Endangered Read Free Page A

you here with Lucy, and this is too close to home. Promise me, Joe.”
    “It’s obvious,” Joe said to both Marybeth and Reed. “A twenty-four-year-old local-hero cowboy takes a liking to my middle daughter and convinces her to take off with him on the rodeo circuit. She doesn’t know about his past, or what he’s capable of, so she goes. A few months later, she gets left in a ditch outside of town. Who
else
would we suspect?”
    Marybeth didn’t respond, but Reed said, “Joe, we’re already on it. I sent two guys out to the Cates house fifteen minutes ago. Supposedly Dallas is at home recuperating from a rodeo injury right now.”
    “He’s home?” Joe said. “When did he come home?”
    “Don’t know,” Reed said. “We’ll find out.”
    “April was probably dumped yesterday,” Joe said. “Do you feel the dots connecting, Mike?”
    “We’re asking him to come in for questioning,” Reed said.
    “I want to sit in.”
    “Not a chance in hell, Joe. I was thinking about letting you watch the monitor down the hall, but if you keep up your attitude, I’ll ban you from the building.”
    Joe looked to Marybeth for support, but she shook her head with sympathy instead.
    Reed said, “All we need is for you to draw down on our suspect during the initial inquiry and for him to press charges against us and you. No, Joe, if we want to do this right, we do it by the book.”
    “Promise me,” Marybeth said.
    Joe looked down at his boots.
    He said, “I promise.”
    She squeezed his hand.
    Then he looked hard at Mike Reed from under the brim of his hat. He said, “Mike, I know you’ll do your best and I’ll behave. But if something goes pear-shaped, things are going to get western around here.”
    “I expected you to say that,” Reed said with a sigh.
    —
    B
LUNT FORCE TRAUMA.
    The very words were brutal in and of themselves, Joe thought as he and Marybeth trailed April’s gurney down the hallway. He could hear the helicopter approaching outside, hovering over the helipad on the roof of the hospital.
    April was bundled up and he couldn’t see her face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. Joe was grateful Marybeth had positively identified her earlier.
    He was unnerved by the number of suspended plastic packets that dripped fluids into tubes that snaked beneath the sheets. An orderly rolled a monitor on wheels alongside the gurney. Her body looked small and frail beneath the covers, and she didn’t respond when the orderlies secured her to the gurney with straps.
    Joe reached down and squeezed her hand through the blankets. It was supple, but there was no pressure back.
    “Let me know how it goes,” Joe said to Marybeth, raising his voice so as to be heard over the wash of the rotors.
    “Of course,” she said, pulling him close one last time before she left. Her eyes glistened with tears.
    Joe watched as the gurney was hoisted into the helicopter. A crew member reached down from the hatch and helped Marybeth step up inside. Seconds later, the door was secured and the helicopter lifted.
    Joe clamped his hat tight on his head with his right hand and silently asked God to save April, because she’d suffered enough in her short life, and to give Marybeth the strength to carry on.
    —
    “H OW WEL L DO YOU KNOW the Cates family?” Reed asked Joe as he drove them to the Twelve Sleep County Building. Joe was in the passenger seat of the specially equipped van. Deputy Boner had volunteered to follow them in Joe’s pickup and to keep an eye on Daisy until Joe could retrieve his vehicle and his dog.
    “I’ve tangled with them before,” Joe said. “Mainly with Bull, the oldest son. I’ve met the old man, Eldon, and I’ve been to his elk camp a few times.”
    He knew the Cateses lived on twelve acres in the breaklands. The property contained a smattering of old structures in the scrub pine, including the shambled main house, a barn, and several falling-down outbuildings. Their place was about twenty minutes