Текст книги "Out of Range"

Автор книги: C. J. Box

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TWENTY-NINE

A half hour before the sun broke over the eastern mountains, while the mist still hung tight to State Lake, Joe heard the black gelding snort in alarm. From somewhere in the shadowed trees where the trail tunneled through, an approaching horse called back. Joe's eyes shot open in his sleeping bag, and despite the cold, it was as if an electric current had jolted him awake.

He had bedded down on a ground cloth in the tall grass behind a gnarled stand of ancient pine trees. Somewhere around three in the morning, after rereading the spiral notebook and coming to surprising conclusions, he felt he could no longer stay in the cabin and wait. He felt trapped in there, with no way of knowing if Smoke was coming back for him and, if so, from which direction. So he had stoked up the stove so that smoke would curl out of the chimney pipe as if the cabin were occupied, and dragged his sleeping bag and the ground cloth out into the night. He slept in his clothing with the shotgun parallel to his legs.

Sitting up, he could see the front door of the cabin through the tree trunks. The black gelding, his ears straight up, looked down the trail in the direction where the approaching horse had responded. It was colder than he had anticipated as he unzipped his sleeping bag, the cold numbing his hands and face. He rolled out of the bag, hearing the frozen grass crunch beneath him. He rose to his knees and stayed hidden behind brush while peering down the trail in the same direction the gelding was looking.

Smoke, who had obviously dismounted, appeared out of the shadows on foot. His big blocky form was unmistakable. Clouds of condensation billowed around his head, then snapped away into the air. Joe thought it was remarkable that a man so large could walk so quietly.

It took ten minutes for Smoke to position himself in front of the door of the cabin. The outfitter had approached as if he were hunting-taking a few slow steps, stopping to look around, sniff the air, and listen. Joe was frozen on his knees, the icy metal of the shotgun stinging his hands.

Smoke held his big revolver in one hand and the bottle of Wild Turkey in the other. Joe could see less than a half-inch of the liquid sloshing in the bottle as the man moved. There was a clumsiness about him, his movements slow and deliberate. Joe tried to remember how much whiskey had been left the night before-a half-bottle at least.

"Joe Pickett, you in there?" Smoke hollered at the door. "Come out, sir. Let's settle this." To Joe, it sounded like "Lesh settle thish."Smoke was blind drunk.

Joe rose to his feet, hoping his knees wouldn't pop from the cold and alert Smoke. He shouldered the shotgun and stepped quietly through the brush and trees until he was less than twenty feet behind the outfitter.

He racked the pump of the shotgun. "Drop your weapon and turn around, Smoke" Joe's voice sounded stronger than he thought it would. He fought a trembling in his chest muscles that wasn't from the cold.

Smoke snorted as if amused, and his shoulders listed as he turned his big head slightly. "Didn't expect you to be there," he slurred. "I expected you'd be all nice and warm in your cabin."

"Drop the gun, Smoke."

Smoke turned a little more. The gun remained at his side. "Didn't I hear that somebody took a gun off of you once? An outfitter?"

Joe was thinking the same thing, but he didn't answer. That had happened five years before, but would always stay with him.

"Drop it and we'll talk. My offer still stands"

"Oh, the offer," Smoke said. "I'm not taking it. I tole you that."

Clumsily, Smoke turned and the quick movement seemed to make him swoon. He staggered, regained his balance, set his feet, and looked through bloodshot eyes at Joe.

"That was a good trick, hiding in the grass"

"I expected you to come back," Joe said. "I didn't want things to get western."

Smoke nodded slowly, as if Joe had delivered a complicated theory and it took him a moment to digest it.

"But they will," Smoke said.

"They don't have to."

"This is the way I go out," Smoke said, as much to himself as to Joe. "In a blaze of glory. What do you think I could do if my license was taken away from me? If I lost my grandpa's elk camp?"

"There are plenty of things to do," Joe said.

"Then why aren't youdoin' 'em?" he asked, and smiled. "Instead, you're sleeping in the cold with a damned shotgun"

"Smoke-"

"It ends here," Smoke said, squinting. "I just got to figure out which one of you to shoot" The muzzle of the revolver started to rise, and Joe could see its gaping mouth.

"Don't do that," Joe said. "Come on …"

The pistol fell back. Smoke grinned. "What, can't you shoot a fella who's looking you in the eye?"

