Clint looked at the woman in charge. She shot him a glance and nodded.
They’d be heading down to Medicine Bow next.
19
Jim knew he’d gotten lucky. He’d passed it off as him just being a distant relative. He’d moved into a distant steprelative’s cabin because he’d needed a place to stay. He hadn’t hung around with the Beises much. Didn’t know them that well. That kind of thing. He knew the game, knew how to answer the questions the way the feds needed to hear.
Nice and casual-like.
There was no way for them to double check that. He knew that.
Jim was ninety percent certain the Talley girl had bought his story. None of her questions had been too probing. And he didn’t think she’d been feeling him out. Evaluating him or nothing. He didn’t think she remembered him from fourteen years ago, either.
That was good.
Then again, Jim hadn’t spent too much time with Luther’s kids. After that handful of times he’d done something stupid with Monica, he’d made certain to stay as far away from her as possible. Self-preservation.
The Talley girl didn’t seem that devious. The guy with her though…Jim hadn’t figured him out. All he’d done was sit there and stare. With a hard stare far worse than even Weatherby’s. Neither one had seemed intimidated by Weatherby in the least, either.
Just Jim had been the one sweating.
He was glad the interview was done. He’d forced himself to stay as calm as possible while in Weatherby’s office, other than letting out a curse or two. It hadn’t been easy. But Jim was a cop—staying calm in hard situations was one of the requirements of what he did every day.
He hadn’t meant to let it out that he still knew where Luther was, though. That had been pretty stupid.
Luther was the one person in the entire Beise family who wouldn’t be able to help the FBI find out what happened to Helen at all. Luther probably barely remembered any of what happened anymore.
Jim waited until they left the room, then looked at his supervisor. “We all done here?”
“Get out there. And, Jim…if I find out you lied about any of this…you’ll be out of here as fast as I can blink. Remember that, won’t you? I seriously hope you didn’t screw this up.” His desk was arranged with files in perfectly straight piles. Probably a leftover from his days as a Marine. Real hard-ass, Rex Weatherby.
No one acted out under his watch. Not if they wanted to keep their job, anyway. Jim flinched at the hard look in the man’s dark eyes. Weatherby was one of the few men who scared the utter shit out of him at times.
Complete and utter shit.
“I’ve not done a thing to screw anything up lately. I’m keeping my nose clean. Have been for years.” Five years or so ago, when his second wife had left him for another cop on the force, Jim had let himself sink back into stupidity.
It hadn’t just been beer and bourbon after Dava had left. It had been something a lot harder. He’d done stupid things. Real stupid things.
Rex Weatherby had just transferred in back then. From somewhere northeast in the state. And he’d been even harder than he was now in a lot of ways. Rougher. Far more dangerous.
He’d taken one look at Jim and known exactly what problems Jim was dealing with. And he just hadn’t given a damn. Jim strongly suspected Weatherby had worked to get him into trouble back then with IA.
Jim had made a few minor mistakes on the job. That had been it.
Maybe he’d shown up drunk on the job more times than he’d really remembered. But no one had gotten hurt back then. Not seriously, anyway. Other than that one time. Once. That was all.
No. Gunderson and Weatherby had had it out for him ever since then. Jim just knew it.
It was war in the WSP sometimes.
“See that you do.”
Jim headed to his patrol car. He needed a break from this place. Maybe he’d stop off alongside the lake and have a cold one on his lunch hour around six or so, or something. Just one. Just something to calm his nerves.
But first, he was going to give Monica a call. He had her number. She’d emailed it to him not even six months ago, asking him to call her about questions she had about her daddy’s place. About how she could buy it from the bank or something. About who owned it now. What it was worth on the market now. Like he was supposed to know that.
He had kept up the property taxes on it, though. He hadn’t wanted someone digging around—literally—on Luther’s property if it had been sold.
But he’d been careful about it. There was no way she should have been able to find that out. But Monica had.
He’d call her.
Let her know that the cops were coming.
That Helen’s ghost was finally coming for them all.
20
Levi Masterson looked just as good as he always had. Miranda accepted the tall, gorgeous rancher’s hug, then reintroduced herself to his redheaded wife. She was about seven or eight years younger than Miranda, smaller than Miranda by half a foot or more, and snippy with her husband. They looked good together.
It was obvious she was Phoebe Masterson’s sister. The resemblance was strong—even if Miranda hadn’t known of Pandora Masterson her entire life, almost.
Miranda and her own sisters looked quite a bit alike, too. Like her grandmother had always said—they grew them well in Masterson County. “Levi, we just have a few questions. About the Beise family.”
He nodded, then pointed toward the front door. “I need to wait outside. I’m expecting a delivery of some new cattle any moment. I’m keeping them here for my father-in-law until he gets his new place up and running. These are specialty cattle.”
“I’ve heard of the experiments. With Travis Deane out of Texas, right?” She knew they were. Travis Worthington-Deane had
