“KILL THE LIGHTS and back up slowly,” Cates whispered to Soledad through the open back-window slider of the pickup truck. “Complete silence from now on,” he cautioned everyone. Then he gestured to LOR to proceed.
Cates was in the tractor seat at the controls. Soledad and Johnson were inside the cab with Soledad behind the wheel. LOR was bunched up at the foot of the bed near the closed tailgate. The man slowly opened the rear hatch and readied his range finder.
The front door of Nate Romanowski’s home was illuminated under a lone porch light. Interior lights were on as well, but no one had looked out to see the vehicle approach the house and back up. So far, so good, Cates thought. He reached down and fingered the grip of the pistol that was tucked into the shaft of his cowboy boot.
Just in case.
The twin air cylinders were completely filled and the compressor had been turned off. The steel head of the mechanical bear jaws loomed in the open rear window, poised to lash out.
“Twenty-seven feet,” LOR whispered.
Cates relayed the distance through the slider to Soledad.
“Twenty-two feet.
“Eighteen feet.
“Fifteen feet,” LOR said, and Cates whispered, “Stop,” to Soledad.
The pickup ceased moving. Soledad killed the engine.
Cates triggered the red-dot sight and trained it at eye level on the crack between the door frame and the door itself.
“Ready,” he said. It was Bobbi Johnson’s signal to get out of the truck.
*
INSIDE, LIV STIRRED a pot of green chili on the stove with a wooden spoon. When Kestrel said that she “wanted to do it”—something the girl demanded more and more—Liv picked up her daughter and balanced her on her hip and handed over the spoon.
Kestrel used the implement to thrash around the pot. “Gentle,” Liv said.
“I’m helping,” Kestrel said.
“Yes, you are,” Liv smiled. “You’re a good helper.”
Nate was on his way home. She’d texted him earlier to ask him to stop at the grocery store in Saddlestring for a gallon of milk for Kestrel and a package of flour tortillas to eat with the chili.
That was when there was a light knocking on the front door. It startled Liv because visitors rarely came to their home, since it was several miles off the county road, and she hadn’t noticed a vehicle outside.
“I’ll do it,” Kestrel said, wriggling to get free of Liv. She meant she wanted to open the front door to see who was there. Visitors to the house were a rare and exciting event in their household.
“No, you won’t,” Liv said, depositing her daughter in her high chair to keep her contained. Kestrel had yet to meet a stranger she didn’t want to talk to, which was a trait Liv and Nate were getting concerned about.
“You’ll stay right here, little bug.”
Liv quickly untied her apron and hung it over the back of a chair. As she did so, her phone burred with an incoming call. Probably Nate, she thought, wondering what brand of tortillas to buy. She thought she’d call him back as soon as she dealt with the visitor.
Liv looked through the gap between the front-room window curtains and peered outside. A pickup truck with Wyoming plates was backed up to the front porch. A thin woman with straggly blond hair was standing in front of the door. The woman looked nervous, Liv thought.
“Probably lost,” she muttered as she reached for the doorknob.
*
CATES WATCHED AS the shadow of a figure approached the front window to his right, but he couldn’t see a face. He didn’t need to. Nate Romanowski was seared into his memory.
The knob turned on the front door and it opened a crack.
Johnson rushed her words. “I’m sorry to bother you …” as the door swung in.
*
A BRIGHT RED light hit Liv in the eyes followed by a blur of open steel jaws and yellow teeth.
*
TWELVE MINUTES LATER, Sheridan drove along the gravel road through the sagebrush toward the Yarak, Inc. compound. She was tired and wrung out because it had been a long day in every way. The falcons were restless inside the vehicle and they were ready to eat. Feeding the Air Force was her first priority and then she could leave them in the mews overnight.
She was surprised to encounter a vehicle coming the other way, especially in the dark. She assumed it must be either Nate or Liv, since visitors on the road were rare at any time of day.
Sheridan eased her SUV to the shoulder to make room in case the other driver wanted to stop and chat. She whirred down the side window and let the cool evening air rush in. It felt refreshing on her face.
But the approaching vehicle, which turned out to be a white extended-cab pickup with a topper and County 6 plates, didn’t slow down. Instead, it accelerated as it passed by. All of the windows were tinted and in the darkness it was difficult to see the occupants clearly.