Joe thought about the bear, how he had frozen. How Trey had fired because Joe couldn't. This was different, though, he thought. Smoke wasn't really going to go through with this. Hell,Joe thought, I like Smoke.

"There you are," Smoke growled. "I got a fix on you now."

Casually, Smoke raised the gun again and fired. The explosion was ear-shattering, and despite the sudden red-hot roar of pain in his side and the ringing echoing in his head, Joe could hear dry pine needles rain down on the grass.

"Got you," Smoke said, letting the gun down slowly from where it had kicked over his head until it settled again at eye level. His watery eyes were swimming. "Why ain't you fallin'?"

Joe peered down the barrel of his shotgun and shot Smoke square in the middle of his chest. He racked in another slug as Smoke stumbled back a few feet, a confused look on his face. He could see a wisp of smoke rising from a hole the size of a quarter in the outfitter's sheepskin coat.

Joe watched the gun, which had dropped back to Smoke's side, start to rise again.

"Don't make me …" Joe said.

The gun rose unsteadily but purposefully, and Joe shot him again in the chest. This time, the outfitter dropped straight down as if he were a puppet with his strings clipped. His gun fell to the ground on one side, the whiskey bottle on the other.

"Oh, my God," Joe said, running to Smoke and falling to his knees. The outfitter was breathing shallowly in quick breaths, his eyes fluttering, his face horribly contorted.

Smoke said, "It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts…"

Beneath him, a pool of dark blood flooded through the grass, steaming in the cold with a sharp metallic smell.

"It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts …"

Setting his shotgun aside, Joe found one of Smoke's big callused hands and squeezed it. There was no pressure back. The outfitter coughed a wet, hacking cough and a dollop of blood shot out through one of the holes in his coat, spattering Joe's sleeve.

"Smoke?"

"It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts …"

Joe looked up toward the cabin, wondering stupidly if there was a first-aid kit inside. But the outfitter had taken two twelve-gauge slugs in his chest. There was no way anyone could fix him now, or save him.

"Smoke, can you hear me?"

It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts…

With a rattle that sounded exactly like a playing card in a bicycle spoke, Smoke seized up and his hand clenched back and his last blood-smelling copper breath wheezed out of his chest like a bellows.

Joe stayed motionless, his eyes closed tight, until the sun broke over the mountains moments later and he felt the sudden warmth on his back. Letting Smoke's hand drop, he stood and his head reeled, and he nearly fell on top of the body. His side screamed at him, and his right arm was shaking uncontrollably. For the first time, he looked down. Blood had soaked through his three layers of clothing and glinted darkly in the morning sun. He took a sharp breath through gritted teeth, hoping the pain would stop searing him, but it didn't. He needed something to put the fire out.

Blindly lurching through the trees, almost tripping over his sleeping bag, he made it to the rocky edge of the lake and pitched forward into the icy water.

As the water numbed him and pink curlicues of blood swirled to the surface from where the bullet had creased his ribs and inner arm, he thought, I've shot and killed a man, and it was awful.

THIRTY

Leading two horses, Joe Pickett rode south out of the Thorofare, on the trail to Turpin Meadows, in what became a kind of trek of lamentation. Smoke's body was wrapped in the ground cloth Joe had slept on the previous night, and it was roped over the back of the outfitter's own sorrel, the third horse in the string. Joe led his procession through camp after camp along the trail, too injured and tired to fully engage the guides and hunters who wanted to hear the whole story. The only men whom he told were the hunters from Georgia in Smoke's camp, with their hired guides looking on. The guides stared at the canvas bundle on the back of their boss's horse.

"We wondered where he went this morning," Smoke's lead guide had said, shaking his head sadly. "I always knew that hot head of his was bound to get him into trouble."

There was no anger, no accusations aimed at Joe from Smoke's men, which surprised him. What he saw was stoic sadness. And overt selfishness: "We can still hunt, can't we?" one of the hunters asked.

"I don't see why not," the guide said, with just a hint of disgust.

"I'm sorry and all," the hunter said, looking to the other hunters for support, "but some of us paid real good money for this."

"I know," the guide said, eyeing his clients and spitting a long brown stream of tobacco juice between his boots. Then, to Joe: "Sometimes I wish I'da never gone into the service industry."

