by C. J. Box
“I can’t say the same.”
Cheyenne tilted her head back and laughed at that. “I’ll bet you can’t wait to get out of Lochsa County.”
“You’re right about that.”
*
Two DCI agents from Helena were waiting in their sedan next to Cassie’s Honda. They got out, badged her, and asked if she had time to tell her story.
Cassie sighed and asked if they had all night.
*
It was dawn by the time she signed her statement and drove out of Lolo. She had a tremendous headache from talking all night. The sense of relief she felt when she crossed the Lochsa County line again was palpable.
The DCI agents had asked if she wanted to be there when they picked up Sheriff Wagy and John Wayne for questioning. She’d replied that she never wanted to see either one of them again although she knew she’d have to when she testified against them in court.
She couldn’t wait to see Ben. And she couldn’t wait to see her mother. Cassie craved some kind of normalcy.
The things she’d learned and conveyed within the last twenty-four hours were a jumble in her head, although she was proud of herself for being able to communicate a coherent time line of what she’d learned and what she’d been through to the DCI agents.
Still, though, something was missing. She wished she could define what was bothering her.
Then she remembered what John Wayne had said when she asked about Rand. He’d said, “He’s making a run.”
Making a run?
Then it hit her.
*
Cassie was grateful and very surprised when Jody Haak answered his cell phone. She knew he must be somewhere other than at his place since she knew he didn’t have service up the county road.
“It’s happening,” he said as a greeting. His tone was giddy. “My sources in town say the state cops are on their way to talk to John Wayne as we speak. They’ve already informed our sheriff that they’ve opened an investigation on him and his office.”
“I know about that,” Cassie said. “I have another question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“What does Rand do for a living?”
“You mean besides harassing tourists and laying around the Iron Cross?”
“Yes.”
“He works freelance as a truck driver,” Haak said. “He makes a couple of runs a week between Horston and Billings.”
Cassie sat up straight and nearly drove off the road.
“He drives an eighteen-wheeler?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Have you seen it?”
“If he still has the same rig I’ve seen it dozens of times,” Haak said.
“Is it a black Peterbilt cab? Smoked windows? No chrome?”
“That sounds like it,” Haak said.
“Anyone driving from Horston to Billings would go through Bozeman four times a week,” Cassie said.
“I guess,” Haak said.
She disconnected before saying goodbye. Then she woke up Rachel.
twenty-eight
The driver, Rand Kleinsasser, sat high in his cab while the diesel engine idled. He’d parked once again on a residential street where he could have a good view of the grounds of Bozeman High School through his windshield. He watched as students entered the school that morning for their first period classes.
He narrowed his eyes when he saw Franny. She was within a knot of students but she was not of them. There seemed to be an invisible bubble around her that she floated in despite the other students streaming the same direction. There was no interaction with any of the other kids and she clutched her books to her chest as if wielding a shield. For a very brief moment, he felt for her. He understood what it was like to be an other. But that quickly passed.
He noted that she’d changed her look, all right. Her hair was shorter and darker, she wore more conservative clothing than he recalled, and she’d affected an awkward gait to her walk.
But it was her.
And it had been Franny on the street that day and now he was sure of it. Unfortunately, that damned boy she was with had pulled her out of the way at the last moment. But it was her.
Rand knew that she’d be going to her AP English class to start the day. Deb Rangold had outlined her schedule to John Wayne months before. The classroom was located less than seventy-five yards from the library and his cache of weapons.
*
Watching the students enter the building brought back unhappy memories for Rand. It all came rushing back once again, and he squirmed.
After he’d been expelled from Horston High for fighting, and despite his father’s anger and threats to the Lochsa County school board, Rand had ended up in Bozeman all those years ago, where he attended Bozeman High his senior year. God, how he’d hated it.
They didn’t know him there, and they didn’t know that his name meant something. He’d been bullied and beaten when he tried to stand up for himself, and the girls looked down their noses at him when he tried to explain that back home he was somebody special.
He could remember the day outside the auto shop when he’d told a couple of his friends that someday he’d come back.
That someday they’d all know his name.
That day had come.
*
Rand had never trusted Franny. She was too precious and too clever, too much like her mother. Even though John Wayne assured him that he had everything under control—that Blake would go down with Cheyenne’s and Franny’s participation—Rand had his doubts.
Wouldn’t it be better, he’d said to John Wayne, if something just happened to her before the trial? Something completely unrelated to the assault?
That way, he’d explained to his brother, her affidavit would stand there forever and be used to convict Blake. Franny couldn’t screw up her story on the stand or change it.
Cheyenne might be a problem, but Cheyenne was always a problem. She was born a problem. But Franny’s last statement— before she was gone—would stand like a monument.
Rand had reminded John Wayne about his suspicions—and his solution—when his brother had called him hours before in a panic. Rand was leaving Billings in his rig, bound for Horston with a load of drywall for the lumber store. He’d just delivered pallets of rough-cut logs from the Lochsa Valley, like they did twice a week.
