You Can't Escape (16 page)

“Well, it was an accident,” Pru said, defending her as Jennie had, which was kind of surprising in itself.

Nate kept on smiling and said slowly, “Yeah, an accident.”

She didn’t remember Nate being such an out-and-out ass in high school, but then, she thought despairingly, she seemed to be continually fooled by good-looking men. Jay Danziger being no exception.

Not that Nate Calverson was so good-looking any longer. He’d definitely gone to seed over the years. The once-hot football player’s waist had expanded and his iron jaw was puffy and surrounded by a patchy light brown beard. His eyes had sunken and there was also something about him that made her think he might be tippling something a little stronger than lemonade behind his wife’s back.

Pru said, “You really shouldn’t talk like that, Jordanna. People will get the wrong impression.”

“She knows exactly what she’s doing,” Nate said, eyes lasered on Jordanna. “She’s a reporter now. It’s all part of the game, isn’t it?”

“What game is that?” Jordanna asked.

“Acting like you don’t care. Like you’re above everything. You go run off from Rock Springs like we’re just small-town jerks out here, all hot to make your way in the newspaper world. How is it getting into other people’s lives and ripping ’em apart for a story?”

Pru was looking at Nate like she’d never seen him before.

“Not sure where you got that idea,” Jordanna said. “I’ve written some human interest stories.”

“That what you call them?” Nate retorted.

Jordanna wondered where this was coming from, and truthfully, he was really starting to piss her off. She’d steered clear of Rock Springs to avoid exactly these kinds of encounters. Turning to Pru, she said with false interest, “So how are the kids?”

“We’ve only been blessed with our Joshua,” Pru said. There was a touch of bitterness in her voice that she tried to hide by adding, “The Lord has His plan and He’s seen fit to enrich our lives with just one child, our sweet boy. You’re not married yet?”

“Nope.”

“Boyfriend?” she asked hopefully.

“Just an obsession . . . with work,” she tagged on, when Pru’s brow furrowed.

“You remember Martin Lourde,” Pru said, as if she’d just been waiting for a way to insert his name.

Martin Lourde . . . she hadn’t thought about him all that much until this afternoon’s reflection, but here his name was popping up again. “Ahhh . . . only by reputation. He was older than I was, my sister’s grade.” Taking a stab in the dark, she added, “Actually, Emily was dating him for a while.”

“Martin? Oh, no.” Pru drew her head back as if the very thought made her recoil. “That can’t be right. Emily was too into herself then to date Martin.”

“She was into Martin for a while,” Nate snapped impatiently.

“Was she? Well, she wasn’t picky, that’s for sure.” Hearing herself, she added, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”

“That’s all right. I just can’t quite remember who she was seeing,” Jordanna pressed, but Pru shook her head and Nate had grown totally bored by the conversation. Soldiering on, Jordanna added, “She basically told me she’d joined the God squad that last year, I was thinking maybe it was someone—”

“Emily didn’t come to any of our prayer meetings,” Pru interrupted, as if that were the answer to everything.

“Maybe it was a different religious group,” Jordanna suggested.

Pru seemed disconcerted by the idea, and it took her a moment before she said, “Well, your sister was always full of secrets, wasn’t she?” She looked at her husband, whose gaze was focused somewhere in the middle distance, as if he were lost in thought. “You remember Emily, Nate? She was the really pretty one?”

“We all knew Emily,” he said.

“I think Pete Drummond had a thing for her,” Pru recalled.

Mr. Shitface.
“Pete Drummond,” Jordanna inserted quickly. “He’s with the Rock Springs PD now, I heard. The name seems familiar, but I don’t think I know him. Think he was her boyfriend?”

Pru looked unsure, but Nate suddenly came back from wherever his thoughts had taken him. “The chief gave him that job with the police,” he said, barely hiding a sneer. “And he’s no more qualified that Pru is.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Pru said.

“Wasn’t meant to be nice,” he said, uncaring.

If he was a member of the Green Pastures Church, Jordanna thought he might have to work on his piety.

Pru, clearly uncomfortable, asked Jordanna, “How’s Kara? The last time I saw her was a couple of Christmases ago.”

“She was at the wedding,” Jordanna said.

“Oh, yes, that’s true. I kind of forgot.” She tugged at one of her earlobes until Jordanna worried she would pull the silver hoop with the row of small diamonds right off.