Before setting out that morning, Joe had patched himself up. The crease from Smoke's bullet had split the skin on his side and sliced a three-inch gash on the inside of his right arm. The bleeding from his side was profuse. He had lost more blood than he realized, which made him lightheaded. He grimaced while he pinched the wound together, catching a glimpse of a white rib, which had also been nicked. There was a roll of gauze in the cabin but no medical tape to hold it to his side, so he used silver duct tape instead. He was a fan of duct tape, once telling Marybeth that it was one of the five greatest inventions of modern history. Painfully, he pulled on a fresh shirt over the dressing and tossed the heavy, wet one into the cookstove to burn.

The news preceded him as he rode. Outfitters communicated with one another in a combination of ways– face-to-face meetings, radio calls, and satellite phones, known as the "outfitter telephone line." Normally, the "line" was used to pass along word that the elk were moving, or that a guide had been bucked off his horse and was injured, or that a hunter was sick or disillusioned and needed a ride back to the trailhead. In this case, the news was that the new game warden had shot and killed the most infamous among them, Smoke Van Horn, the Lion of the Tetons, in a gunfight.

As Joe rode south, they anticipated him in each camp. In one of the camps he had checked on the day before, both the guides and their clients stood silently on the side of the trail with their cameras, and Joe heard the whispery clicks of shutters as he rode by.

A hunter dressed in head-to-toe camo gear said, "It's like something out of the Old West!"

Joe was slumping in his saddle, fighting shock and the exhaustion that came from it, when he reached the edge of Turpin Meadows at dusk. The Tetons were backlit by the setting sun, their profiles sharp and black against a bruise-purple sky.

As he led the horses toward the campground, he saw emergency vehicles, ambulances, and sheriff's department SUVs in the lot, and people milling around. Apparently, Joe thought, one of the outfitters had been able to get the news to Jackson.

When they spotted him coming, he watched the small crowd stop what they were doing and turn toward him as one, some raising binoculars. One of the sheriff's men unnecessarily whooped his siren for a moment, to signal Joe to come in.

"You'll need to turn over all of your weapons," Sheriff Tassell told Joe as he helped him down from his horse. "We'll get you to the hospital and then I'll need a statement from you."

Joe nodded grimly and dismounted. He could feel the scab of the wound in his side crack open under the dressing.

"How bad are you hurt?" Tassell asked. "Not too bad," Joe said. "I need some stitches, I think. Lost some blood."

"You need the ambulance to take you in?" Tassell asked.

"No."

Tassell turned to his deputies and gestured toward the third horse. "Untie the body and put it in the ambulance," he told them. "Tell the driver to go straight to Dr. Graves's."

Joe walked slowly toward his pickup.

"You're not driving yourself," the sheriff called after him, exasperated. "What in the hell are you thinking?"

Randy Pope stepped out from the small crowd. He wore crisp jeans, new boots, a snap-button shirt, and a denim jacket.

"I talked to Trey Crump," Pope said. "He said to tell you you're on administrative leave until the investigation of the shooting is concluded. As you know, it's routine procedure."

Joe nodded. "I figured that would happen." Looking Pope over, he said, "Looks like you've been to the western-wear store."

He ignored Joe's comment. "He said to tell you to give him a call as soon as you could."

"I planned to," Joe said.

Pope stepped in close. "So was it a gunfight, like they say?"

"It was more like assisted suicide," Joe said glumly. "Smoke fired first."

"Then you shot him?"

Joe nodded, too tired to speak.

Pope sighed and looked toward the darkening sky. Stars were beginning to poke through like needle pricks in dark fabric. "I need to work overtime just to keep up with the paperwork you generate," he complained.

Tassell turned his SUV over to a deputy and drove Joe's pickup, while Joe slouched in the passenger seat.

They were on the blacktop when the sheriff said, "This is Will Jensen's truck, isn't it?" Joe nodded. "Mine burned up." The sheriff shook his head. "I heard about that. Things tend to happen around you, don't they? Just like Barnum said they would."

Joe didn't respond.

"Will tried for years to build a case on Smoke, and in the three days you're up there you killthe guy."

"It wasn't like that," Joe said, but didn't want to explain. He was thinking about the contents of the last spiral notebook. How it was all coming together. How ugly it had been for Will at the end.

