the clerk doing?”
The question came from a young guy sitting next to Callie. Rusty-something.
“Touch and go, last I heard.”
Harlan had found the clerk tied up and shoved into a storeroom, his head caved in by a blow much harder than the one he himself had received. Once he saw the poor guy, he knew that he could easily have wound up in the very same condition. So maybe getting beaned by Billy Boy instead of the girlfriend or the potato chip lover was a blessing he should be thankful for.
Tapping the photos, he said, “These are the two perpetrators who helped Lyman escape. We think they may have been his partners in the bank job, but they were wearing ski masks at the time and managed to get away.”
Mercer said, “You run those photos through facial recognition?”
Harlan nodded. “No hits so far, which isn’t much of a surprise considering how bad the resolution is.” He looked at the others. “We found their Chevy Malibu dumped in a field about sixty miles north of the convenience store. Broken water pump. That’s probably where they hitched a ride with the victim. And since people tend to go where they feel most comfortable, I’m hoping they might be local. Maybe one of you crossed paths with them at one time or another.”
He slid the photos to Mercer, who picked up the stack and started shuffling through it. Within seconds, something shifted in the sheriff’s eyes. “Well I’ll be damned. This is getting cozier and cozier.”
“You recognize them?”
Mercer didn’t answer. Instead he took a photo off the top of the stack and spun it across the table toward Callie. “That face look familiar to you?”
Callie caught it, then dropped her gaze, studying the image carefully.
After a moment, she said, “Looks like Megan Pritchard, but this is a little fuzzy and it’s been a while. She hasn’t been around much since her last stint in juvie, and that was like—what?—three, four years ago?”
Mercer shrugged. “Give or take.”
“So who is she?” Harlan asked.
“Megan Pritchard-Breen,” Callie said. “Only nobody uses the Breen part since her mother got a divorce years ago. She’s one of our local troublemakers. Sheriff here likes to call her a wild child, but I think he’s being polite in deference to the family. Sociopath is more accurate.”
“She’s also a bit of a fire bug,” Mercer told him. “So draw your own conclusions.”
“And she’s got family up here?”
Mercer glanced at Callie, and Harlan followed his lead, but she once again averted her gaze. He sensed, however, that this time it had nothing to do with their past. There was a different kind of history at play here. An underlying discomfort she wasn’t anxious to address. And Harlan had the feeling he was the only one in the room who didn’t know about it.
“She’s the granddaughter of Jonah Pritchard,” Mercer said. “And if you spent any significant amount of time in Williamson, you’d recognize the name.”
“Local celebrity?”
“That’s one way of putting it, if you like ‘em old and mean and wealthier than the crown prince of Tangiers.”
“I take it you’re not a fan.”
“Let’s just say the pathology seems to run in the family, only Jonah is a little better at hiding it.” He looked at Callie. “And if that is Megan Pritchard, I think you know what it means.”
She frowned. “You want Rusty and me to go out there.”
“I know you’ve got issues with the old coot, but you are the lead deputy on this case.”
“Out where?” Harlan asked.
“Pritchard Ranch,” Mercer said. “If Meg’s in trouble, she’d go to her grandpa for help. Always has, always will.”
“Which means Billy Boy might be there, as well.”
“That’s the logical assumption. So I’d suggest you three saddle up, pronto. We don’t have a warrant, but maybe the Pritchards will cooperate.”
Harlan nodded, then got to his feet.
“Wait a minute,” Callie said, her frown deepening. “You want him to go with us?”
Mercer’s brows went up again. “Is that a problem? I thought you two were old friends.”
Harlan and Callie exchanged another glance, neither of them willing to tackle that one in public, and Harlan could feel the eyes of everyone in the room shifting in his direction. The office gossip line would be buzzing this afternoon.
Mercer tapped his watch. “Tick tock, Deputy Glass. We’ve got a trio of killers to catch.”
Looking like a woman who had just been condemned to a decade of indentured servitude, Callie reluctantly rolled her chair back and stood up.
Harlan knew exactly how she felt.
Chapter Four
“How much farther is it?” Harlan asked.
These were more or less the first words spoken since the three of them had climbed into Callie’s cruiser. Now that Harlan had broken the silence, Rusty—who had probably sensed the tension in the air and had been smart enough to keep his mouth shut—gestured from the front passenger seat, saying, “Just up the road apiece. About five or six miles.”
To Callie’s mind, it might as well be five or six hundred. With all due respect to the late Jim Farber and his family, she couldn’t wait until this day was over. From Nana Jean’s matchmaking to the surprise appearance of a man she loathed and now this trip out to Pritchard Ranch—the last place she wanted to go—this was turning out to be a record breaker. All future days would surely be measured against this one.
Callie had never considered herself a vindictive woman. She’d never been one to hold on to a grudge. More often than not she found she could remain civil with the tiny handful of men she’d been intimate with. She had long ago convinced herself that she was a much better friend than lover.
But the breakup with Harlan had been different. Maybe it was her immaturity, or maybe it was the simple fact that she had been so head over heels in love with him. Whatever the cause, she had carried this burning resentment toward him a lot longer than she wanted to admit.
It rarely came to the surface, however. No reason it should. She hadn’t seen Harlan in nearly a decade, and had long since learned to get through a day, a week, sometimes even a whole month, without thinking about him. But every time she did, she found herself hating him all over again.
She knew, of course, that her anger was simply a way of masking the pain. Not just because of the breakup, but because of the circumstances surrounding it.
She’d bet good money that if the accident
