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Until he knew the truth, he wouldn’t be all right. Not when his sister lay dead and her killer was on the loose. Not when all the pieces were beginning to fall into place.
The e-mail.
Janet’s death.
A stranger in town and that black Mustang.
There was a very real chance that El Cazador was already here in Fossil Hill. Which meant it was time for Zach to take Katie and disappear again, unless he could find a way to identify the guy and take him down.
“I...think it must be something I ate earlier. A little indigestion.”
She frowned. “Can I get you something? Some antacid, maybe?”
He set aside his napkin and rose. “Thanks, but I have a prescription.” He looked down at Katie, who silently sat next to him. She’d made mountains and valleys in her mashed potatoes and built little stacks of her finely cut pieces of steak, but hadn’t eaten a single bite. Her face was pale and drawn. “I just need to run home for a minute. Come on, Katie.”
“I wanna ride the pony,” she whispered.
“We’ll come back, in just a little while.”
“No!”
“Katie...” He reached out to tousle her hair. “I promise it’ll only take a few minutes.”
She twisted away from him and stood at the other side of her chair, her lower lip thrust out in a mutinous pout. Her voice rose to a wail. “No!”
He felt uneasy about leaving her behind even for ten minutes, but the sudden tears in her eyes showed just how overwrought she was.
“We’ll keep her,” Molly offered. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Katie?”
The little girl gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“See? She’ll be fine.”
Zach scanned the expanse of lawn leading out to the driveway. A small band of mares industriously grazed the hill just beyond the barn, while a half-dozen farm cats lay like sphinxes on a stack of hay by the barn door. Old Gabe snoozed under an oak at the edge of the yard. Nothing unusual. Nothing out of place.
Not yet.
“Thanks,” he murmured. “Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be back for dessert.”
* * * *
BACK AT THE RENTAL house, Zach turned Buffy out into the front yard for a moment, then strode into his bedroom and lifted the gun safes from a high closet shelf. Laying his fingers in the shallow, handprint-shaped trough of the keypad, he tapped in his secret code to unlock the first safe, then withdrew his lightweight Glock 27.
From the second locked safe he retrieved two empty clips and loaded each with hollow-points. Slamming one into the butt of the gun, he chambered a round, dropped the clip to replace that cartridge, then slid the clip back into place. Then he repeated those steps for a second weapon.
After turning on his laptop, he reread the message from El Cazador, looking for some clue he might have missed before.
Nothing. Not even in the thirty-two lines of jumbled words and numbers in the header.
Knowing that an expert could trace the message back to the source, he’d already forwarded a copy to Jerry, Paul at the Dallas DEA office, and to an old friend who’d just retired as a computer forensics specialist with the FBI.
None of the three had responded yet.
He forwarded the message again, adding Contact me. Help me track this guy down.
The computer screen showed a new incoming message, but the message was chillingly brief.
A dusty little town in Colorado isn’t such a good hiding place. I wonder how many other people you care about are going to die before you do?