“She’s traveling,” Jordanna said, dragging her gaze away from Pru’s tugging hand.

“You Treadwell girls like to stay away,” Nate observed. “Surprised you’re here. Something happen?”

“I’m following a story,” Jordanna improvised. “The homeless man whose body was found near the old homestead.”

Pru frowned. “Really? That was years ago. You mean the one found behind your mother’s family’s place?”

Jordanna didn’t immediately answer. She’d always thought of the house as her father’s. She also hadn’t realized that Rusty’s homeless man was old news.

Pru confirmed, “The one that was branded, right?”

Jordanna looked at her. “The body was branded? You mean like, from a branding iron?”

Pru demurred, “Well, I thought so.” She glanced at Nate a little desperately.

He rescued her with, “The guy was just a fool hiker. Fell off a cliff on government property off Summit. Maybe some relative of yours that lost his way, huh?”

“Nate, don’t be mean,” Pru said.

Jordanna ignored his tone. “But the body was branded,” she repeated. “I never saw that on the news, and a branding is pretty newsworthy.”

“You should ask Martin about it,” Pru put in quickly. “He’s the one that told us about it. He’s divorced now, y’know? She wasn’t a good woman. So, if you’re around for a while, maybe we could all get together? We do a lot of Sunday potlucks after church, and Sunday’s just a few days away.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure I’m going to still be here Sunday, but thanks,” Jordanna said.

“If circumstances change . . .” she suggested.

“You’ll be the first to know,” Jordanna lied to her. Tomorrow was Friday and Kara had said she would be around, meaning Laurelton, for the weekend, so Jordanna was half-planning a quick trip back to her apartment, possibly on Saturday. It wasn’t inconceivable that Dance would want to go back with her, if he felt strong enough to face the Saldanos, which she hoped wouldn’t be the case yet, but who knew?

There’d been a steady stream of people pushing through the saloon doors, and with relief Jordanna looked over to see that the latest newcomer was Rusty. She waved at him, and Pru and Nate turned around as one to see who it was. Nate immediately swung back to Jordanna and said, “Don’t believe everything he tells you. He’s a drunk and a liar.”

“He’s your friend,” Pru declared, but she looked at Rusty with distaste.

“Be careful,” Nate added, making eye contact with Jordanna before steering his wife away to a table as far from the bar as possible.

Rusty moved up to Jordanna, his strawberry-blond hair catching the light from the overhead wagon-wheel fixture. He dropped his bulk into the seat next to her, but his eyes were following the Calversons’ quick exit. “I see Nate’s hustling his little lady away from me,” he observed.

“She’s not a fan?” Jordanna asked.

“He doesn’t want her to know that he and I have shared more than a few drinks together.”

“Ahhh . . . not lemonade, I take it.”

“Brewskies.”

“He told me you were a drunk and a liar,” Jordanna related.

Rusty nearly choked on his laughter. “Well, now that might be true, but he only knows ’cause of our poker games. And Pru doesn’t know about the drinking or the poker.”

“I’ve been questioning Nate’s commitment to the church,” she said.

He gave her an appreciative look. “You were always smart. Why’d you stay away so long?”

Jordanna shrugged. Rusty had been a big goof-off at school, but he wasn’t nearly the redneck hick he seemed to want everyone to believe. “Pru said something about that homeless man being branded. Is that true?”

“Yep.” He nodded.

“When was the body found?”

“A couple years ago, maybe?”

“I never saw that anywhere on the news.”

“Oh, the chief didn’t want the branding let out to the press. I think he mighta thought it would look bad for the town, or that it was something to hold back if it turned out to be a homicide and he wanted to catch the killer. Who knows. But in any case, he kept that out of the news.”

“Doesn’t seem to be a well-kept secret around here,” Jordanna pointed out.

“You can lay the blame on Mr. Shitface for that.” Rusty gave several deep nods.

“Pete Drummond. In my sister Emily’s class.”

“That’s the one.”

“You think it was a homicide?”

“Probably not. Nobody ever said so.”

“Sounds like a story.” She thought about her pretty elder sister and said, “Wish my sister was still around to give me an intro, since Pete had a thing for her.”

Rusty’s brows knit. “Drummond had a thing for your sister . . . Emily? You mean in high school?”

