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They settled in a booth in the corner, and the waitress poured them some coffee.
Jim planted his elbows on the table. “Tell us what you know, Belinda. If Dax had confided in me instead of you sending me cryptic messages after someone stabbed him, maybe he wouldn’t be lying in that hospital bed right now.”
“I don’t know much.” Belinda swirled some cream in her coffee. “Dax got out of the joint and came to me in Seattle. We had a good thing going. He was off the pills and the booze, and then he got a phone call that sent him over the edge.”
“Dax? Nothing sends Dax over the edge.”
“I know, right? This did.”
Scarlett asked, “Did he tell you about the phone call?”
“He didn’t say much. It had something to do with his past. He’d planned to ignore the whole thing until he found out you were in Timberline, J.T.”
“Me? He went back to Timberline because of me?”
Belinda traced the rim of her coffee cup with the tip of her finger as she gazed into the caramel-colored liquid. “He was damned proud of you, J.T., of your service. He always bragged about his medaled-up little brother.”
A knot formed in Jim’s chest. “I didn’t... We haven’t had much contact.”
Belinda lifted one narrow shoulder. “Dax is an ex-con. Just figured you didn’t want him around.”
Jim opened his mouth to ask a question and then snapped it shut when the waitress showed up. They ordered, and then Jim crossed his arms on the table, hunching forward.
“What did he think he was going to protect me from in Timberline?”
“He wouldn’t tell me and he wouldn’t let me come with him. All I know is the phone call had something to with whatever he’d been involved in here before with his old man. I got the feeling that the person on the other end of the line wanted him to pick up where the Lords had left off.”
Scarlett tapped her water glass. “Rusty and Chewy must’ve been called back, too, and it looks like Chewy’s the only one who was game—unless he turns up dead like Rusty.”
“What the hell is going on in this town?” Belinda cradled her coffee cup as if warming her hands. “Who’s inviting the Lords back and for what purpose?”
Scarlett shot Jim a glance. “We’re not sure and it’s best you don’t know anything more. What we think is that someone hired the Lords to kidnap children twenty-five years ago in exchange for a piece of the drug trade on the Washington peninsula.”
Belinda’s heavily lined eyes widened. “Dax kidnapping kids? I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not excusing him, Belinda, but he was just a teenager himself and influenced by our father. It was always hard to defy our old man. Dax was also using. Who knows what kind of pressure the Lords put on him.”
“And the important thing?” Scarlett tapped Belinda’s tattooed wrist. “He said no this time. That’s why he’s in that hospital bed fighting for his life.”
The waitress brought their plates of food, but even after she left nobody started eating.
Belinda chased a potato around her plate with a fork. “I think Dax pretended to go along with it to buy time...and to protect you. I think he took a delivery of those drugs.”
“I think you’re right.” Jim nodded and grabbed the ketchup bottle. “He took the drugs, hid them and then reneged on the deal.”
“So, that’s the text he had you send to Jim, Belinda, but what does it mean?”
“He didn’t tell me. He texted me yesterday morning and asked me to send those words to his brother if anything happened to him. When I tried to call him to ask him what the hell was going on, he wouldn’t respond.” Belinda dabbed at her nose with a napkin.
“It has to mean something to me and to Dax—where it all started.” Jim scratched the stubble on his chin. “Just wish he hadn’t been so vague. Where what started? The whole Timberline Trio case?”
“Whatever happened to those kids?” Belinda finally sawed off an edge of her omelet and took a bite.
“Nobody knows. Poof.” Scarlett flicked her fingers in the air. “They disappeared—no bodies, no trace.”
