“No,” Josey said. As she rose to escort Pepper out, she thought of her own father. He would have killed for her. He also would have demanded justice had anything happened to her. But he was gone, and there was no one to protect her or see that justice was done.
“Please don’t give up on Jack,” Pepper said. “He needs you. I don’t think he realizes how much. He prides himself on his independence and taking on the world alone—but then you are a lot like that yourself, aren’t you?”
Josey was startled that Pepper had realized that about her. “Sometimes we have to take on things alone because there isn’t anyone else,” she said, echoing her earlier thoughts.
“But you aren’t alone anymore. You have Jack.”
“Yes,” she said, feeling guilty at how wrong Pepper was about that.
Chapter Nine
McCall had known that once the news hit the radio and newspaper the calls would start coming in. Most of them were from residents who’d seen someone suspicious hanging around the alley, heard a noise out back or thought someone had been in their house.
Her deputies were running themselves ragged checking on suspicious characters, only to find the suspect was a relative of a neighbor or nothing at all.
When she took the call from the dispatcher she was expecting just another bad lead.
“It’s Frank Hanover down at Mobridge,” a man said. “We just got home from Billings and found our house has been broken into.”
“What’s missing?” McCall asked, thinking Mobridge was near the Missouri River, near the crime scene.
“Clothes, some of my shirts and pants, a coat, as far as I can tell. Cleaned all the drugs out of the medicine cabinet, ate some food and left a mess.”
She sat up straighter, remembering the house at Mobridge. It was back off the road, no other houses around.
“Took a pair of my boots,” Frank was saying.
“What size do you wear?” she asked.
“Eleven.” He seemed to hesitate. “Is that important?”
It was to her. Ray Allan Evans Jr. wore a size 10½ loafer. He could make do with a pair of size 11 cowboy boots real easy. “What else was taken?”
“About a hundred dollars in cash, the wife and I estimate. That’s all that we’ve found missing so far.”
“Did he take one of your vehicles?”
“Weren’t none to take,” Frank said.
So RJ was still on foot. “I’m sending a deputy. Please try not to touch anything that the intruder left. You said he made a mess in the kitchen? Please leave it.”
“He used our phone, looks like since he left the phone book out and a chair pulled up to it. Probably ran up our long distance bill,” Frank grumbled.
“What’s your number out there?” McCall asked, and wrote it down. As soon as she hung up, she called the phone company and asked for the phone log on recently dialed numbers.
“I’m sorry, but we’re going to need a warrant to do that or permission from the customer. We’ll need those in writing. You’re welcome to fax them to us. That would speed things up.”
McCall cursed under her breath. “I’ll get back to you.” She then called Frank Hanover back, then called a deputy who was still in the area and sent him over to pick up the written permission slip from the Hanovers.
She wanted to know if Frank Hanover was right and RJ had called someone. She needed to know where he was headed. She’d called in extra officers to help search the area near Mobridge, even though she suspected he was long gone.
He would be looking to steal a vehicle. It was just a matter of time before he found one. She just prayed that no one would be driving it.
RJ DIDN’T KNOW how long he’d been walking up the dirt road when he heard the sound of an engine.
At first he thought he was hallucinating. It had been so long, and he’d been straining so hard to hear one. Praying for one, if he could call it praying. More like wishing on a curse.
He turned and saw what appeared to be a dark-colored pickup headed in his direction. RJ swallowed, his throat dry as he stuck out his thumb.
He’d cleaned up at the house, but he knew he still looked pretty rough. He feared no one would stop for him, so he was surprised when the driver slowed, then braked to a stop.
Sun glinted off the windshield, and it was a moment before he saw the lone driver, an old man dressed in a straw hat, flannel shirt and blue overalls.
He felt a wave of relief. One old farmer behind the wheel.
RJ would have shouted with glee if it wouldn’t have made him look insane.
Both windows were already down on the old pickup. “Trouble?”
RJ stepped up to the open passenger-side window as dust settled around him. “Car broke down a good ways back by the river.”
“You been walking this far in the wrong direction?” the farmer said with a laugh. “If you’d gone the other way, you have reached Highway 191 and gotten a ride a lot quicker than this.”
As if RJ didn’t know that. He’d opted for the less traveled dirt road for a very good reason. The highway was too visible. He couldn’t take the chance since he knew the California police would have put out an APB on him and Josey by now.
“Well, hop in. I can take you as far as Winifred, that’s where I’m headed.”
RJ couldn’t have cared less where Winifred was as he opened the pickup’s door and climbed in. He wouldn’t be going that far anyway.
The pickup smelled of hay and possibly manure. It didn’t matter. RJ couldn’t believe how good it felt not to be walking. The boots he’d borrowed had rubbed blisters on both feet. He leaned back as the old farmer got the rig rolling and watched the land slip by, a sea of undulating green.
The farmer made several attempts to make conversation before turning on the radio. He picked
