C Box - Below Zero

She nodded.

“You bet it is,” Stenko said. “And the second thing is what we’re doing now. Like I said, I want to be kind to you. I want to help you. No strings, April. Just let me be kind to you, okay?”

She nodded.

And he was.

Saddlestring

A MASSIVE BLACK FULL-SIZED HUMMER WITH DARKENED windows blocked their driveway when Marybeth and Joe returned home. “Oh no,” Marybeth said in an uncharacteristic whine. “Not now. This is not a good time.”

Joe nodded toward his mother-in-law’s vehicle with new vanity plates reading DUCHESS, said, “There never has been a good time.”

The driver’s window of the Hummer whirred down and there she was, on her cell phone, her free hand flapping at them, gesturing at them to park behind her, oblivious that she was blocking their entrance.

“Ram her,” Joe said.

“That’s not helpful…”

Missy had never liked Joe, and the feeling was mutual. She thought her daughter could have done better for herself. Joe agreed with that, but didn’t necessarily want to hear it from his mother-in-law. For a while, after he’d been fired from the Game and Fish Department, they’d lived in an old homestead on Missy and Bud Longbrake’s ranch. The close proximity had driven a wedge between Marybeth and her mother that had never healed. Joe had not discouraged the rift as it formed, grew, and hardened.

Marybeth said, “I’ll try and get rid of her.”

Joe said, “You’ll need a cross and a wooden stake. I think I might have them in the garage.”

“Joe, please. You’re being worse than usual.”

Missy terminated her call and tossed her phone aside and climbed out.

Missy was an attractive woman-sixty-three but looked forty, a tiny, slim brunette with a heart-shaped porcelain face and perfectly highlighted and coiffed hair. She may not look it, Joe thought, but she was the most relentless and challenging adversary he had ever encountered. Missy was a shark; she never stopped moving forward and she was always hungry, but not for food. In fact, Joe had been around her on the ranch when she ate no more than carrot sticks and celery for days if she gained a single pound. Missy was hungry for power, influence, and status. Her lifelong ambition to trade up, replacing husbands with those of greater power and means, had recently reached a new level that stunned the entire valley. He had not seen her since the coup took place several months before, and Marybeth was still beside herself with embarrassment and anger.

As she approached their van, Missy saw Joe, and she paused for a second, her eyes narrowing into slits, threatening to create a network of hairline fissures in the varnish of makeup on her face.

Joe got out, said, “Good to see you, too.” He determined that a good part of his animosity was due to the after-effects of an astonishing dream he’d had one night in Baggs featuring… Missy. The recollection of the dream made his scalp crawl, and he’d forgotten about it until he saw her in person.

Missy ignored him and said to Marybeth, “I was just calling your house. I knocked but nobody answered, even though I could hear loud music.”

“Sheridan’s home,” Marybeth said, her voice chilly. “She gets dressed and listens to the radio. She probably couldn’t hear you.”

“I just got back,” Missy said. “I’ve got some presents for the girls.”

“Got back from where?” Marybeth asked without enthusiasm.

Missy went to the Hummer and gathered two packages wrapped in exotic foil wrapping paper. “Bali! It was wonderful.”

“Bali?”

“Earl had a conference. We stayed in a hotel on the beach that was the most magnificent place I’ve ever been in. Who would think a Muslim country could be so wonderful and romantic with all that chopping off of heads and hands and all? But I miss it already.”

Marybeth rolled her eyes.

Joe said, “I saw Bud a few weeks ago coming out of the Stockman’s Bar. He looks like he’s aged twenty years.”

Missy fixed her coldest look of disapproval on him. “Was he with his friend?”

Joe shook his head, not understanding.

“His friend Jack Daniel’s. The two are rarely apart these days. In fact, I think they’re in love.”

Six months ago, Bud Longbrake had returned from a bear-hunting trip to Alaska to find all the locks on their ranch house changed and his clothing in a steamer trunk on the front lawn. Missy had traded up again in breathtaking fashion.

They called Earl Alden the Earl of Lexington. Alden was a Southern multibillionaire media mogul who had owned what used to be the Scarlett Ranch. For several years, he’d divided his time among the ranch and three other residences in Lexington, Kentucky; New York City; and Chamonix, France. In an effort to be civic-minded, Alden had joined the library board, where he met its chairwoman, Missy Longbrake. From that moment on, Bud Longbrake’s days were numbered, only he didn’t know it.

“Duchess,” Joe said, looking at her license place. “The Earl and the Duchess, got it.”

Missy waggled her fingers. “One might as well have fun with it, right?”

“Who’s next,” Joe asked, “the president of France?”

Missy actually laughed. Then she composed herself and leveled her ice-blue eyes at him. “That would be going the wrong direction, my dear. Earl could buy and sell the president of France.”

The divorce battle had been vicious. Missy had produced a prenuptial agreement signed by both parties that said in the event of a divorce the Longbrake Ranch would be divided evenly between them, even though the property had been owned by Longbrakes for three generations. Bud claimed he couldn’t remember signing the document, and besides, if he had, he thought it was something else. Bud now lived in a log cabin that was once used for winter cowboys six miles from the main house. He lived there with his friend Jack Daniel’s. Between the Earl and the Duchess, who had consolidated their holdings, they were now the largest landowners in northern Wyoming.

Joe shook his head. To Marybeth, he said, “I need to do some work inside.”

He turned and headed for the front door.

Behind him, he heard Missy say, “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“I’m really busy, Mom.”

“Of course you are. But I have these gifts for the girls. Wait until you see them-they’re beautiful. Hand-painted Indonesian batik boho skirts. You’ve never seen anything like them before. Lucy will look great in hers. She looks good in anything.”

He heard Marybeth sigh.

“Eight hundred dollars each,” Missy said, following Marybeth up the walk, “in case you were wondering.”

Said Marybeth, “I wasn’t.”

Once inside, Joe quickly darted for their home office so he wouldn’t have to see Missy when she came inside. He closed the door and reached for the road atlas.

He opened the book to the relief map of the U.S., tracing a route from Chicago to Madison on I-90, then continuing on the same interstate through Minnesota and across South Dakota to Keystone. It was a long drive, and there were hundreds of towns and cities en route. He wondered if there were other incidents besides the ones Marybeth had found.

From Rapid City he followed U.S. 18 south to Hot Springs, South Dakota, then south all the way to Cheyenne on U.S. 85. They could have stayed on 85 or jumped onto I-25 south through Denver to I-70 west, south on U.S. 24 past Vail, west on U.S. 82 to Aspen.

He sat back. A hell of a journey, he thought. But where were they headed next? What were they driving?

He hoped he would be present if April contacted Sheridan again so he could feed his daughter questions to ask. He made a list: