Concentrate on the matter at hand.
“We could clear all this up,” Harlan said to Jonah, “if you’d just let us do our job. If you’ve got nothing to hide, then this conversation is over.”
“It’s already over,” a voice said, and Callie heard the ratchet of a scatter-gun behind them.
She and Harlan and Rusty all turned to find a smiling Landry Bickham holding a pump-action twelve-gauge. He kept it pointed at the ground, but Callie knew he’d use it if the old man gave him the nod.
Her heart started thumping.
This wasn’t the direction she’d wanted this afternoon to go.
Harlan turned back to Jonah. “You’re making a grave mistake, Mr. Pritchard. I could arrest you for obstruction, right now.”
“I suppose you could try,” Jonah said.
They were all silent for a long moment, and Callie could see the fury creeping into Harlan’s gaze. She’d seen that fury before, when she told him she never wanted to lay eyes on him again.
Jonah gestured. “You go on, now, try to get your warrant. If the judge says I’ve gotta open up my house, I’ll open up my house. In the meantime, you’re just trespassing, far as I can see.”
For a moment Callie thought Harlan might do something stupid, but he held back. Thank God.
“This isn’t over,” he said quietly.
Jonah’s gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”
Harlan stared at him a while longer, then his fury seemed to dissipate and he turned, moving back to the cruiser.
Then they were all inside, Callie feeling both frustrated and relieved as she started the engine and watched Jonah and the others go back into the house.
“You think they’re in there?” Harlan asked.
Callie wanted to punch him. “Even if they are, unless Pritchard cooperates, there’s not much we can do about it right now.”
“He’s one nasty piece of work, isn’t he?”
Callie jammed the car in gear. “Pot … meet kettle,” she said.
Then she turned them around and headed down the drive.
Chapter Six
“You know what you are? You’re an idiot. An idiot disguised as a fool.”
Good old Callie. She’d never been one to mince words, and Harlan could see that she hadn’t changed.
Back in the day it had been a trait he’d found endearing. Most of the girls he’d known in college had been hesitant to show their true colors until they had you on the hook. They spent far too much time playing the games they’d learned in high school, and the guys they pursued weren’t much different.
But Callie had always been what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Take it or leave it. And that was a large part of what had made Harlan fall in love with her in the first place.
That and the simple fact that she was the single most intriguing human being he’d ever met. Still was.
They were rolling along the highway now, headed toward town, Harlan once again relegated to the backseat while Callie drove and her partner Rusty rode shotgun.
She said, “You do realize you almost got us killed back there.”
Harlan looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Don’t be so dramatic. Pritchard doesn’t strike me as stupid. And technically, he was right.”
“You think?” Her hands were gripping the steering wheel as if she had hold of his neck and wanted to snap it. “Then what was with all that cowboy nonsense?”
“Just giving the old guy a nudge, see how he reacted.”
Callie shook her head. “You haven’t changed at all, have you, Harlan?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Forget it,” she muttered.
“No, you opened the box, let’s see what’s inside.”
Callie sighed, glancing at Rusty. He had his cell phone clamped to his ear, speaking quietly into it, pretending not to listen to them.
She said to Harlan, “Maybe Jonah wouldn’t have done anything drastic, but there were no guarantees of that. You make stupid moves, you risk people getting hurt. You should know that better than anyone.”
Harlan knew a lot of things. Like the fact that she wasn’t talking about Pritchard at all.
“Look,” he said, “why don’t we save the recriminations for another day? Right now we need to concentrate on searching that house. And we need to do it legally.”
“That could be a problem,” Rusty said, snapping his phone shut. “Sheriff Mercer tells me the judge went out of town for a weekend hunting trip. He’s trying to track down another judge in Sheridan, but it could take a while. Says we might as well grab some chow, then head back to the station house.”
Now it was Harlan’s turn to sigh. Times like these made him wish real life was more like the movies. Everything happened so quickly on the big screen. Getting a warrant took minutes rather than hours, and the bad guy rarely got away.
He kept thinking about that smirk on Billy Boy’s face, and would like to put a fist in it. But as much as he’d like to play the hero and storm Pritchard Ranch, he believed in the letter of the law and knew that such a move was a mistake for a whole variety of reasons.
One thing you quickly learned in law enforcement was the value of patience. No matter what they might say, Justice was neither swift nor blind.
“Maybe the sheriff is right,” he said. “I haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday afternoon. By all rights I should be famished.”
Callie eyed him skeptically. “You really expect me to sit down and break bread with you?”
“I expect you to be a professional,” he told her. “Is that too much to ask?”
EVERY TOWN HAS ITS cop hangout.
Williamson’s was a place called the Oak Pit Bar & Grill, a name Callie had always found a bit odd, since Wyoming wasn’t known for its overabundance of Quercus imbricaria. But she supposed the Cottonwood Pit didn’t have the same ring.
As far as she knew, however, there were no trees in evidence here, the indoor barbecue fueled by coals rather than wood. The low lighting and pool hall atmosphere were not to her particular taste, but she couldn’t argue with the food they served, and cops all over Williamson County had made the place a regular pit stop.
No pun intended.
Callie didn’t want to be sitting in a booth across from Harlan Cole, but she knew he was right. As cruel as fate might be, she was a professional and needed to act like one.
Truth was, she was more concerned about Rusty than herself. Poor guy was caught in the middle of a rich and heated history that he knew nothing about. And as his training deputy, she owed it to him to maintain her composure.
Besides, she was hungry. Thanks to Nana Jean’s torturous attempt at matchmaking this afternoon, she hadn’t had a chance to eat before she’d been called back to the office.
So here they were, the three of them sitting there awkwardly as they waited on their food, poor Rusty trying to make small talk with two people who clearly had other matters on their minds.
“How long you been with the Marshals Service?” he asked Harlan.
Harlan pulled his gaze away from the sports report on a nearby flatscreen. “Close to ten