They drove in silence until Joe could see the lights of Jackson in the distance. It seemed as if he had lived there forever, not just a few days. The ambulance was stopped on the highway in front of them so that a long column of tourists on horseback could cross the highway en route to their guest ranch for the night. Tassell stopped directly behind it, the headlights of the pickup shining into the ambulance and illuminating the body wrapped in the ground tarp.

"There goes my budget for medical examinations for the fiscal year," Tassell sighed.

After an examination, a blood test, twenty stitches in his side and eight in his arm, Joe was remanded to the hospital for a night of observation. He was given sedatives by a doctor whose name tag identified him as "Dr. Thompson," who also wore a Day-Glo button that read "SKI BUM." The sedative was starting to dull the pain and bring him down. Before he went to sleep, he reached for the telephone at the side of his bed.

"Marybeth," Joe said, thrilled at hearing the sound of her voice, "I just killed the only man in Jackson Hole I really understood."

THIRTY-ONE

As he dressed the next morning, Joe tried to recall the conversation he'd had the night before with Marybeth, and snippets came floating back. It had been difficult to concentrate with the drugs kicking in, and the only thing that kept him awake during the conversation was the tone of her voice, which was urgent and somehow melancholy at the same time, as if she wanted to be angry with him but the circumstances prevented it. At the time, it was important for him to hear her voice, to touch base, to reestablish something. He needed her to be his anchor, to reel him back home from where he was. But she had other concerns. Sheridan was being difficult, having attitude problems, and life between Marybeth and her oldest daughter was getting tougher. "It's a mother and daughter deal," Marybeth said, as if Joe would understand that. In response, he offered to talk with Sheridan-they had a special rapport, he thought-but Marybeth said their daughter was already in bed.

He vividly remembered her telling him that Barnum was the 720 caller, the "720" being from a calling card, and that

Nate had caught the ex-sheriff in the act in the Stockman's Bar. The news of Barnum's humiliation had swept through town, she said, and the old ex-sheriff was lying low, nowhere to be found. Joe cautioned his wife to watch out for Barnum.

"He blames me for his bad luck," Joe said.

"Don't worry," she said, "Nate is around."

"That's good."

"Yes," she said, after a long pause, which led him to wonder. Then: "It is good, isn't it?"

It seemed there was something else she wanted to say but didn't.

She had offered to leave the girls with her mother and come to Jackson right away to see him, but he told her not to.

"I'm more tired than hurt," he said, fixing his eyes on a blank television screen to keep them from closing, "and there's a lot I need to do in the next couple of days. Remember that missing notebook I told you about?"

He could not remember how their conversation had concluded. What had he told her? Had he outlined his suspicions? If he had, he couldn't remember her response. The details weren't there, but what stayed with him as he dressed was a recollection of vague misconnection, as if they had been talking past each other, telling each other different stories, each with a point that the other didn't, or couldn't, grasp.

"So you've decided you're fine and you'll release yourself from the hospital?" Dr. Thompson said. "Usually a doctor does that. Namely me."

Joe was standing with his back to the door, cinching up his belt. He turned to see Dr. Thompson holding a clipboard chart and leaning against the doorjamb. "I needed a good night's sleep more than anything," Joe said.

"I don't disagree with your prognosis, given your, um, condition."

Joe was confused.

"Let me look at your wound and get it redressed," Thompson said. "Then we should probably have a little talk. You need to start taking better care of yourself, Mr. Pickett."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Joe said. "Am I sick?" He thought of how he had felt since arriving in Jackson, the foggy mental state, the sleeplessness, his lack of ability to concentrate. He steeled himself for bad news.

Thompson looked at Joe with amusement in his eyes, as if signaling him they could drop the pretense.

"Look, I'm a doctor, not a cop," Thompson said. "The blood test we took last night is confidential information. No one can find out what's on it. But you seem like a nice enough guy, and you have law enforcement responsibilities, and you carry lots of guns around with you. So you need to be aware of the side effects of your, um, indulgences."

"My what?"

"First, take off your shirt and let me look at that wound."

Stella Ennis was waiting for him in the hospital lobby, and the sight of her stopped him cold. She looked up at him over the top of a Jackson Hole newspaper.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Not as good as I thought, apparently." His voice was shaky from the discussion he'd had with Dr. Thompson.

"You look pretty good," she said, smiling.

"You do too."

She laughed, throwing her head back. "You should have seen me ten years and fifteen pounds ago. I would have blown you away."

