“I reminded him they always had a place.” Safine finally cracked a grin. “He said they’d come once there was no meat on their bones, so they could sleep in peace. I’m telling you, he’s onto us lately.”
“Seems like everyone is these days,” Decker murmured. The newspaper headline still made his head ache.
Three Hawk’s irreverence aside, the fact the Lakota spoke so freely of Ender’s Ridge didn’t bode well. They’d always known, of course, but the existence of who—or what—called Ender’s Ridge home, had been left unspoken among them until recently.
He shifted the saddlebag on his shoulder and joined Safine on the steps after she drained her glass.
“Find anything else out about our problem next door?” she asked, suspicion edging her words.
“He’s the nephew.”
Safine’s eyebrow arched and she stopped at the top of the staircase. “Still think we should wait until he goes off the rails to kill him?”
Laurie Lane ran from something.
Law, love, longing.
It would catch up to him, even in this town, and Decker would be there to strike when he no longer looked over his shoulder.
“We’ll give him a month,” Decker said.
Mr. Lane’s face flashed into his mind, pained and cloaked in recited lines.
Perhaps he’d been too harsh. But maybe he, alone, would force the preacher back to where he belonged without more bloodshed.
