style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Shit, no.’
She frowned again, as if she wanted to wreck her looks on purpose by doing that all the time. ‘Come on. We have to, Spence.’
‘The police here?’ he said crossly. ‘Think for two seconds with that pea-sized brain of yours, would you? What kind of police are we going to find in Abundance, Montana, for god’s sake? Some fucking little two-bit country copper who doesn’t know his gun from his asshole.’
‘Yes, but—?’
‘If the little turd wants to run away, fucking let him. I don’t want him here anyway.’
‘Spencer, we can’t do that. He’s only nine.’
‘Yeah, nine going on thirty-nine. And it would fucking well serve Phoebe right to have him turn up on her doorstep, that’s what. See how she likes it.’
‘Phoebe’s in the Virgin Islands, Spencer.’
‘Yeah, well, what the fuck do I care?’
‘Spencer.’
‘What the fuck do I care, Sidonie? He can stay with the maid when he gets to LA. I never asked that kid to come up here. I never wanted anything to do with him. I don’t care what the courts say. He’s not my responsibility. Even he knows that, because he doesn’t want to be here any more than I want him.’
Sidonie furrowed her brow more deeply.
‘Stop doing that with your damned forehead, Sidonie! You look like fucking Mr Toad. I’ve told you to stop a hundred times now, so stop it. Or you can just go yourself. If you don’t respect how I do things, you can get out of here too.’
She clapped a hand over her forehead, as if to smooth it out physically. Tears filled her eyes.
‘Oh shit,’ Spencer said. He sighed. ‘Sidonie, listen, calm down. Now listen. We can’t get the police involved. The press will find out. God, it would be a nightmare. It would totally destroy this place. The paparazzi would stake it out from here on to forever. We simply can’t do that.’
‘He’s only nine, Spencer. We can’t just let him disappear either.’
‘Be sensible, Sidonie. He’s probably not even off the property. Think about it. How would he leave, even if he wanted to? There’s almost two miles of private road. Then you come to River Road and no one drives on that except the local ranchers. It’s five more miles before you get to the old highway, and that is the old highway. Again, almost no traffic. Then another seven miles before you get to the main highway and five more after that to Abundance. So he’d have to walk almost twenty miles to get to any kind of civilization. He’s not going to manage that. Not as fat as he is. And he’s not stupid enough to try. He’s a smart boy, Sidonie. He’s playing us. He’ll be hiding somewhere around here, just trying to get the fuck back at me. And I’m not falling for it. I’m not going to play his fucking little game. If we wait long enough, he will come out.’
‘What about coyotes or something?’ Sidonie said.
‘Don’t be blonde. He’s not a chihuahua.’
Sidonie kept on with the sad eyes.
‘OK, look, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll call Jamieson,’ Spencer said. Jamieson was his primary bodyguard in LA, a big burly black dude who looked as if he could bite the balls off a bull. ‘In the morning I’ll call the security agency and ask them to send a couple more guys with Jamieson. They can do everything the police do and much more quietly.’
‘In the morning?’ Sidonie asked dubiously.
‘Yes, in the morning,’ Spencer said decisively and lifted a bottle of Casa Nueva Meritage from the wine rack. ‘Now leave me alone.’
Chapter Ten
They always say in stories how folks go speechless with shock. Up to that point it had been just a tired old cliché in Dixie’s mind, but really, until it’s happened to you, you just never realize what a paralysing experience shock is. Standing in the flatbed of the truck, Dixie stared at the bound-up child, and it was as if the duct tape had fixed her too into motionless silence.
Billy was like a Labrador puppy, bouncing and grinning and waiting for her to get happy. ‘That there’s our ticket to heaven,’ he said.
‘To hell, more likely,’ she replied when she finally found her voice. ‘And jail most certainly. Oh Billy.’ Dixie covered her face with one hand and turned away. ‘I can’t believe this. Dear Jesus, dear, dear Jesus, please make this just a real bad dream.’
‘Let me explain my plan.’
‘Plan? Billy, do you know what you just done? This isn’t playing. This isn’t some game. Do you understand?’
Irritably, Billy slammed the toolbox lid down. ‘For fuck’s sake, Dixie. There’s no pleasing you, is there? First you’re moaning on and on about me taking the job out at Baker’s ranch. And I heard you. So then I go trying hard as I can to set things right, to get Jamie Lee’s funeral paid for and get us a decent life, and you’re still not happy. Nothing I do is ever good enough for you.’ He hopped over the side of the truck and headed back in the house.
‘No! Billy, no.’ Dixie ran after him into the kitchen. ‘We can’t just leave that kid there, shut up in your toolbox. It’s too hot!’
‘That’s how come I put the truck in the garage, stupid.’
‘Billy, the garage is even worse than outdoors. It’s like ninety degrees in there and it’s all closed up. He’ll die.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. I’ll go roll the window down, if that’ll make you happier.’
‘He’s not in the cab. He’s in the toolbox and you’ve got tape over his mouth.’
‘Would you stop screaming? You want all the neighbours to hear? If you want to get us in trouble, that’s the way to do it.’ Taking a beer from the fridge, he opened the tab and drained it in loud, thirsty gulps.
‘What if that boy’s thirsty?’ Dixie said in a quieter voice.
Billy crumpled the beer can with one hand and lofted it at her. Dixie didn’t flinch when the can bounced off her shoulder and clattered to the linoleum.
‘If I knew you were going to act this way, I wouldn’t have bothered,’ he said sulkily. ‘I only did this for you.’
‘I certainly didn’t ask you to go do something like this, so don’t blame me.’
‘Well, it’s your fault. You and all your harping about money all the time. You want me to pay for some goddamned funeral for some fucking bastard who isn’t even my kid, and then you think you got the right to tell me how to do it. I’m a cowboy, Dixie. I was a cowboy before you met me; I was a cowboy when you met me, and I’m still a cowboy; so you shouldn’t keep thinking I ought to be something different. You should know I need to be my own man.’
‘Let him go, Billy. Right now.’
‘You had me right up against the
