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***
She and Dewey were talking in whispers, trying to get said what had to be said without being overheard. Tears were rolling and Carly was wiping snot and shaking so hard she could barely breathe.
“They said if you talked, they would sell me. That there was nowhere I could go that they couldn’t find me. They said they’d turn me into an addict and men would fuck me till I died.”
Dewey’s blood ran cold. The horror on her face. The tears swimming in her eyes. The words cut to the heart of his very soul, and he knew Boss meant it.
“Oh my God, sugar, oh my God. I’m so sorry,” Dewey whispered.
“Sorry ain’t gonna save my life,” Carly said.
Dewey swallowed past the lump in his throat “I won’t talk. That ain’t ever gonna happen. I love you. I’ll die to keep you safe.”
Carly Zane was shattered. She loved Dewey with all her heart, and had since the day they’d met, but she didn’t trust him anymore, and she damn sure didn’t trust the man who’d threatened her to keep his word and leave her alone even if Dewey didn’t give him up.
“I love you, too,” she said. “I wish that had been enough.”
She ended their visit and walked back to their old red truck and drove away from the jail. All of her clothes were in two suitcases in the back seat. She’d withdrawn what money they had from their bank account, plus the little cash stash they’d kept in a box under the bed. She drove out of the city and kept driving into the west, straight into the setting sun.
So by the time Howard and Pickard arrived a few hours later, Dewey was mute. The sight of the two agents who’d arrested him didn’t even make him blink. Their news that Danny Biggers was dead didn’t even faze him. No matter how they worded the questions, he never changed his answer.
“I got nothing to say.”
They left, more frustrated than when they’d arrived, only to learn his wife had visited earlier.
Pickard was frustrated. “Damn it. Something spooked him. Maybe her life was threatened. If he talks, she’s dead.”
Howard nodded. “Definitely a possibility.”
“We’ve still got Lindy Sheets,” Pickard said.
“Somebody’s got her,” Howard muttered. “But I’m not counting on anything until she’s sitting across the table from us in an interrogation room.”
***
Cameron emerged from the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist, only to find Rusty sitting on his bed with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, watching a show on TV. Ghost was standing beside the bed with his chin on the mattress, watching every bite go in Rusty’s mouth.
He sighed. What a beautiful sight.
Rusty looked up. “Lord. You sure did get all the good from your DNA. Good thing I’d already swallowed my last bite or I would have choked on it.”
“He’s begging, isn’t he?”
She looked at Ghost and nodded. “I wasn’t certain he could have popcorn. I told him we had to wait and ask you. So he’s waiting.”
Cameron laughed. “He can have some.”
“Thank God,” Rusty said. “Just look at that face.” Then she took a single piece of popped corn and leaned over and kissed his head. “Good boy for waiting. He said yes.” She held it out, and Ghost licked it out of her fingers and swallowed it whole. She shook her head. “You don’t even know what you ate.”
Cameron laughed again, then dropped the towel and put on a pair of sweats and crawled up onto the bed beside her. He reached for some popcorn, then leaned back against the headboard.
“What are we watching?”
“The Last of the Mohicans. Daniel Day-Lewis version. It always makes me cry.”
“Then why watch it, honey?”
Rusty shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because the good people in the movie never backed down.”
