Hot on the Trail. Vicki Tharp

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СКАЧАТЬ night. After dinner. He went to catch the late AA meeting in Murdock.”

      “No one saw him return?”

      She shook her head. “As I said, it was a late meeting. I vaguely remember the shine of his headlights in my window as he pulled past the house last night, but I didn’t see him.”

      “What time was that?”

      Jenna thought back to the night before. She’d been reading in bed. “Ten thirty or so…the first time.”

      “What do you mean the ‘first time’?”

      It was coming back to her now. “I saw lights flash about ten thirty. When I got up to use the restroom around midnight, I saw lights then, too. I was half-asleep. I didn’t think anything about it.”

      “Was it Kurt both times?”

      “Honestly, I can’t say for sure it was him either time. I never went to the window. I just assumed it was him.”

      “Could a friend have followed him home?”

      “Kurt’s only been here a month. He didn’t have any friends outside of the ranch. Not that he’d mentioned.”

      “Someone from his meetings, maybe?”

      Jenna shrugged. “I have no idea. You would have to ask them.”

      “And as far as you know, he hasn’t been using since he’d been here.” St. John had his little spiral notepad out, scribbling away as he noted her replies.

      “He’d been lucid, coherent, with clean drug tests. And clean tests for the six months prior to coming here, according to his doctor. This isn’t a drug treatment facility. The veterans have to be alcohol- and drug-free before they’re approved to come.”

      “Wouldn’t be the first time an addict has relapsed.”

      “No.” Jenna focused on the clods of dirt on the floor mats. “I don’t suppose it would. He’d seemed to be doing so well. The horses were starting to trust him…he was a little rough around the edges. Everyone liked him, though…” Jenna raised her hands and let them flop back into her lap. Then she glanced back up at the sheriff. “What the hell am I doing? Who am I to think I could do this? That I could help these men and women?”

      “Whoa, now,” Boomer cut in as he stepped up to the truck.

      She hadn’t seen him approach. Or heard the coroner’s car pull up. Through the windshield, she watched as a sheriff’s deputy finished with the photographs and the coroner moved in. A wide man with a short body. Because of his girth, he squatted unsteadily beside Kurt.

      “Jenna.” Boomer drew her attention to him. The compassion in his eyes, that of a man who had lived through worse, who knew what she was going through, made it difficult to keep eye contact. “This isn’t your fault. Not even close.”

      “But—”

      Boomer made a sound in the back of his throat, the kind she often used when Dink was getting into something he shouldn’t. It shut her up. To the sheriff, he said, “Are you done here?”

      “For now.”

      St. John stepped back, and Boomer helped Jenna out of the truck. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head. “Come on. We have a lot of things to figure out.”

      * * * *

      Jenna and Sidney sat at the long wooden table in her grandmother’s kitchen, their cups of coffee growing cold in front of them. Kurt’s body had been taken away, the last picture had been taken, the last deputy had left.

      Boomer perched on a bar stool at the counter between the kitchen and the table, and Lottie was doing something with flour and dough that involved a lot of pounding and kneading and rolling and kneading and pounding again.

      “Your grandfather will be in tonight,” her grandmother said. “He cut the cattlemen’s meeting short and will catch the last flight out of Boise.”

      “I called Hank and Mac on the satellite phone, but they’re so far out, it’ll be dark before they’re home,” Boomer said.

      Jenna took the information in. A mental paralysis had her staring blindly at the table. Alby and Santos were out checking fences, out of radio range, oblivious to the tragedy.

      “We need to make those calls,” Boomer said.

      Jenna glanced at the notepad and the list of people she needed to notify. “I need to make those calls. This is my deal, my program, my calls.”

      The stool barked as Boomer stood abruptly and snagged the pad of paper out from beneath her pen tip. He shook it in the air. “You may have started the program, but we’re all a part of this.”

      Sidney took a sip of her cold coffee, her nose wrinkled. Her short red hair lay flat against her head, the mousse having worn out from all the times she’d scrubbed her fingers through it. “Bryan’s right. This isn’t something you should have to do alone. We’ll divvy up the calls.”

      Jenna’s chest got tight again, and her nose stung. “Have I ever told you guys how lucky I am to have you in my life?”

      “Psssh.” Sidney waved her hand dismissively. “You’re family. No blood relation required.”

      “I’ll notify his mother,” her grandmother offered.

      Boomer copied down the number on a new sheet and handed it to Lottie, who pinched the corner between two flour-covered fingers.

      “I’ll call the funeral home,” Sidney volunteered.

      Boomer scribbled on a clean sheet and gave it to his wife. “I’ll notify the Veterans Administration and the state licensing board.” Again, he scribbled down the numbers, tore the page free, and stuck it to the counter next to him. “That leaves…” Boomer glanced up, and his expression softened.

      “Quinn.” The name came out of Jenna’s mouth, quick and raspy. Her hand trembled as she reached for her cup, and a dollop of cold coffee lopped over the side.

      “I’ll call Quinn,” Boomer said. “You call the licensing board.”

      “No,” Jenna said, maybe a little too forcefully. Boomer and Sidney looked at her, and Lottie stopped her kneading. “He’s my…” Ex-boyfriend, ex-almost-fiancé. “I mean, he’s …” Kurt’s best friend—the reason Kurt was at the Lazy S to begin with.

      You know, the man who’d put his pride aside to call and get Kurt into your program.

      The man who’d made you promise to take care of Kurt, because he was one of the “special ones.”

      The man whose heart you’re going to break…again.

      Jenna rubbed her temples with the heels of her hands as the acid ate away at the lining of her stomach. Cell by cell, layer by layer. A slow, insidious attack. She glanced up. Everyone was focused on her. “No,” she said again. Stronger. “That’s СКАЧАТЬ