knowing what else to do to address the situation, Kate was out the door and into the rainstorm Hurricane Genevieve was offering as an hors d’oeuvre.
Tyler was waiting at the convenience store/bait shop when Kate arrived. He was dressed in a rain slicker and had gear rolled up in a sleeping bag slung over one shoulder. During storm season, it was better to be safe than sorry. Carrying gear back out if it wasn’t needed was much easier than needing gear and not having it.
Kate parked at the pump, topped off the gas tank, then went inside, struggling against the high winds. They had to be at least fifty miles an hour, and the storm hadn’t even reached them yet.
“The woman of the hour,” Marty Dillworth said. He was a big man with fuzzy black hair and a scruffy beard. He’d gone away to Florida State University for a computer degree or film degree. No one could ever settle on one story or the other when they were talking about Marty. He wore sweat pants and a superhero T-shirt.
“What’s that about?” Kate asked. They were the only ones in the store. Wind and the big plate-glass windows didn’t mix and no one wanted to be around them.
“The prison bus,” Tyler said. “I didn’t know about that.”
“And I didn’t know about the dentist you opened up a can of whup-ass on.”
“Anesthesiologist,” Kate corrected automatically.
Marty grinned and shrugged. “Whatever. We were just catching up on our favorite Kate Garrett stories.”
“You two,” Kate told them, “have way too much time on your hands if that’s how you’re spending it.”
“It gets more interesting,” Marty said. “Turns out the anesthesiologist had an arrest warrant out for his butt.”
“Why?”
“I heard improper conduct with a patient or two. Homer, over at the sheriff’s office, mentioned something about digital pictures of those patients in his possession.”
Kate felt a little better about the confrontation she’d had with Dr. Darrel Mathis. It was better to incapacitate by force a sleaze rather than a drunk.
“Tyler showed me the video footage of you kicking that guy’s ass.” Marty shoved out his thumbs. “Two thumbs up. Way up.”
“Not exactly the career choice I had in mind,” Kate said.
“And the prison-bus thing is adding a new wrinkle,” Tyler said, pointing to the small television set that kept fading in and out on the local channels. “Seems one of those prisoners turned up dead.”
Kate’s thoughts immediately turned to the blond man she’d seen with Jolly. The one who had taken her keys from her. “Which one?” She hoped it wasn’t the blond man. According to the news reports, Shane was the only one of the escapees who hadn’t been part of Desiree Martini’s kidnapping and disappearance.
“Some guy named Phil,” Tyler said.
Phil Lewis, Kate remembered. She didn’t remember much about him other than he’d been one of Jolly’s gang. “What happened to him?”
“The police aren’t releasing that information at this time.” Tyler grimaced. “They’re only confirming that he’s dead. Oh, and they found your Jeep.”
“Where?”
“Not far from the campsites we’re heading to tonight. Evidently those guys didn’t try to get too far. Or maybe they wrecked your Jeep during their getaway. Sheriff Bannock and the FBI aren’t saying.”
“The FBI is involved? Why?”
“They originally handled the kidnapping thing,” Tyler said. He shrugged. “Maybe they just want to take care of old business. Clean the slate. Something like that.” He paused. “Either way, we’re going to have to be careful out there.”
Kate silently agreed.
“Don’t know,” Marty said as he rang up Kate’s gas and the supplies she’d ordered from him. “With this storm coming, I’m not sure if I’d want to face the storm or those escaped cons.”
Neither, Kate thought, but she knew that was too much to hope for. But she wondered about the dead man. How and why had he died?
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