Chapter 73

“How’d you do it?” Lyle asked. “I lost track of you when the ambulances arrived. How’d you get Renke to talk?”

“After you left,” Kate said, “he started to come around. I could see he wasn’t completely conscious so I told him we needed to blow up the train, but I didn’t know where the explosives were.”

“Renke thought you were on his side?”

“He was delirious.”

“You have that effect on people.”

“I told him they were coming for us and he had to tell me quickly. I said the explosion would be a distraction. We could get away.”

A San Navarro County sheriff’s deputy motioned for Lyle and Kate to step farther back. They were standing above a ravine, looking at a flood-lit scene of deputies and a bomb-disposal crew working near a stretch of railroad track.

“Renke should never have come to Arizona,” Lyle said.

“Bedrosian offered him more money, plus the chance to get even with us. He couldn’t resist.”

“With Sean’s help, he knew damn near everything there was to know about the park.”

“I feel sorry for Drenda. She was close to her father. Saw him almost every day. She didn’t know he was working with Bedrosian.”

“I wonder how Bedrosian recruited him.”

“They must have met when the FedPat loan was negotiated,” Kate said. “Sean was still closely involved with NC back then.”

“So when Bedrosian learned that Sean and Max had a falling out, he moved in. Maybe bribed him. Maybe stroked his ego, told him he should be running the park instead of Max.”

“So Sean started to figure out ways to sabotage the park.”

“He’d done business with the Indians through his shop for years,” Lyle said. “Maybe he used his contacts to persuade Cooper to wreck the bridge.”

“And anything he didn’t already know about NC, he got by pumping Drenda.”

“That’s how he found out we were staying in Provincetown.”

“Must have been bitter. He couldn’t afford Drenda’s college tuition, so Max paid for it. Then somehow Max ran him out of Nostalgia City.”

“Kate, back there in the ride. Thank you. You saved my bacon. That’s twice now.”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” Kate grinned.

“Is that a superior look I see?”

“What? You want me to say, ‘Warn’t nuthin’. Just doin’ my job’? I think that’s a guy thing.”

Lyle looked into the ravine and saw Sheriff Jeb Wisniewski making his way up the hill. He wore a uniform shirt and gun belt over jeans.

Wisniewski’s cowboy boots dug into the loose soil and he stepped up on the rise next to Lyle and Kate. “So if you two have this whole shit-mess solved, would you mind telling me who’s what, and why in hell they’ve been trying to destroy the park?”

“Like we said in Vincent’s office,” Lyle said, “FedPat Corporation wanted to take over. They hired Renke and his thugs. Turns out, Sean Maxwell was giving them inside information.”

“All that crap was true, huh? Be damned. Well, the little explosive charge is out of the way. They had it so the engine coming by would set it off. You can run your train across now, no problem.”

“That deputy...” Kate said.

“Yeah,” Lyle said, “the one out in front of my condo. Is he--”

“He’s in big trouble. But he’s not hurt bad, if that’s what you mean. They just knocked him out.”