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She might have pushed it too far, she thought. It was one thing to aggravate the woman, another entirely to rile her to violence.
Too late.
Sarah Clay strode over to Jessy and slapped her so hard that her vision blurred, on top of the splitting headache she already had from being shoved into the car.
“Okay,” Jessy said. “You have me, so now let her go. Let Reggie and Sandra get out of here. ”
“You need to give Dillon a ring first. And tell him to lose that old man and his friends before he comes. I want to know where the gold is,” Sarah said.
“You’re crazy. There isn’t any gold,” Jessy told her.
“There is. And it’s here somewhere,” Sarah insisted.
“She’s right,” Darrell said. “She found a letter that John Wolf wrote to some woman named Mariah saying he’d found it. ”
“Shut up, Frye. Get the phone down here so she can call Dillon, and tell him to get out here or I’ll shoot her,” Sarah ordered.
Darrell handed her a cell phone, and Jessy found herself wondering what service even worked out here.
Sarah punched in a number, then swore, and Jessy tried not to smile. Apparently the call had gone straight to voice mail.
Where was Dillon? Jessy wondered. Nikki would have awakened by now and raised the alarm. Jimmy knew she had left with Sandra. That wouldn’t normally raise anyone’s suspicions, but these hadn’t been normal days.
Suddenly the sound of an old piano playing an even older tune came from the saloon, and they all jumped.
“Bring them and follow me,” Sarah commanded, already hurrying toward the saloon. Blythe took charge of Sandra and Reggie, while Darrell grabbed Jessy by the arm and started dragging her with him. She bit down hard on her lower lip, forcing herself not to show any emotion.
So Emil Landon wasn’t involved after all. Had his own daughter been trying to kill him?
They entered the saloon via swinging doors that didn’t actually swing anymore. In fact, they seemed in danger of falling completely off their hinges at any second.
It took Jessy a minute to adjust to the dim light, and then she gasped aloud, unable to help herself.
Timothy was sitting at the old piano, his fingers resting on the keys.
“Milly, you made it,” he said to Sandra. “Come on over here and sing us a tune. ”
“Who the hell is the old bastard and how did he get here?” Sarah demanded.
“Why, ma’am, what’s the matter?” Timothy asked, stroking the keys again. “I’m Turner. George Turner. That there is Milly and her young’un. Some folks won’t be joining us, on account of they’re dead, like that fellow you’ve got stashed over in the bank. But they’re here, the rest of them. ”
Even in the dim light, Jessy could see Sarah’s face darken in anger. So there was a dead man over in the bank.
“It’s the second thug who attacked me, isn’t it?” Jessy asked.
Darrell gave her arm a painful twist.
“Look, if you’re planning on me talking to Dillon for you, you’d better let me go. Now. You’ve all got the guns, and as I’m sure you can see, I haven’t got a gun or any other weapon. ”
To her amazement, Darrell, uncertain, let her go, and apparently Sarah wasn’t in the mood to fight him over it.
“All right, get them to the bank, all of them, for now,” she said. “Geezer, get up!” she commanded Timothy.
“Well, now, that’s just foolish,” Timothy said. “If you’d let Milly come on over here, we could regale you with some old tunes. ”
Sandra stood there shaking, with Reggie in her arms, Timothy wasn’t moving.
“Get that old bastard out of here,” Sarah snapped at Hugo Blythe.
They would hurt Timothy, Jessy knew, and she had to stop them somehow. “Wait. I’ll get him,” she said, and walked over to the piano. Timothy looked up at her as she reached out a hand to him. “Grandpa, we have to go join the townspeople in the bank. ”
“All right, child, all right,” Timothy said, and stood.
Sarah pointed toward the street, and they preceded her out the door and over to the bank.
They crossed the dusty road and stepped up onto the wooden sidewalk level again and stopped in front of the bank. “Told you that you should have come to work for me, Jessy. ”
She stared back at him. “What I don’t get is why you threw Tanner out of a limo—with a knife in his back. ”
“Great touch, don’t you think?” Sarah said. “My father has a limo identical to the one the Sun owns. ” She laughed. “You’re all so stupid. Darrell got hold of the Sun’s limo, and then I got the button off Green’s shirt and flirted with a guy at the Big Easy so I could get into their limo and plant the evidence, in case someone figured out to check the limos. And someone did—Dillon, to be precise. We timed things so Darrell would be in plain view on the casino floor, and who in hell would suspect me or know I have any connection to this town or the gold or anything else? I drugged him, and then I killed him. He never knew what hit him. Darrell was great—he ran out and met us on his break, and he knew right where we needed to stop so we could push Green out into the crowd and not be caught on camera. ” She smiled. “Hugo was driving, but Landon would have sworn he was with him the whole time, because Hugo slipped a nice roofie into my dear old dad’s drink, so he slept like a babe in arms and never knew that his loyal Hugo had ever left his side. It was brilliant. ”
“Why?” Jessy asked. “Why kill Tanner Green if all you wanted was the gold?”
