That girl was a bad seed from birth.” His voice broke. “Her mother tried to save her with love and look where that got the woman. Dead and buried.” There were tears in his eyes as he went back inside, slamming the screen door behind him.
MO WATCHED THE arid landscape sweep past as they drove back to the two-lane highway. Neither of them had spoken as if they didn’t know what to say. As Brick pulled up to the stop sign, he glanced over at her.
“Which way?” he asked.
For a moment, she didn’t know how to answer. They could drive to the closest town, where Natalie would have gone to school, find someone who knew her when she was young, maybe even find out why the woman’s father hated her so much.
But Mo realized that none of that would help. For all she knew, the car crash could have caused internal bleeding and Natalie could be lying in a ditch somewhere, dying or already dead. Or she could have appropriated another vehicle and stolen some cash, and was on her way to her next job in another city, even in another state.
Mo had to make a choice. She felt as if she was at a crossroads. Maybe Natalie had nowhere to go, no one to help her. If she wasn’t badly injured, she would keep going. Maybe Brick was right and it wasn’t Mo’s job to stop the woman—even if she could.
So what did that leave? Keep chasing Natalie or face a possible truth about her sister? If she wanted answers, she was going to have to find them herself without Natalie’s help. A part of her still believed that Natalie was lying. But if she wasn’t... It was a chance she couldn’t take.
Brick was still waiting. “South to Billings,” she said. “If it was true and Tricia was seeing another man, I need to find out who he is and what part he might have contributed to all of this.” She kept having nightmares about that day and what role she may have played herself. Maybe if she’d listened to what Natalie had to tell her then...
He turned onto the highway headed south. Mo leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes for a moment. She feared sleep, especially after meeting Natalie’s father. If that didn’t bring on more nightmares, she didn’t know what would.
She could tell that man had shaken Brick, as well. When Natalie told her that she grew up on a ranch, Mo had pictured rail fencing, horses running around a green pasture, a large house with a mother baking in the kitchen. She realized that Natalie had let her picture that, wanting Mo to believe that she was a born and bred Montana girl as open and honest as the big sky.
Victim or monster? Mo still couldn’t say. Brick wanted to believe the best. But even if Natalie was the murderer Mo believed she was, it didn’t mean that she’d killed Joey. Who was this woman and how much of what she’d told her was true?
“I believe that Natalie knows more than she told the police,” she said. “More than she’s told me. She was trying to warn me that day. She seemed worried about Joey. Worried...” She looked over at him and felt tears fill her eyes. She was fighting to make sense of all of this.
She looked away as he voiced her worst fear.
“Worried that Tricia might have harmed her own baby?”
Mo quickly wanted to argue that Tricia wouldn’t, couldn’t. But in truth, given the condition her sister had been in the last time she’d seen her, she didn’t have an argument in response. Fortunately, Brick didn’t give her a chance.
“Natalie was living in that house, right? Of course she would have seen things, overheard things... If she didn’t kill Joey, then someone else with access to that house did. If there was another man...”
Mo felt the weight of his words and hated that he was right. “It’s time to find out if anything the woman has told me is the truth.” Whether she wanted to hear it or not.
Chapter Eleven
Brick couldn’t help but question how far he would go to see this finished as he drove toward Billings. He’d been hell-bent on saving Natalie Berkshire, convinced that she was a victim. He still was determined to see that she got a trial. With all the evidence he feared was coming out against her, a trial, it seemed, would only land her in prison for the rest of her life.
And yet not even Mo was now convinced that she’d hurt Joey. Unless Natalie was lying. Was she lying about everything else, as well?
As he glanced over at Mo, he knew that no matter what, he would see this through. Mo needed him, even if she didn’t think so. He smiled to himself at the thought as he listened to the sound of the tires on the highway as the miles swept past. And he had needed her. He felt himself getting stronger. Not just physically but emotionally, as well.
Whatever happened now, he and Mo were in this together. As they crossed high prairie, the sun setting behind the Little Rockies, he kept thinking about Natalie’s ex and her father. Was the young woman a bad seed?
He thought of that old couple that had rammed her pickup and injured her. Guilty or not, she deserved better. He hoped that old couple got the book thrown at them, then remembered what his father had told him. The couple had lost their grandchild and believed Natalie was responsible. Not that it gave them the right to
