Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(30)
Diaper Dan no more.
Let the real losers shoot up their school, take a few lives, and eat a pistol barrel when SWAT closed in. Daniel Cross set his sights on the whole country, wanted to take thousands of lives. Millions maybe. He hated them all, no exceptions. Because if they didn’t hate him, they ignored him or frowned when he passed, which was even worse. Now he’d be able to show them all, each and every one, thanks to what he’d found on that Indian reservation.
Zurif and Saflin said they needed a demonstration to prove he wasn’t full of shit and that he really could pull this off.
No problem.
Cross would give them a demonstration, all right. Tomorrow.
He couldn’t wait.
PART THREE
Four newly raised ranging companies, have all been organized, and taken their several stations on our frontier. We know they are true men, and they know exactly what they are about. With many of them Indian and Mexican fighting has been their trade for years. That they may be permanently retained in the service on our frontier is extremely desirable.
—Victoria Advocate, November 16, 1848
24
SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS
“Since when do you drink Hires?” Caitlin asked, rolling around in her hand the frosty bottle Cort Wesley had just given her, fresh from the fridge.
He took a seat next to her on the porch swing of his house in Shavano Park. “I’ve kind of developed a taste for it.”
It was the kind of place he never expected to live. His girlfriend Maura Torres’s house, actually, inherited by his boys after they’d witnessed her murder. He could have moved them elsewhere, but Cort Wesley wanted Dylan and Luke never to forget what had happened here, or the impression that violence seen up close and personal can leave on a person. In his experience, those who disagreed with that thinking had never experienced violence firsthand.
“You ever do any personal appearances?” he asked Caitlin suddenly.
“Like what?”
“Like at a prestigious prep school, maybe as the graduation speaker, come May.”
“Graduation speaker?”
“Part of the deal I cut with the principal of Luke’s school.”
“Do I want to know the details?”
“Luke gets to room with Zach next year. That enough?”
“What’s the date of this graduation?” Caitlin asked him, and sipped her root beer.
She hadn’t had root beer since she was a little girl, at a local soda fountain with her granddad. A scoop of vanilla ice cream floated amid the suds on top, on Earl Strong’s recommendation.
“You got that look, Ranger,” Cort Wesley said to her.
“What look might that be?”
“The one that says something’s grabbed hold and won’t let go.”
“Sam Bob Jackson.”
“Is that a real person?”
“The minerals broker I went to see in Houston. If he was any more slimy you’d have to hose down his office with disinfectant.”
“Probably comes with the territory in that business.”
“This was different. Son of a bitch is hiding something, for sure. Something just doesn’t feel right.”
Cort Wesley chuckled. “You being an expert on human behavioral traits.”
“This coming from somebody who takes advice from a ghost.”
Cort Wesley tipped his bottle toward her. “How’s the root beer?”
“Damn fine.”
“Then it’s good advice.” Caitlin watched his face grow somber. “Think I’ll head back up to that Indian reservation in the morning. Something doesn’t feel right there, either.”
She held his stare until a pair of june bugs buzzed between them. “You give Luke the news?”
“Nope. I’d rather he didn’t know I had any part in it.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want him thinking the two of us are always going to be there to win all his battles for him.”
“You mean fight, not win.”
Cort Wesley drained the rest of his Hires. “I’ve got the same feeling you do.”
“That the next battle’s right around the next corner.” Caitlin felt her phone vibrate and found a voice mail from a call she hadn’t noticed. “It’s from Jones. I better see what he wants.”
“Knock yourself out,” Cort Wesley said, tipping his root beer toward her and watching her expression tighten as she listened to the message. “Bad?”
“That’s likely an understatement, Cort Wesley. Looks like tomorrow’s going to be another interesting day.”
25
BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS
“Drink your tea,” Ela said, sipping from her own steaming cup.
Dylan took one sip, and then another, wrinkling his nose at the effort.
“You ever hear of sugar?” He realized he couldn’t find his phone. He ruffled the blanket in search of it, coming up with Ela’s iPhone 6s instead. “I should’ve gotten you a different case, so we could tell them apart.”
She gave him the smile she’d first flashed upon taking the seat next to him in their Native American studies class at Brown. Dylan hadn’t even been sure it was aimed at him, to the point where he looked around to see if there was another guy in the area, and he still hadn’t known how to respond when he discovered there wasn’t.