“Don’t you understand anything? I shot at that lame bastard who refuses to admit he’s my father. Tanner had to die so my father would keep on thinking he was in danger. I even got Dillon this job because I saw the message that Daddy Dearest had called my boss, Lieutenant Brown, looking for a recommendation, so I pretended Brown had asked me to call him back and convinced him that he’d only be safe if he hired Dillon Wolf. Because I need Dillon so I can find the gold, but I also had this wonderful opportunity to make life miserable for my father. It was perfect. ”
“Say you find it—what good will it do you? It’s on Paiute land,” Jessy said.
Sarah started to laugh. “Exactly, it’s Paiute land, and my father is trying to use his Indian heritage to get the rights to build a casino here. And if they come in to bulldoze and dig, they’ll find the gold, so he has to die before he gets that far. That gold is mine, and I intend to have it. ”
“What makes you so certain that Dillon can find it?” Jessy demanded. The other woman was clearly insane and this whole elaborate scheme based on a crazy dream, but even so, she could leave them all dead. “I’m in forensics, in research,” Sarah said.
“Precisely,” Jessy told her. “Why would you believe—”
“John Wolf died here, and he was Dillon’s ancestor. And I clawed my way through every word ever written about Adam Harrison, Harrison Investigations and Dillon Wolf. He has a power that science hasn’t explained yet. He knows where the gold is, or if he doesn’t, he’ll find it,” she finished stubbornly.
“But you can’t—” Jessy began.
“Oh, shut up!” Sarah said, and shoved her into the bank. As the door started to close behind her, cutting off the light, she realized that the others were all still outside.
Furious, Jessy screamed, “I want my grandfather and my friends—now! Dillon won’t do anything for you unless I ask him to—nothing. And I won’t ask him a thing unless I know my friends are safe. ”
As she waited for an answer, she stumbled over something and leaned down to see what it was. It was stiff and sticky…yet it gave. It felt as if it was growing cold….
It was a body
She jerked her hand away, remembering that they had killed someone else—probably the hired thug who had been working for them. Apparently this was supposed to be a three-way split.
She gathered a
ll her resources, swallowing a scream, and was ready to repeat her demand when the door opened and Sandra stumbled in, followed by Reggie and then Timothy.
“Jessy?” Sandra said. “What are we going to do?”
“It’s all right. We’ll think of something. And Dillon will come,” Jessy said, fervently hoping she was right.
His caller ID recognized the number as Sarah’s, and Dillon knew without answering that she was calling to use Jessy’s life as a bargaining chip. It took every ounce of willpower he had, but he didn’t answer, because so long as they still needed her, Jessy’s life was safe. She had to be terrified, but he couldn’t answer. He’d been so blind. He’d suspected some of the right people, but not Sarah. Not until now, when he prayed that knowledge hadn’t come too late.
How much longer until he reached Indigo? And then, how much longer than that before help came?
And even if help came, was there going to be another bloodbath?
Sarah was insane. A brilliant woman, but scorned by her father and driven mad by her demons. She had manipulated the action and the players—himself included—every step of the way. The limo-slash-murder scene had been the Sun’s, and to his great humiliation, he had fallen for her planted evidence. Darrell Frye had to be part of it. And since Emil Landon wasn’t involved, that meant that Hugo Blythe was. Anyone else in their conspiracy? Probably not. Sarah would know that the more people you involved, the more chance there was of someone slipping. The men who attacked Jessy had just been hired goons. They would never even have seen Sarah’s face, and one of them was definitely dead, and if the second was still alive, it wouldn’t be for long.
His cell rang again where it sat on the passenger seat. He debated whether he should answer or not just as he saw the first faint signs of Indigo rising from the sand.
Sarah was calling again. He hit the button, but he didn’t speak. Maybe Sarah thought she’d gotten dead air, because she didn’t hang up.