She wore a black turtleneck sweater with silver and gold threads running through the fabric, and gray slacks. Her thick auburn hair brushed her shoulders. She shook the newspaper with exaggerated force.

"Did you know you're a celebrity?" she asked.

"No."

"How about I buy you breakfast?"

"Okay."

"We need to talk."

"Yes," Joe said, "we do."

The morning was crisp and bright, the sun not yet well enough established to have burned the frost off windshields and lawns. They walked along a slick wooden sidewalk to a restaurant near the hospital that was crowded. The place specialized in baked goods and had a sign out front that read GET YOUR BUNS IN HERE.

"I used to love this place," Stella said, taking him by the hand and leading him past it, "but I'm a little too familiar in there and it isn't as good as it used to be. Let's go to the Sportsman's Cafe."

"That's my favorite," Joe said.

"I know," she said, rolling her eyes. "It was Will's favorite too."

Ed seated them in the back booth near the kitchen door, and Joe ordered the Sportsman's Special. Stella smiled knowingly at the order.

"I know," Joe said. "Will's choice too."

"It's spooky," she said, ordering coffee and a bagel.

Joe looked at her across the table, and she looked straight back. Her name had come up so many times since he'd met her. He'd thought about her, even dreamed about her. The fact that he hadn't told Marybeth about her said more than he cared to think about. When Stella looked back at him he had the impression he'd been on her mind as well, but he wasn't sure in what context. It was as if they'd been circling each other for days, each looking for an opening.

"You start," she said.

He sipped his coffee, burning his tongue. "It's been a long time since I've had breakfast with a woman other than my wife," he said.

She smiled. "I believe that. Do you want to leave?"

It took him a moment to respond. "No."

"I don't want you to leave either."

He took another sip, looking at her over the top of his cup, trying to convince himself that what he was doing was part of his investigation.

"You've never met a woman like me," she said softly. He watched her lips, saw a flash of white teeth when she spoke.

"You're right."

"Don't worry," she said, cutting the words off, as if she'd planned to say more.

"I found Will's last notebook," he said.

"In the state cabin?"

He nodded.

"I looked for it afterward," she said wistfully, breaking their gaze. "I'd hoped he brought it down with him. Where was it-under the mattress?"

"Yes. I saw your initial in the guest book. I recognized it from the invitation you sent."

She smiled, and her eyes filmed over, as if remembering something that touched her. It wasn't guilt, he thought.

"I wanted to leave some kind of record," she said. "In case something happened to me. Or to both of us. You know that outfitter Smoke Van Horn? The one you shot? He saw us together up there. He didn't approve."

"I know."

"He was the least of our worries, though. He didn't realize I was trying to save Will."

"Were you?"

"Obviously I didn't do a very good job of it."

Joe started to speak when Ed slid a big platter in front of him and handed Stella her bagel on a plate.

"These are on the house," Ed said. "Enjoy!"

Joe looked up. "What's the occasion?"

"This is my last day of business here," Ed said, his eyes betraying his beaming mouth-only smile. "Jackson has plumb outgrown me."

"Damn," Joe said.

"I'd have done the same for Smoke," Ed said. "He was a good customer too.

"See that up there on the shelf?" Ed gestured to a garishly painted ceramic lion's head. "That was in honor of Smoke, the Lion of the Tetons. Some of his hunters presented it to him at breakfast once, and he forgot it when he left. I put it up there and it's been there ever since. He always said he wanted it back, but he never took it with him."

Joe could feel Stella's eyes on him, watching his reaction.

"It's a shame," Ed said.

"You mean Smoke? Or your last day of business?" Joe asked.

Ed turned back toward the kitchen. "Both, I guess," he said over his shoulder.

Joe and Stella talked long after the dishes were cleared. He had drunk so much coffee he felt jittery. She asked him about what had happened at the cabin, and he recounted it all. She seemed fascinated by the story, but focused in on what he was thinking at the time, and how he felt after, not the details of the shooting. He was again taken by how comfortable he was with her, how easy she was to talk with. He wondered if Will had felt the same way. Then he answered his own question: of course he did. He'd said as much in his notebook.

"I don't know what to say," Joe said. "I'm talked out."

"I think you do," she said. "You're just scared of the words."

He looked up at her.

"Just because you love someone doesn't mean you can't care for another just as much. It's about context. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation. You can have both."

Joe felt his eyes grow wide, and squinted them back. He felt the ZING.

