style="font-size:15px;"> “Amy, come in,” Carey said quietly, waiting with his fingers on the volume knob, ready to dial it down in a hurry if her response was too sharp. She took the hint from his whispered transmission and responded by simply pressing her transmit button without saying a word.
“I think I know what’s going on. Mack wants his two cash cows back; sure, I’ll believe that. But why would the sheriff help Mack with his little prostitution ring? He might look the other way, especially if his deputies, or heck, even the sheriff himself, had spent some after-hours time at the bar. But to come out here and know that Mack was going to try to burn us out? That would have been almost a dozen counts of murder if Mack’s plan had succeeded. You don’t take a chance on killing people, accidentally or not, over a couple of runaway prostitutes. There has to be more to this than that.”
“What else are you thinking it could it be?” Amy whispered into her radio, suddenly very business-like. Carey could almost see her face in his mind, her forehead creased with worry, her blue eyes practically burning as she thought over what he would say next. He pushed aside the thoughts of her beautiful features and answered her.
Carey’s anger at his own understanding of the situation made him no longer concerned about secrecy and silence. “Those two showed up here looking like the most pathetic, half-starved, half-dead, and half-alive creatures I’ve ever laid eyes on. They were so strung out on drugs, it’s a wonder they could even walk on their little stick legs, let alone find the place. My dad put them up in a cabin off our property so they could clean up a little before we helped them figure out what to do next.”
“It’s not uncommon for prostitutes to use drugs, Carey.” She knew from her several years’ experience on the street and had always felt some level of empathy for those working women—many of them just kids, while just as many of them were hardened, older women—who’d ended up in prostitution and drugs, because it was often hard to tell which had come first in their lives.
“Yeah, but where’d they get the drugs? Even the sheriff said Mack was suspected of selling drugs. He’s been doping those girls up and pimping them out with the same stuff he sells. And the sheriff’s getting paid to look the other way, if he’s not actually a part of the operation.”
“And you think Mack isn’t worried so much about getting his hookers back as he is getting his witnesses back,” Amy stated boldly, her voice beginning to shake with anger as she put it all together.
“Exactly. By the time he fed them, clothed them, and kept them pumped full of drugs, he couldn’t have been making that much money off them. They were just another draw to get guys in the door of his bar. But now that they’re gone, he has no way of knowing what they’ll say and who they’ll say it to.”
“But for the sheriff to put himself at this much risk, he has to be in pretty deep. And those girls must have seen him,” Amy said angrily. There were a lot of things she could tolerate, but a crooked cop was not one of them.
Carey felt anxious. A part of him was kind of hoping that Amy, with her years of police training, would shoot his theory full of holes and tell him it just wasn’t possible. He’d been counting on her to come up with a different idea, one that was safer and meant that the police and a drug dealer weren’t outside at that very moment, ready to stop at nothing to protect their business and their secret.
At the same time, it felt good to be believed and to finally make sense of what was happening. His contentment was short-lived when Amy’s voice came through the radio again.
“I know you don’t want to scare your dad, especially with your brother in the hospital, but this is now officially bigger than both of us. We need to get on the satellite phone and have him radio the DEA. We need some armed officials we can trust, not any of these local or even nearby state guys. There’s no telling how far Matthews’ reach spreads.”
Carey held his radio up to answer, but never had the chance. He felt the dull blow of a solid object colliding with the back of his head, momentarily blinded by bright flashes of radiating pain behind his eyes. His knees gave way underneath him and he crumpled to the floor, landing facedown and unconscious.
Chapter Fourteen
“Miranda!” Gracie screamed in excitement, flying at her older sister and tackling her in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re back! Did you have a good honeymoon? Was it…romantic?” she asked, batting her eyelashes and pretending to swoon.
“I'm not answering that until you are much, much older,” Miranda answered with a shocked laugh. She was most surprised by the change in Gracie’s whole personality, for the better of course. The mousy girl who’d been through one horrible ordeal after another in her short life had been replaced by this exuberant, bouncy cowgirl. We’ll live on this cattle drive year-round for all I care, if it will keep that smile on Gracie’s face, She thought. “Have you had a good time? Did you behave yourself?”
“Yes, and yes,” Gracie answered soundly with a firm nod. She grinned broadly, lighting up her sun-kissed face. “So are you guys gonna finish the drive with us?”
“That we are! We’re here ‘til the end of the line!” Casey said, coming up behind Miranda and pulling her in a passionate hug that made Gracie stick her tongue out.
“Ewwwww, it’s not gonna be like that the whole rest of the trip, is it? They only feed us so many meals a day, and if I puke…”
“We promise to behave ourselves,” Miranda promised with a sly smile. “At least when impressionable children are around! Weren’t you the one who was just asking me for juicy details?” Casey stiffened behind her, the look of embarrassed horror on his face enough to send Gracie into fits of giggles.
“I’m out! Girl talk can commence upon my departure!” He walked away with a wave behind him, headed off to check on their horses and to load their gear for the ride. Gracie turned to her older sister with a serious look.
“Miranda, are you really happy?” She asked, cringing a little bit. “I mean, I know you only came out here because of me, because of what…that guy…did to me.” Miranda didn’t need any reminders of finding her drunken ex-boyfriend trying to force himself on her little sister, because the memory of that image would be burned in her brain until the day she died. She took both of Gracie’s hands in hers and beamed.
“Gracie, we didn’t come out west because of you. We came because we both needed a fresh start and a new outlook on life. But to answer your question, yes, I’m one hundred percent, ecstatically happy!” Miranda pulled her baby sister into a hug and held her, rubbing small, reassuring circles on her back. When they stepped apart, there were tears in the big sister’s eyes, brilliant happiness showing in the younger.
“Ready to go?” Gracie asked, eager to get back on her beloved horse and keep moving. This whole experience had been less about empowering her and more about just letting her be a typical teenage girl who loved horses. So what if she’d been sleeping on the ground and eating her food off her lap? It was a small price to pay for this kind of freedom.
They walked arm in arm to the temporary corral to saddle up, Miranda telling Gracie the limited details about where they went, how nice the hotel had been, and other harmless specifics like that. Gracie shared the news from the drive, that first Carey had gone back home to look after the ranch because of some problem—she didn’t know what—and then Joseph had been taken to the hospital after being thrown from his horse, meaning Bernard had gone with him.
“I thought all this only happened yesterday! So you’ve been