Deb Rangold, John Wayne said, told him Franny planned to recant later that day at a lawyer’s office.
“I fucking told you this would happen,” Rand had said.
“What good does that do now?” John Wayne asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rand had said. “I’ve got it handled.”
And he did. He was just waiting for the bell to go off to begin the school day.
Rand watched as a few stragglers ran across the lawn toward the front doors. Most of them made it inside before the bell went off. A couple didn’t.
He wondered how many of the individual students he’d seen would come out of the building feet first.
*
There was a moment of panic before Rand traded his cowboy hat for a black balaclava and got out of his cab. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Bozeman police department cruiser flash through an opening in some tree trunks headed toward the west side of the high school. It was moving fast, he thought.
But then he lost sight of the cruiser, and he didn’t see additional cops. The morning was quiet, and there were no sirens.
He figured the cop had chased down a speeding student trying to get to school on time. It was out of view on the opposite side of the big brick building.
Rand left the truck running. He climbed down and stuffed the balaclava in his front jeans pocket. There was no reason to put it on his head and risk drawing attention to himself. People were jumpy around schools these days.
He planned to leave his .22 pistol in the console of his truck, but at the last minute he snatched it out and slid it muzzle-down into his back waistband.
He crossed the lawn and didn�
��t rush it. Like that night, he moved from tree to tree toward the back of the school. Rand could be a maintenance worker or a cafeteria employee out on his break.
At one point he glanced back at his rig. He wished it didn’t look so beaten up. The black steel cowcatcher on the front of the grille was mangled, and the grille itself was smashed in. Both headlights needed to be replaced. He thought that if someone saw his truck sitting there they’d reason that it was out of commission and waiting for repair.
That’s what happened, he thought, when you drove your truck through a motel.
*
As he worked his way down the side of the building toward the auto shop, Rand envisioned once again how it would go when he got inside. He’d gone over it in his mind a dozen times, but now that it was here he needed to concentrate. Which was hard. He’d always had a problem with that.
It was highly unlikely that a class would be in session in the auto shop. He recalled that vocational classes didn’t start until later in the day. He assumed they maintained the same schedule. But if there were students in the auto shop for first-period class he was going to walk right past them with the mask over his face. He wouldn’t threaten them or say a word. He’d just walk right by them as if he owned the place and leave them guessing. High school students weren’t all that sharp first thing in the morning, especially auto shop losers like he’d been.
Then Rand would stride down the hallway toward the library without looking right or left. He’d pull down his cache of weapons and go straight to the AP English classroom and close the door behind him.
Franny wouldn’t be the first to go. That would be too obvious. He’d start with the teacher and whatever targets made themselves available. Franny would be in the middle or toward the end. That way, no one would ever suspect that he was there specifically for her.
Because he wasn’t. He was back for revenge. Franny was simply the vehicle to get him there.
Rand was crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew the in-school cops might come after him. In a perfect world, they would. They’d take him out before he ran out an emergency door and drove away in his truck.
But it wasn’t a perfect world. He’d read about other school shootings. He knew that there was just as much chance that the school security officers would cower outside waiting for backup, or hide in a closet once the shooting started.
*
Rand paused at the corner of the building and poked his head around it. As he’d surmised, the security camera he’d disabled was still hanging limp from its mount. They hadn’t even removed it yet.
Did he know how things worked in a state-run system, or what?
He fished the mask out of his pocket and pulled it over his head. He looked over his shoulder and out on the street. A car passed by but the woman driving it didn’t even turn her head toward him.
The garage door shivered when he yanked on it and he could feel the latches give way. He took a deep breath and pulled up on the door and it sounded like thunder as it rolled up.
There were no students in the class, as he’d thought. Unfortunately, there were four black-clad SWAT cops wearing helmets and tactical gear and leveling automatic weapons at him. They took cover between two older-model cars inside and aimed at him over the hoods and trunks.
One of them screamed at him to get down on his belly.
To hell with that, Rand thought. Instead, he reached behind his back for his pistol. Who were they to tell him what to do?
It was the last thought Rand Kleinsasser ever had.
twenty-nine
Six weeks later, Cassie Dewell and Rachel Mitchell sat next to each other at the funeral of Blake Kleinsasser at Jenkins Funeral and Cremation Service in Bozeman. The ceremony took place in the smallest room in the facility because there were fewer than ten people in attendance. Blake’s urn had been placed on a faux-granite column at the front of the room.
He’d died of his injuries five days before without ever regaining consciousness.
The funeral director had given a generic eulogy and no one had volunteered to say anything afterward.
The front row of seats was empty, but in the second row sat Jody Haak and Lindy Glode on opposite ends of the aisle. They’d arrived separately. Cassie and Rachel sat in the third row behind them.
Three of Blake’s New York business associates were across the aisle. They’d introduced themselves but they spoke so quickly in their East Coast cadence that Cassie couldn’t recall their names.
