Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(52)

“But no oil.”

Caitlin shook her head. “No oil.”





48

BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS

Dylan sat in the backseat of the truck, both Cort Wesley and Caitlin looking at him from the front.

“I don’t know how my mom’s medal got there,” he said at last, as if finally finding his voice. “I don’t know, okay?”

“No, son, it’s not okay,” Cort Wesley snapped, the bands of muscle in his neck telling Caitlin it was all he could do to keep from exploding.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I—”

“No? What did you mean, exactly?”

“I kind of passed out last night.”

“Come again?”

“I was with Ela. I passed out.”

“From drinking?”

“No,” Dylan said, his mouth barely moving.

“What then?” Cort Wesley asked, dragging the words out of his mouth.

“I think it was peyote.”

“Peyote? So you dropped out of college to do a drug known to turn people’s minds to mush?”

“I didn’t drop out.”

“But you did peyote, right?”

Caitlin chimed in when Dylan failed to answer Cort Wesley’s question. “Dylan, you said you passed out. Does that mean you don’t remember anything?”

“I remember … some things.”

Caitlin left that part hanging. “I’m saying this because peyote’s known to create fugue states. Lost time, where hours can pass and you have no recollection of what happened or what you did.”

“I know I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Well,” Cort Wesley said, voice scratchy and raw, “what did you do?”

“Describe your clothes,” Caitlin told Dylan, before he could answer.

“Huh?”

“When you came to this morning, were your clothes dirty, your boots scuffed up? Any blood anywhere on your person?”

“No to all.”

“And when did you notice your mother’s medal was missing?”

“Are you interrogating me?”

“I’m asking you,” Caitlin told him.

“Later that morning. I figured it must be back at Ela’s, but I couldn’t find it.”

Caitlin felt Cort Wesley look across the seat at her. She wished she could jam a hand down his throat, knowing what was coming.

“Maybe we’re talking to the wrong college dropout here.”

“What’s that mean?” Dylan asked, rocking forward until his father’s gaze pushed him back against the seat again.

“That you’ve been used, son. That girl twisted you around her finger and you were too busy thinking with what’s squeezed into those jeans to realize it. Smarten up, will you? When you going to goddamn learn? I guess never, since getting yourself beaten to within an inch of your life didn’t change anything last time.”

Dylan reached for the door, forgetting that Cort Wesley had locked them after he closed it behind him.

“How’s it feel to be stuck in a small space, son? Because prison’s what you’d be looking at right now, if somebody didn’t see fit to do Caitlin a big, fat favor. Notice he didn’t give her back the medal, though. That means this could turn bad in a real quick hurry, unless we get to the bottom of things before somebody on a different wavelength gets the jump on us.”

Dylan eased himself away from the door. “What else you need from me?” he asked, his words aimed between them.

Caitlin didn’t hesitate, while remembering her tone again. “Was Ela with you all night?”

He swallowed hard. “I can’t say for sure, after a time.”

She didn’t push things on that front, knowing that the peyote had stolen too much of the boy’s memory of last night for him to do her much good at all. Ela could have flown to Mars and back, with Dylan thinking she’d been lying beside him the whole time.

“There is something…” he began suddenly.

“Go on,” Caitlin urged, when Dylan seemed hesitant again.

“The first time we went to visit Ela’s grandfather, I’m pretty sure I saw somebody, or something, in one of those caves that overlooks his property.” Dylan looked toward his father. “Can I go now?”

Cort Wesley nodded, and this time Dylan worked the door until the lock popped open. He burst out, nearly tumbling to the ground, before making his way back toward Ela and the cousins she called the Lost Boys.

“That went well,” Cort Wesley managed, trailing Dylan with his eyes the whole time.

“Know what I think, Cort Wesley?”

“That we should take a look at those caves ourselves, I’m guessing,” he said, his gaze clinging to his son.





PART FIVE

Another tale concerns the noted Texas Rangers. They would wait on the Texas side of the Red River for outlaws and criminals to cross the border into Oklahoma and stop at Brown Springs for water. They would shoot them from across the river, then hurry across and bury them on the spot.



—Robert F. Turpin, Forgotten Ghost Tales and Legends of the Old West (Grove, Oklahoma: Bob Turpin Publications, 2013)