At the Crossroads (Buckhorn, Montana #3)(14)
“WHAT THE HELL are you smiling about?” Fred Durham whispered across the table at his son. He was furious with Tyrell after that stunt he’d pulled with not giving up his cell phone—let alone videoing these dangerous men. Why hadn’t the fool dialed 9-1-1 instead? If these men realized that he still had his phone...
Tyrell took his time turning to look at him. “Was I smiling? Sorry.” He took another bite of his pancake before pushing his plate away. The sullen, angry expression wasn’t anything knew. Fred had come to hate it. He wanted to slap it off his son’s face. He’d never raised his hand to the boy. Maybe that had been the problem. If his wife Emily were still around, she’d say it was.
Then again, one of the reasons he suspected Emily had bailed on them was that Tyrell had been such a handful from birth. He’d been a colicky baby, a misbehaving and rather cruel boy, a difficult teen and now this sullen, angry, unhappy twenty-four-year-old.
Fred had tried to talk to Tyrell, but his son no longer listened to anything he had to say. Half the time, Tyrell didn’t even show up for work. When he did, he’d work on his motorcycle, cussing and throwing things in the garage.
He’d suggested that Tyrell might be happier working for someone else. His son had laughed. They both knew why Tyrell hadn’t left Buckhorn to make a life for himself. His son was lazy. He liked the free rent, the food in the fridge, the garage full of tools and even an occasional paycheck when he stooped to actually do some work.
“Please,” Fred said now as he saw his son looking again at the men with the guns. “Please don’t.”
Tyrell looked over at him and grinned. “Don’t what, Dad?”
“Play hero.”
His son scoffed. “Who’s playing?”
BOBBY WATCHED THE cowboy who’d volunteered to cook look at him a second time as if trying to place him. He was having the same problem. The cowboy looked familiar, too familiar. He didn’t look like a cop but... He just couldn’t place him. Yet.
He turned away to look out the window. Gene was standing outside the van, glaring into the back. Even from this distance, Bobby could tell that Gene was upset about whatever was going on inside. Which meant the old guy who’d volunteered wasn’t going to be able to save Gus. No surprise there, Bobby thought. He and Eric had already figured that out, given Gus had taken the bullet in the stomach. He’d watched enough Westerns on television to know that was bad.
Not that it wasn’t Gus’s fault. The fool was supposed to have made sure that no one had a weapon while Gene and Eric collected the money. When one of the bank employees pulled a gun, Gus had panicked and started shooting.
Still, it was too bad about the old man trying to save him. Gene would just as soon put a bullet in the man’s back as blink. The bank job had been botched. Gene was as much to blame as anyone for bringing his brother into the action. Bobby had seen how nervous Gus was. His first real job with his older brother. Sad, really, he thought. Gus would pay with his life.
Unfortunately, that was the way it worked. Bobby watched Gene getting more anxious and upset. He had no idea what Gene would do when his kid brother died. Wouldn’t matter that Gus had started the gunplay back at the bank that had almost gotten them all killed. Wouldn’t matter at all. Gene would lose it and take out his anger on the people closest. Which meant everyone in this café might not see tomorrow if Gene lost it—Bobby and Eric included.
All he could do was hope the old guy out there knew what he was doing. Though at this point, he doubted anyone could save Gus. Gunshots in their line of work were often fatal, since a hospital or a real doctor wasn’t an option.
How many more of them would die today? he wondered and turned away to see the cowboy watching him again. Bobby frowned. He knew that guy. Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was important he remember. It would eventually come to him. Hopefully not before it was too late.
CULHANE QUICKLY TURNED his attention back to the grill and the mass of food he had cooking there. When he peered out in the dining section again, he saw that Bobby was watching Gene with definite worry in his expression. He wished he could figure out where he’d seen the man. It was right there, right on the edge of his memory.
He started to turn away when he saw something he’d missed earlier. His heart flopped in his chest. The license plate on the killers’ van. The beginning number was six, indicating the county. Gallatin County. The same county where he and Alexis had been detectives with the sheriff’s department.
He told himself that the men could have stolen the van. It didn’t mean that they were from the Bozeman area where Culhane and Alexis had been deputies and still lived. But he would have laid odds that these men were connected to the area. Which would explain why Bobby looked familiar. What were the chances that they would end up here in Buckhorn—a good hundred miles away?
It could be as simple as Gene had known the cook and had been expecting to pick up another rig here. It didn’t mean that Sheriff Willy Garwood was behind it. The crooked sheriff couldn’t be behind all the crime in the state, right?
Culhane glanced at the cook lying dead on the floor. The feeling that everything in life was connected sent an electrical current through him. He’d never bought into fate, but here they all were, Alexis included, in this one café. At least he didn’t think the killers knew he and Alexis were ex–law enforcement. But he’d seen Bobby eyeing him as if trying to place him. When he did...