Sheridan caught a glimpse of what she thought were two figures inside the cab, but when it flashed by she could only see one. A man was at the wheel and he either deliberately or inadvertently turned his head away from her at the last second. The second occupant, if there had been one there at all, either ducked down or leaned away so as not to be seen.
She quickly closed the window before a roll of dust washed over her. Then she watched the red taillights recede in her rearview mirror until they blinked out when the truck took a turn in the road and entered a grove of aspen. She thought she saw a glimpse of red light through the tinted back topper hatch window, but she thought it may have been a reflection of her own taillights.
Wyoming folks weren’t usually so rude, she thought, especially on an isolated road. If they didn’t stop to say hello and state their business, they’d at least wave or nod as they passed by. County 6 was Carbon County in the south-central part of the state. What were they doing up in Twelve Sleep County? Maybe hunting?
Nevertheless, Sheridan eased back onto the road to the compound. After feeding the Air Force, she knew she had a decision to make. Both Liv and her mom had invited her for dinner. She wasn’t sure which invitation to accept, or to punt on both and pick up something on the way to her apartment. As always, she wished DoorDash existed in her little town so she could order in.
If she accepted Liv’s invitation, they’d inevitably discuss business and her first remote assignment. That was fine, but Sheridan was still sorting the experience in her mind and especially how it had ended. She wasn’t sure how much to reveal and how she felt about it. Discovering that she had a second grandmother was hard to wrap her mind around. One nasty grandmother was enough, she thought.
Dinner with her parents was even more fraught. Sheridan wasn’t sure what her dad’s reaction would be to the discovery of his mother at the Never Summer Ranch in Colorado, and what she’d said. Sheridan didn’t want to upset her father, who had more than enough on his plate at the moment.
She took the turn into the compound and drove past the outbuildings toward the mews. As she did, she glanced over at the house and slammed on her brakes.
The front door was wide open, and a human form was crumpled at the base of the threshold. Dark splashes were flecked against the light-colored exterior of the house as if someone had flung a mop through the air. A stream of what looked like blood flowed down the concrete steps of the porch.
Then she saw the flowing black hair, the pale reflection of an outstretched hand, and Liv’s unique tooled cowboy boot flung aside and sitting upright on the top step of the porch stairs.
Sheridan screamed as she hurled herself out of the SUV and ran to the lifeless body in the open door. Beyond Liv, she could see Kestrel inside the kitchen near the table in her high chair. The two-year-old was struggling to get out and crying, “Mom, Mom, Mom …”
*
“WELL,” SOLEDAD SAID to Cates through gritted teeth over his shoulder as he sped onto the county road, “you really fucked that up.” Soledad had to shout over the rat-a-tat cadence from the compressor, which was in the process of refilling the tanks. They’d pulled over to the side of the road to allow for the recharging of the tanks, and the wait time was excruciating.
“What?” Cates yelled back. He leaned closer to the slider.
“You heard me the first time. I said you really fucked that one up,” Soledad repeated. Then he mumbled something to himself that Cates genuinely couldn’t discern.
Cates turned in his seat at the controls and nearly shoved his entire face through the opening so he could see and hear inside the cab.
Bobbi Johnson was curled up in the passenger seat, holding her bent knees to her face. She was crying and rocking from side to side. “That woman had a little girl in there,” she wailed.
“Tell her to shut up,” Soledad said to Cates. “I can’t hear you over this compressor.”
“You heard the man,” Cates said to Johnson. “Keep it down.”
“We didn’t have to shake her like that,” Johnson said. “And LOR didn’t have to hit her with that bat.”
“Shut up,” Soledad commanded. “I mean it.” He reached over and gripped the back of her neck and squeezed it until she squealed. Cates did nothing to stop him and she continued to weep, but more quietly.
Soledad looked up and saw Cates’s face filling his rearview mirror. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I’d hit whoever opened the door first.”
“What if Romanowski was inside?”
“Then I would have shot him when he ran up to check on her,” Cates said. “I was ready for that. We could have messed his body up so bad with the bat afterward that it looked like a double bear attack.”
“And you’re just telling me this now?” Soledad said.
“That was his lady,” Cates said from the back. “She was on my list, too. And in some ways, this is even better. This will tear him up when he finds out. He’ll know what it’s like to lose a member of his family, just like I did.”