“That’s what Pru said.”

“I don’t remember that.” He shot her a sympathetic look. “It was a shame, what happened to her.”

Jordanna nodded. Everyone remembered Emily’s fatal car accident the spring of her senior year.

“I wouldn’t take the Drummond thing seriously. He has a thing for all pretty girls. If you talk to him, be mindful.” He held up a finger. “He’s not to be trusted.”

“Everyone keeps warning me about everyone else,” she remarked. “I thought your cousin was coming.”

He snorted. “Todd’s straddling the fence between church and tavern. You go one way or the other in this town, and he can’t make up his mind. His kind of church is more like communing with nature, which I can get behind. Better than a lot of the really strict ones around here. I mean, they are NO FUN.”

“I guess that puts us firmly on the tavern side,” she said, looking around.

“You got that right.” He drummed his palms on the bar like he was playing the bongos and yelled, “Danny, over here. You blind?”

The barkeep gave him a short nod as he served up Budweiser on tap to a young couple who’d just arrived.

“Do you know how it was determined the man was homeless?” Jordanna asked.

“It’s been a few years ago. I don’t think anyone ever claimed the body, so that was the theory.”

“Pru also mentioned that Martin Lourde was the one who told her the man was branded.”

“Sounds just like him, but Lourde’s a . . .” He searched around at length and then finally came up with “putz.”

Jordanna smiled. “And here I thought you were going to say something more colorful.”

“Because I call Drummond Mr. Shitface? Hey, I’m not all bad,” he assured her. “Lourde’s just a putz. If you’re really following this thing, you’d probably get more information from Drummond.”

“But be careful around him.”

“He’s dumb as a box of rocks and can’t keep his mouth shut, no way, no how, but he thinks he’s a player.” He drank half his beer down in a couple long swallows, then set the glass on the bar again with a little more force than necessary. “You should really talk to Todd. He was being all closed up this mornin’, but he’s got information.”

“What kind of information?”

“He hikes all over these mountains and talks to people. He pays a helluva lot more attention to things than I do. I get bored.”

She smiled. She could believe that.

“You got a cell phone number?” Rusty asked, pulling his own mobile phone from his pocket.

“Um . . . sure . . .”

She was usually far more careful about giving out her digits than she’d been today, but she figured if Jennie had her number, she might as well give it to Rusty, too. She recited her digits, and Rusty, in turn, gave her his.

“I’ll have Todd call you,” he said.

“You also mentioned the missing Fread girl. A runaway,” Jordanna reminded him.

“Well, I don’t know for sure she’s a runaway, but if I were Bernadette, I’d just hightail it out of there before my crazy religious father locked me up, or hit me again, or something. Old man Fread’s a real case. Forbade her from seeing her boyfriend, Chase Sazlow, who’s a damn nice kid, actually. But Fread just lost it when he caught them together. I heard Reverend Miles had to have a little talk with him, as Mr. Fread was bordering on abusive.”

“Reverend Miles of the Green Pastures Church.”

“That’s the one.” He finished the rest of his beer, and Jordanna swallowed the last bit of her own drink as well.

“How do you know so much about Bernadette Fread?”

“My mom was good friends with Bernie’s. They knew each other from grade school. But then Bernie’s mom married Abel Fread just out of high school and they went all religious. But I don’t think it took too well, ’cause Bernie and her mom would stop by, kind of sneakily-like, whenever they could.” He made a face. “But they’re all part of Green Pastures now.”

“Is your friend Todd any part of that church?”

“God, no. You have to be fuckin’ crazy to go there, and he’s not crazy.” Hearing himself, he added, “And neither are you, Jordanna Winters. You weren’t when you were in high school. You’re not now.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, meaning it.

“Todd takes his religion seriously, but it’s a make-it-up-as-you-go kind of thing. Nature, being a good neighbor, getting to your core truth, you know what I mean?”

She nodded. Todd Douglas’s unstructured spirituality appealed to her.

Rusty went on, “You gotta be way, way out there to belong with the Green Pastures flock. I’ll allow that Reverend Miles did a good thing for Bernadette, but get too close to that kind of religion?” He shook his head. “I’d break out in hives.”

“What kind of religion is it, exactly?”

“The kind that makes up all the rules and spends too much time telling you what you shouldn’t do or you’ll burn in hell.”