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Robin stayed put.
“She said you’re doing a piece on Keefe. He was a real good guy. Make sure you say that and—”
Until she spoke, I didn’t realize I’d expected at some level that she would whine. She did not. Her voice was neutral, though quick.
“We are. You know him. When did you last talk to him?”
“Yesterday. We came up here and—”
“Robin, be quiet. You have no idea how these things work and—”
“How what works? Keefe’s dead. Dead.” Her voice broke.
“And that’s a shame. But I’m still going to buy this ranch for you and that—”
“Not for me. For yourself.”
“—should make you happy, since this place is so almighty important to you. This place that transformed you.” With the twist of that word, the crack in the façade of his gratitude widened to a chasm. “And you go off with a stranger — won’t say a word to me, but you’ll talk to him. Tell him everything. Proclaiming me an ogre, telling him—”
“We didn’t talk. Not about you. Not about me. Not about anything. That was the point. Just to be with him and not talk.”
“They were like this yesterday, too,” Brenda said to the universe. “Keefe tried to square things between the two of them best he could, telling them over and over he appreciated them giving him the DNA test, but he’s not — wasn’t — the best with people and he—” Her hat tipped toward Randall. “—wouldn’t shut up. And she—” Toward Robin now. “—wouldn’t talk.”
Randall Kenyon was here the day before the shooting. Interesting.
“Shut up, Brenda.” Wendy’s words didn’t have much heat this time. Maybe she’d abandoned all hope of quieting Brenda.
Randall had another idea. He backtracked to wrap a hand around his stationary daughter’s arm just above the elbow. “C’mon, Robin.”
“You gave Keefe a DNA test?”
Neither showed any sign that I’d spoken.
Robin said, “I want to stay.”
“No. We’re going.”
This time he tugged.
She didn’t resist a lot beyond grimaces and RAN-dalls that made up for the previous lack of whiny. Those RAN-dalls were ostensibly on our side, so I can only imagine they sounded worse to him. Along with being called by his first name rather than Dad or Father or Pops — No, he wasn’t a Pops type.
He might even be the type to tell his daughter to call him by his first name so he’d seemed younger.
He had her bundled into the passenger seat quickly, went around the back of the vehicle, and got in behind the steering wheel.
Diana who’d kept shooting, raised a questioning eyebrow at me without removing her focus from getting the shot.
She’d do what she thought best, but I nodded anyway.
Even when the pickup started toward the bridge and the way out, she stepped into the center of the drive, where he couldn’t help but see her in his rear-view mirror.
How fast could the guy throw it in reverse and — “Diana...”
“No worries,” she said. “They’re gone.”
With the pickup out of sight and her returning toward us, I met her halfway. “Diana...” was all I got out.
“Making a point. He nearly touched my camera lens. Nobody but me touches this lens.”
