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“You say you knew her eleven years ago. How did you know her then?”
“I’m a game warden. We met the summer after she graduated from high school.”
Cord’s tone was steely as he said, “You’re the game warden. Do you have any idea how much upheaval you caused coming around the house like you did? We were away at college at the time, but when we called home, we heard all about how much you upset Veronica. And they said you were old enough to be her father. That makes you an old man now. What the hell are you doing messing with a girl Veronica’s age? If you hurt my little sister I swear by all that’s holy—”
“Hold on a minute. I went to her house twice. Once to answer a call about an illegally trapped eagle and a second time in answer to her follow-up call about the same eagle. If you weren’t there, how do you know what happened?”
“I heard about it from my brothers, Jesse and Barry, and from Mom and Dad, and Addison. You don’t understand, McDaniel. Veronica is really reclusive and emotional. She gets her feelings hurt easily—”
“Did you ever hear her side of it? Judging by her account of that same visit, it was your brothers and their friends who were the ones dealing out all the hurt. And I’m twelve years older than your sister, Cord. That was the only reason I walked away from her eleven years ago, because I thought that was too big an age gap. She’s twenty-nine now and twelve years means nothing, so you just be careful with the insults—”
“Phil and Gordon told me you were old enough to be her father—”
“Only if I fathered her at the age of eleven. I was thirty when I met her.”
“Oh. Well, shit.”
“Cord, I mean no disrespect when I say this, but all is not as it seems in your family. Did you know that Veronica has a history of being bullied?”
“I knew there were a few times at school. But what does that have to do with—”
“I’m talking about within your family, and your family friends. I think you need to confront Phil and Gordon, and get the full story from your brothers, and your damned snotty sister, Addison.”
Cord snorted into the phone. “Hey, Jackson, Game Warden thinks Addison is snotty.”
Over the connection, Travis thought he heard a wry voice say, “He doesn’t know the half of it.”
Cord said, “Why would she think she was bullied at home?” In his voice as he asked was a trace of hurt—and maybe remorse.
“Do you recall her ever standing up for herself when she was picked on?”
There was a long pause. “That was pretty difficult for her. She was more likely to withdraw. That’s why they pushed her, I think, to get her to stand up for herself.”
“Their strategy didn’t work and it’s affecting her even now. It doesn’t sound to me like she learned how to stand up to bullies. She withdraws. That’s why she’s successful online. When she needs to withdraw she can do it more easily than she could face-to-face.”
“We tried to get them to stop, once we realized how it hurt her. There’s five years difference between us so she was still pretty young when we went to college. Jesse and Barry were little shits when they were teenagers.”
“Judging by what she’s told us, little has changed.”
“We took them aside before we left for school and told them that shit had to stop. Addison was more difficult. She never listened very well, the little snot.”
“When was the last time you saw her for the holidays?”
An even longer pause that time. “Last time we saw her at Christmas was when we barged in on her at her apartment for Christmas. She was working. She works a lot.”
“When was the last time she went home for Christmas?”
“Far as I know, her last Christmas at home was the year before she went off college. But we thought she was always working and just too busy to come home.”
“She lives in Billings. Your family ranch is less than an hour from there. It’s not like she had to travel cross country.”
There was an exchange of voices on the other end and a different male voice came on the line. “This is Jackson Benedict. So, you’re telling us that Veronica has been bullied all this time? And that she doesn’t want anything to do with her family, because that’s bullshit. We love Veronica, and we tried to get them to stop. We thought they did. She’s always been one to hide her feelings. When we call her, getting her to open up is still hard sometimes. She’s always busy with one deadline or another.”