“That’s not what I’m concerned about,” Soledad said. “I’m afraid it’ll make him go nuclear.”
“Nuclear and sloppy,” Cates said with a short laugh. “That’s okay with me. He’ll be more vulnerable if he’s reckless.”
Cates caught Soledad rolling his eyes. It was disconcerting. Was Soledad really questioning his judgment now? Was the man losing his grip and threatening to break their pact?
Instead of acknowledging the gesture, Cates said, “You know how to get to that game warden’s house, right? This is his new one I’m talking about. I burned down his old one.”
“I know where it is.”
“Then go-go-go,” Cates said. “Fucking floor it, man. The tanks will be charged by the time we get there. We can do this quickly now that we’ve got the timing and distance down.”
Soledad said, “What about that SUV we saw on the way from the compound? I didn’t view the driver clearly, but I know the silhouettes of hooded raptors in the back when I see them.”
“Let’s just get out of here,” Johnson wailed. “Let’s get the hell out of this place.”
“Bobbi, be quiet,” Cates said. “Please. We’ve got a job to finish.”
“That poor woman,” Johnson said. “That poor mama …”
“Jesus,” Soledad said with disgust to no one and to everyone.
“Okay,” LOR announced. “We’ve reached maximum capacity.”
Cates glanced at the air pressure gauge. It was at two thousand PSI.
“Okay, go,” he ordered Soledad.
Five minutes later, through the windshield, Cates could see as the headlights swept across a brown wooden sign that read GAME WARDEN STATION. Next to it was a turnoff that led into heavy timber and eventually to the Twelve Sleep River and the house next to it.
He was surprised when Soledad eased off the accelerator and let the pickup roll to a stop, but also grateful that the man hadn’t slammed on the brakes and thrown Cates and LOR around the back like rag dolls.
“What are you doing?” Cates asked through the slider.
“I’m getting out,” Soledad said while checking the loads on the shotgun he’d pilfered from the old Cates place. Cates knew Soledad also had a handgun tucked into his waistband, as well as the long blade concealed inside his crutches.
“Getting out?” Cates asked. “Why?”
“Nate Romanowski will be coming after us,” Soledad said. “That girl in the SUV will give him a description of our truck. I’m going to hide here in the trees and take him out when he gets here. I’ll find the best place to ambush him.”
Cates thought it over for a moment. Was Soledad bugging out on him or volunteering to take on Romanowski by himself? He wasn’t sure. But if nothing else, creating a confrontation with the falconer two miles from the target house would at least slow the man down. And if Romanowski got the best of Soledad, another problem was solved. It was to Cates’s advantage, however it went.
“Thanks for watching our back,” Cates said.
Soledad nodded and slipped out the door and slammed it shut. Cates watched the man clamp the shotgun under his right arm, mount his crutches, and glide away into the gloom.
Cates took a long breath, then said, “He’s gone now, Bobbi. You can relax.”
He observed her body language as she seemed to uncoil in the seat.
“Are you sure?”
“After we cut LOR loose, it’s just you and me. Just like you wanted,” he said. “I doubt we’ll ever see Axel Soledad again.”
“I hope not,” she said as she flopped her head back and sighed.
“But I need you to calm down and step up. Then it’ll all be over.”
She looked at him with a wary expression. But she was willing to listen. Cates didn’t dwell on his once-again-proven ability to persuade individuals to do his bidding, and he almost loved her for it.
“Slide over and drive,” he said gently. “All you’ll need to do is drive to the Pickett house and back up to the front door, just like Soledad did. I’ll tell you when to stop, baby. That’s all there is, and I know you can do it.”
Johnson started to raise her leg over the center console when she stopped and looked into his eyes. “Then it’ll all be over?”
“It’ll all be over,” he said.
“And we can go get my sister?”
“We can go get your sister.”
“And …” she said, tilting her head toward the back of the truck, meaning Lee Ogburn-Russell.
“That, too,” he said. “I promise.”
With that, Johnson wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand and slid behind the steering wheel. The pickup lurched forward and Cates swung around into the tractor seat.
LOR looked back at him expectantly. “We good?” he asked.
“We’re good.”
“Is that prick Soledad gone?”
“Yes, sir,” Cates said. LOR nodded his pleasure.
“Get ready,” Cates said. “This is going to happen fast once we get there.”