"I don't know," he stammered.

"I'm safe," she said, leaning across the table toward him. "You will never meet a woman as safe as I am. I have no agenda, and I don't want either of us to get hurt. But I want to be with you, Joe, if only for a little while. As long as it's real, and as honest as we can make it."

"What about Don?" Joe asked, not even believing he had asked.

"Don't ruin the mood," she said abruptly. "Don thinks of me as part of him.And since Don is obsessed with the very idea and concept of Don Ennis, well…"

Ed appeared with the pot of coffee. Joe didn't know whether to embrace him or send him away.

"What is it you're trying to find out here?" he asked, looking out the window.

She was quiet for a few moments. Then: "I told you. I'm looking for authenticity. Genteel authenticity. All my life I've been surrounded by people who pose, who play a role. For the first twenty-five years of my life, I didn't know the difference between actors and the real people they based their performances on. I'm sick of the interpretation. I want to go to the source."

"And you think you'll find it here?"

She laughed, tossed her head back. "Not in Jackson, no. But yes, I think I'll find it out here. I think I'm getting real close right now."

Joe felt his face get hot. He wondered what kind of authenticity Stella thought she could find in a married man. How could it be authentic if lying was integral to the relationship? But he couldn't say it.

"We're the last people left in here," Joe said, looking around. "I should get going."

"And do what?"

He thought about it. "I've got some things I need to check out."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to read him.

"Look," he said, "I'm not sure why I trust you, but I do. Maybe it's because Will did. You've got to answer a question."

He saw a flash of fear in her dark eyes. What did she think he was going to ask?

"When you went up to the state cabin with Will, did he seem to get better? His mental state, I mean?"

"At first, yes," she said. Was that relief he noticed in her face? "The first day up there he said he felt like himself again. He loved Two Ocean Pass, and said he wouldn't mind spending the rest of his days there."

"He is," Joe said, "but go on."

She hesitated a moment before continuing. "By the second day, though, he was in bad shape again. He'd have terrible headaches, and he couldn't eat. His hands shook. I tried to help him, you know, keep him distracted. But he was too far gone. He was really depressed when we rode back down. That was a week before, you know …"

Joe nodded, thinking.

"What?" she asked.

"This morning Dr. Thompson gave me a little lecture about taking care of myself. He said I had drugs in my system."

Stella looked at Joe, puzzled.

"He said it was barbiturates. He said even though I'd taken the stuff days before, there were still traces in my blood. He asked me about Valium and Xanax, and warned me that both have some serious side effects."

She listened intently, watching him, something going on behind her eyes.

"Stella, I've never taken drugs in my life. Somehow, they were introduced. It must have happened before I went up into the Thorofare. I haven't really felt normal since I got here, so now I'm guessing this has been going on for a while."

"I don't understand," she said.

"I think the same thing happened to Will. Maybe somebody got to him, figured out a way to drug him. He was under a lot of pressure, and if he didn't know he was being drugged it would have made it worse for him, made him think he was going crazy. It was just a matter of time before he did something horrible."

She looked stricken, her face drained of color. She knew something, but he didn't know what.

"You're coming to our party tonight, aren't you?" she asked suddenly.

Joe sat back. "I hadn't thought of it. I forgot about it, to be honest with you. I never RSVP'd."

"You need to come," she said, reaching across the table and grasping his hand.

"Why? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'm good at."

"It's important to me that you come," she said, her eyes burning into his. "It's essential.I'll make sure you're on the guest list. The Secret Service wants a guest list by noon."

"Stella…"

"What you just told me opens everything up," she said. "It's like a light just went on. But I need to think about it, and make sure I'm on the right track."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Come tonight," she said, grabbing her jacket and sliding out of the booth. "Everything will come together tonight. We'll have everybody we need in one room."

He didn't know what to make of that. He wanted to believe she was on his side, on Will's side. That she was going to help solve the puzzle of Will's death, but in her own way.

She seemed to confirm it when she strode around the table and bent down and kissed him full on the mouth. Her lips were warm and soft, and he could still taste them as she walked out of the Sportsman's Cafe without looking back.

It took a moment for Joe to get his wits back and stand up. When he did, he saw Ed looking at him over the top of the batwing doors.

"Don't say it," Joe said. Dark thunderheads of guilt had already begun rolling across his sky.

"Just like Will," Ed said anyway.