When I turned back, Steve and Ford were giving each other a significant look. I wasn’t sure what it meant, and I didn’t care.
Steve cleared his throat. “Don’t feel bad, son. I did the same thing. Just I knew where the bathroom was.”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t feel bad at all. I’d feel bad when a building full of burned and head-shot corpses
“Do you know him?” Steve asked. It was a simple, dangerous question.
“Not personally,” I said. “You know who he is, too.”
“Sure, but I want to hear what you have to say.”
“I already told you this. His name was Yin, and he was rich. He won the auction but let the sapphire dog get away. The people at the campground were some of the losers.”
Steve’s mouth was a thin, tense line. “Any other bidders I should know about?”
I sighed. If I really did want him on my side, I couldn’t exactly say
“Any reason you didn’t mention them before?” Steve’s voice was sharp.
“Because this is what they do to people who know too much about them. And how did you know about the campground? I doubt 911 dispatched you.”
“Justy found them. She talked to Ursula, then she called me and I called Bill and Sue direct. Then I called the staties. I gave up on the sheriff hours ago.”
I looked at my watch. Steve looked at his. How long until they arrived? He took out his cell. “Let me get an ETA for the state police.”
I felt a dull ache in the iron gate on my shoulder. It was a warning that someone was using a spell against me, but it didn’t seem important.
“Hi, Marlis,” Steve said into his phone. His voice suddenly sounded vague and dreamy. “Steve Cardinal over in Washaway. How’re the kids? That’s great news. I’m sorry you’ll be working through the festival. We’d have loved to have had you.” He paused a moment. I moved closer to listen. “Trouble? No,” Steve said, “we’re not having any trouble here. Just the usual Christmas spirit.”
The ache in my shoulder became very strong, and I closed my eyes against it. I heard a woman’s voice at the other end of the phone say: “Lots of you folks down in Washaway have been calling all day to wish me a happy Christmas. It’s … it’s …” She sounded a bit confused, as though she was trying to remember something important. “It’s very sweet,” she said at last.
Steve answered her in the only way that seemed logical to me: “Everything is just fine over here. You be sure to give a Christmas kiss to those kids of yours.”
He hung up the phone, and the pain in my shoulder eased. He’d said what he needed to say. He nodded to Ford. “That should get them out here right quick.”
I was glad Steve had made that call. I was glad the state cops knew about the trouble we were having.
I rubbed my face. “Where’s the woman?”
Steve looked startled by that. He turned to Ford, who didn’t have anything to add but a shrug. “Describe her.”
“Short black hair and dark skin. She looked like she was from Indonesia or something. She wore dark suits and had her hair up in a bun like a librarian. She was maybe my age, just a little under thirty. She was part of Yin’s entourage as some sort of researcher, I’d guess.”
“Does she have a name?”
His tone was getting annoying. “Yeah, but I don’t know it.”
“We searched the whole grounds and didn’t find any women. Could he have sent her home before all this?”
Steve was obviously a glass-half-full sort. “It’s more likely that she’s been reduced to a pile of greasy dust, or that she’s gone to work for the people who won the gunfight.”
Steve nodded. “There’s one more thing I want to show you.” He led me off the deck and across the muddy field. Ford was still trailing me. Now it did bother me to have him at my back.
I stopped, turned around, and said: “Hi. My name is Ray.”
He looked a little surprised, but not much. “I’m Ford.”
“Nice to meet you, Ford. This is ugly business, isn’t it?”
“That it is,” he said. He opened his jacket to show me his holstered gun. “Whoever’s responsible for all this shit is going to be shut down.” He gave me a hard stare as he said it, as though I was suspect number one and a wrong answer away from a beating.
“I agree completely,” I said. Then I turned to follow Steve.
We passed a swing set and an open sandbox. As we walked, Steve spoke to me over his shoulder. “When this Yin character rented the Johnson place over on Outpost Road, Pippa did a little checking. He’s so rich I can’t even imagine it. Who could have tempted this missing Indonesian woman away from him?”
I remembered the pirate’s expression on her face when she’d seen the tattoos on my hands. “Some things are more important than money.”
He grunted his agreement.
