Chapter 30
They drove back to Dominion with Shana chattering away about the farm and the animals and Caesar and the elk and what she was going to do there and the farm and the people and Saleha and Zemar and the animals and Cleopatra and Caesar. Just before they reached the outskirts of town, she mentioned Craig Harding.
“He doesn’t suck.”
“He’ll be glad to hear that.”
“He is handsome, not as handsome as Zemar, and he is getting a bit old, but he is handsome.”
“He’ll be glad to hear that, too. Does this mean it’s over between you and Ian?”
“I meant for you.”
“What?”
“He was kind of looking at, you know, your equipment, taking you all in, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean and I never taught you to talk like that, especially to your mother.”
“I saw you scoping him out.” She took out her cell phone. “Saleha showed me a picture of you dancing with him. Dr. Nyland took it with her phone. Want to see it?”
She took a quick glance at a distant shot of her back, her red dress and Harding’s blurry face. “Who else has seen that?”
“Everybody, I guess. They put a video of you two dancing on the farm’s website. They were having a little fun with him because he doesn’t usually do stuff like that. They were all sure he wouldn’t go.”
They’d also sharked the new sheriff and scooped the DGN. “No one asked me if it was okay to do that.”
“Hold on a second.” Shana put her phone away and held up her index finger. “First you pick him up in a bar Monday.” She held up a second finger. “Then you go to a dance with him Wednesday night. If that’s not throwing your booty his way, I don’t know what is. And you didn’t bother to tell me about him.”
“It was a pub and I didn’t pick him up. I arrested him. I told you that. I put handcuffs on him.”
“I don’t want to hear about the sick games you two are playing.” She held up a third finger. “Then you go to his place and,” she held up her baby finger, “throw your daughter in his face so he has to give her a job.”
“That is not how I remember it. You were bouncing up and down like it was Christmas morning. I have witnesses.”
Ignoring her, Shana held up her thumb. “The next thing is you’ll have him over for supper. You’ll find some excuse to get him there and ask him to stay. You’re so obvious.”
“It was a banquet. We danced once.”
“I heard you only danced with him.”
“I only danced once, so, ergo, I only danced with him.”
Shana just counted on her fingers again, confident she needn’t rehash her argument with any further talk.
“It was one dance. And I didn’t throw you at him. I didn’t throw either one of us at him.”
“There is no need to be so defensive. It’s not like you were twerking with him or anything. And you still have some MILF left in you.”
“Where did you learn those terms?”
She started giggling, which became raucous laughter. She grabbed her sides. “You are so red right now.”
“I’m going to start monitoring your computer again.”
“Oh, please, we’re teenagers, not some pathetic terrorist cell. We rule cyberspace. We can hide whatever we’re doing from our parents, even if they’re cops. You don’t stand a chance.” She held up her five fingers again. “I’m just saying.”
“Girl’s school in Siberia, I’m just saying.”
“Still red.”
“How do you know he and Barbara Nyland aren’t together?”
“Once, a long time ago, Saleha told me.”
“Saleha, then?”
She shook her head. “She doesn’t do guys.”
Exactly what kind of tour had Shana taken?
They entered Dominion two blocks from The Big Bicycle Shop.
“We could get a couple of new mountain bikes for riding back and forth to the farm? They’d be better for that road anyway, and I know there’s at least one shortcut along a dike and some trails that knocks off about three miles.”
“Awesome. I know exactly what I want.”
“What you want and what you’re going to get may not be the same thing.”
They debated whether or not to get a cyclo-cross instead, but decided to go with full suspension mountain bikes and bought a pair of Cannondale Lexi-3s with 120mm-travel front forks, X-Fusion rear shocks, Shimano disk brakes, Deore shifting and Kenda puncture-resistant tires. The owner, Neal Barker, forty-five and still an avid cyclist, claimed to have seen her win her first race in Oregon. He promised he could have them set-up in a couple of hours, so they left them with him rather than take them home and prep them themselves.
Back at the Suburban, she spotted Colter and the Cotton twins exiting the Eiger Hunting, Fishing and Camping store. Colter carried two plastic bags of goods. The twins carried two cardboard boxes each.
“I’ll be right back.”
She found Susan behind the counter.
“Elliot’s sick with the flu,” she said. “I go where I’m needed.”
“I was surprised to see them come to this store.”
“Business is business, and Mort isn’t the kind of man who would ever let a former relationship interfere with anything he has to do.”
“What did they buy?”
“Some ammunition, camping supplies, two Coleman lamps, a couple of sleeping bags, cold weather gear, stuff like that. It was a lot but nothing unusual. They most likely have some new clients coming in.”
“Hunters?”
“Not necessarily. Mort also runs a survival training program. He gets a lot of slickers. Before they even go hunting, he makes them go on a weekend outing. If they washout out there, they can’t come back to hunt.”
“He’s thorough.” Were these slickers the ones making the traps and poaching as part of their training? Colter wouldn’t want to admit to that, either.
“If they make it, they come back for a weekend on his practice range for hunting simulations. Many of his clients don’t bring their own guns, or don’t own one. Again, he makes sure they know how to handle a gun and hit their target or they don’t get off the farm. They also don’t get their money back if they fail.”
He had told her he ran a humane hunting service, and what Susan was telling her supported his claim, but the term still sounded like an oxymoron to her.
“I know what you’re thinking, Joan, and you couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite what he might have told you, he doesn’t care how the animal dies. What he doesn’t want is for one of his clients to shoot another one by mistake. It wouldn’t be good for business.”
Getting them arrested for poaching wouldn’t be good for business, either. “Thanks, Susan. Say hi to Kate for me.”
“I see you’re out with Shana today.”
“We went to the Harding farm. She talked herself into a job there.”
“Did you meet Zemar and Saleha?”
“I did. What do you know about them?”
“Only that she’s very beautiful and she wants to be a veterinarian, not much else.” That was a typical DGN piranha’s response when the question encroached on their own personal domain.
She reminded herself on the way back to the Suburban that the contractor from Lowe’s was coming at five o’clock. She had to get the bikes back before then. She also hadn’t got all she could out of Kate about Colter, something she needed to rectify ASAP.
Shana had fallen asleep and didn’t wake up when she turned on the Suburban and drove home. Hiring her at the farm may have been the biggest favor anyone had done for them so far. Shana’s grades had declined the last two years. Having to keep them up to keep working at the farm was a better carrot-and-stick approach than anything she could think of. It would also connect Shana to Dominion and make her feel like she belonged here. The only thing left to do now was to get her mother to feel the same way.