CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

“I hate everything about you. Why do I love you?” It was an old, angry song and it played on the Bronco’s radio as Starr…

No, that’s not right at all, Starr thought. I’m not driving.

Where was she? She forced her eyes open, hoping the spinning would stop, but pain overtook her thoughts instead. She was fucked over, fucked in the head. Ooh, her head. It ached like a motherfucker. Where was she, again? “Today seems like a good day to burn a bridge or two.” New song, same anger.

“My oh my, what a time I’m having! And just think, we’re in here warm and cozy while out there…”

The man’s voice again. Who? Starr wondered. She tried to get up, but the spinning was too intense. And her hands. She couldn’t move them from behind her back. She breathed in deeply to quell the panic.

“Out there, I’ll make sure no one will ever find you.”

“For crying out loud, it’s the middle of the night. Can you put the crazy in park for a minute?” Starr heard a second man’s voice. This one she knew: Holder’s.

“I saved your bacon,” Holder went on. “You’re just lucky I found that marshal out there, ’bout to come in and bust your ass. I think the words you’re lookin’ for are thank you.”

“You believe in fate?” said the other man. “The odds that we’d be tracking this same girl, they’ve got to be…”

A deep laugh echoed around the dark space, and Starr heard the crunch of footfalls on grit as a pair of cowboy boots emerged from the shadows. “Astronomical,” Holder said. “Seems like, anyway. But that’s just small-town luck; that’s just everybody’s paths crossing again and again.” He squatted. “Like you and me being on the same side of this oil deal, me making sure the access roads are built on my land and that Blackstream Oil promises enough money to keep those Indians from asking too many questions. And you…I’m guessing there’s no way you want an oil camp coming anywhere near your…recreational activities. Must have really stuck in your craw to help the mayor.”

Starr squinted against the dizziness. Holder’s back was toward her. She still couldn’t see the man Holder had been talking to, but she could hear him humming contentedly.

“Well, Little Miss College Girl, you thought it would be so easy, didn’t you?” Holder said.

Starr’s entire body jerked into alertness. College…He had to mean Chenoa. Where was Chenoa? She’d been following Chenoa…. Her head set to spinning again and forced her eyes closed.

Holder let out a mocking laugh, hard-edged. “Hell, ain’t nothing easy around here. I’m living proof of that. The 1980s—you don’t remember those, do you? They were tough on farmers. Called it the ‘farm crisis,’ banks calling in loans, families torn from their livelihoods. And you know what was behind it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Oil. Yep, the price of Oklahoma’s black gold plummeted; then savings and loans failed; then banks seized land, equipment, whole herds of cattle.”

Holder stood and started to pace, the low stone ceiling curving his lanky frame into a question mark.

“Now I’m making it right.” He leaned down, talking into the shadows. “Get it? Nobody is gonna know a thing about those beetles you found. There is a hell of a lot more at stake here than endangered bugs. More than you could ever imagine, little girl.”

“I didn’t know, I promise. I really didn’t. We can just forget about all of it. I’ll destroy my research. Never speak of it again.”

Starr listened to the woman she now knew was Chenoa and she waited for the revolutions to slow. She squinted until her eyes adjusted to the light of the lantern that cast shadows against the rock walls of the cave. She could feel the aching in her hands and feet, the cold leaching into every cell.

“Beetles,” said the man in the shadows, bemused. “If I’d only known. They’re endangered, you say?”

“Rare enough to bring in the feds,” Holder said. “That happens, and they’ll seize the land for a preserve. Huge fines for disturbing habitat. A fucking mess.”

“The beetles would have stopped it all?” the other man said. Starr could hear the slap of his palms on his knees. “No construction crews? No oil workers? I could leave Loxie where she is? It would have been perfect.”

“Perfect?” Holder said, turning sharply. “The beetles would have wrecked it all.”

“Au contraire,” the man said. “I have a big secret buried out here—which, by the way, I came to dig up. And then I found this girl. Can you believe my luck? She was right here, in the dark, right outside my cave like she was meant for me. I couldn’t help myself.”

“You didn’t know about the beetles?”

“Not until now.” The man laughed. “Isn’t it ironic? If I’d left her alone, I guess she could have saved me a lot of work.”

There was a long silence between the men. Holder removed his cap, rubbed a palm over his hair and let out a long breath.

And Bernard stepped into the light.