Margaret, Cheyenne, and Franny sat in the last row. They’d arrived late and Cassie noticed that Margaret looked vibrant and ten years younger than when she’d last seen her. She nodded at Cassie as if sharing a secret and then looked away.
Cassie was startled by Franny’s appearance. She was dressed in funky clothing and she had a sexy, sophisticated haircut. She didn’t look Cassie’s way.
Cheyenne saw Cassie’s obvious puzzlement and winked at her. “My God,” Cassie shuddered.
*
Cassie couldn’t help noticing that the girl looked like a wholly different person than she had that day at the school, when Cassie arrived to find Rand’s dead body sprawled out near the open auto shop garage door. At that time, Franny appeared frail and shaken. She knew what had almost happened to her, and she knew why.
Cassie had explained to her at the time that through Rachel the Bozeman PD had been on the lookout for Rand and his damaged tractor-trailer. When it was spotted on a side street near Bozeman High School, the SWAT team was dispatched inside. Their plan, until Rand decided to get out and walk into the building itself, was to lock down the school and then isolate and arrest him outside. Rand had literally walked into them as they were assembling.
“It was death by cop,” Cassie had said to Franny. “Rand made the choice himself.”
“That sounds like him,” Franny had said.
Cassie had taken Franny in her arms and comforted her. She’d sat with her when Franny gave her statement to the police identifying her uncle and confirming that she’d lied under pressure. The authorities had treated her with kid gloves, and so had Cassie.
*
John Wayne Kleinsasser was in the Missoula County Jail awaiting his criminal trial. The judge had agreed with state prosecutors that he shouldn’t be housed in Lochsa County because of the very real chance that an associate might accidentally release him.
Sheriff Ben Wagy was suspended without pay from the Lochsa County Commissioners awaiting the conclusion of the DCI investigation into his department.
Both had been implicated by recordings that appeared on social media of them discussing how to frame Blake for rape and kidnapping. No one had claimed credit for posting the dialogue, but experts had determined that the recordings were authentic.
Prosecutors had dropped the charges against Blake Kleinsasser but he never knew it. Rachel was delicately attempting to receive legal fees for her work defending him from his estate once it was settled in probate court in New York State.
The Iron Cross Ranch was in the process of being sold to a Canadian land development company who’d already made an agreement with REMR and the conglomerate that owned the mineral rights to build a rare earth mine on the property.
Cheyenne was the sole beneficiary of the ranch sale, and rumors were circulating about the massive nine-bedroom home she was building at the confluence of the Lochsa and Bitterroot rivers.
*
The funeral ceremony didn’t so much end as fade away, and Cassie looked up to find it was over. She turned her head to see Cheyenne ushering Franny and Margaret toward the back door.
“They’re leaving,” Cassie said to Rachel. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”
“Cassie,” Rachel said, reaching out for her hand, “let it go.”
“I can’t.”
The Kleinsasser women were almost to their new black SUV when Cassie caught up with them.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Cheyenne turned and looked at he
r and her eyes narrowed. She proceeded to help Margaret into the passenger seat and then closed her door and turned around.
Franny stood off to the side. She seemed cold and detached although slightly taller than Cassie recalled. That was because she was no longer slouching. She looked at Cassie as if Cassie was someone she’d long ago left behind in another world.
“Yes?” Cheyenne said impatiently.
“They’ll eventually catch you both,” Cassie said. “I just want you to know that.”
“We’ll see,” Cheyenne said with a smile. “But I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“I told the DCI agents everything. They know about you.”
“I know you did,” Cheyenne said. “I sat down with them for an interview. They didn’t have much except your version of events and they never will. I’m quite good in those kinds of situations,” she said, slyly batting her eyes and faux-fanning herself with her fingers.
Cassie said to Franny, “You broke Ben’s heart. You do know that, right?”
Franny shrugged. “He’s a nice boy, I guess. You should be proud of the way you raised him.”
“I am. He saved your life.”
Franny nodded her agreement. “He did, and so did you. I’ll keep you both in my thoughts.”
Cassie felt her anger rise. “You say that as if being in your thoughts is reward enough.”
“What do you want?” Cheyenne interrupted. “Money?”
“No. I’m not like you. I’m just trying to figure out what Ben saw in her.”
Franny chuckled. She said, “That wasn’t me. That was Erin Reese. Erin was,” Franny hesitated, “fun to play. She was a lot more fun than ‘traumatized Franny Porché’ ”
Franny lifted her chin. “This is the real me.”
Cassie stared at Cheyenne and Franny and shook her head in disgust. An acid taste filled her mouth.
“Don’t mind her,” Cheyenne said, placing her hand on Cassie’s shoulder. “We move on and adapt.”
“It’s the Kleinsasser way,” Cassie said bitterly.
“That it is,” Cheyenne said. She nodded for Franny to get in, then left Cassie and walked around the front of the car to get behind the wheel.
