Bitter Rain (Kate Fox Book 3)

by Shannon Baker

  Alex didn’t make it more than a few steps before Kyle grabbed the back of his hoodie and spun him around like a game of crack the whip. Kyle slammed him against the side of the car.

  “Hey!” I pulled Kyle back.

  He stood in ready position, panting. Kyle and Alex resembled each other, but after seeing the pictures of Shelly and Darrel, Kyle looked like the odd man out.

  Alex struggled to regain his bravado. “What the hell?”

  “Where’s Shelly?” Kyle’s words came out ragged.

  Alex managed a little swagger. “Haven’t seen her since Saturday.”

  “What’s going on with her?”

  Kyle’s growly voice reminded me of Poupon. I backed up a few steps and opened the rear cruiser door. Poupon hopped out and trotted a few feet, then stopped and lifted his leg against a post from the cable fence. He gave me an accusatory stare.

  Kyle demanded, “What?”

  Alex’s first comment had been spoken with the sharp consonants and swishy sounds of Lakota. He glared at Kyle and enunciated slowly. “She don’t need to answer to you.”

  “Why is that?”

  Alex’s lip pulled back. “You turned your back on your people. That means Shelly. You left, so you don’t get to mess in our lives no more.”

  The stuffing went out of Kyle and he stepped back. His eyes traveled over the Taurus. “Where’d you get the car?”

  Alex lifted his chin. “I bought it.”

  “With what?”

  Alex spoke with the teen belligerence that made adults want to punch them in the face. “Money I earned.”

  Kyle nodded. “Like what you promised Hersh Good Crow?”

  With temper he hadn’t learned to control as well as Kyle, Alex shot back. “Hersh knew I was good for it. He backed out of the deal ’cause his old lady didn’t want to sell.” Alex patted the car.

  “Where do you plan to get the money?” Kyle asked.

  Alex tugged on his sweatshirt and stood tall. “Not your business, bro.”

  Kyle might have had more to say, but he didn’t stop Alex from climbing into the Taurus.

  I whistled to Poupon. “Get in.”

  He didn’t move until Kyle grumbled to him in Lakota. While I waited for him to saunter over and lift first one paw on the back seat, then the other, and slowly pull up his back two legs, I watched Alex peel out of the parking lot.

  A slow-moving splash of white drew my attention to the corner of the school building. I squinted into the stiff breeze to see a shield and Spinner County Sheriff printed prominently on the side of the Ford Bronco as it rolled slowly out of view.

  17

  We drove through Sand Gap and Dry Creek without conversation. Then I broke the silence. “We don’t have much to go on. According to her friends, and from what Douglas saw and heard, Shelly’s been acting different.”

  That jaw worked. “Girls are disappearing on the rez. I think she’s been taken.”

  “That’s a pretty big leap. Especially when we just saw a couple of those missing girls were off partying.”

  He gripped the armrest. “We need to talk to Barnett.”

  “Because the high school girls think he’s creepy? We thought our chem teacher was a zombie when we were in high school, but I’ll bet now he never ate anyone’s brains.”

  Kyle looked at me with a familiar anguish. “I’ve always tried to protect her, and I feel helpless.”

  He wrung my heart in his hands. I saw Carly, ten years old, baggy flannel pajama pants and her dad’s sweatshirt, curled into the corner of the old couch Ted and I inherited from his grandmother. Glenda was in day two of another round of chemo, so I’d brought Carly to Frog Creek for a few days. She’d wanted to stay home, but the adults vetoed her.

  It had been snowing since before dawn, and we’d baked cookies and watched movies, and still the day stretched ahead of us.

  Ted had burst through the back door, tracking slush and mud across the living room. “Let’s go!”

  Carly jerked off the couch. “Where?”

  He grabbed her hand and propelled her toward the attic stairs. Carly always stayed in a room we’d made for her up there. “Long johns, wool socks. We’re going sledding.”

  Her eyes lit up, and she bounded for the stairs.

  Ted patted my butt to push me toward our bedroom. “You, too. I’ll get the snowmobile and pull you guys up the hill.”

  I hesitated, eyeing the accumulation on the yard outside the kitchen window. “Doesn’t look like enough snow. We’ll hit yucca and rocks.”

  Ted lowered his voice. “Carly needs this. Isn’t a broken leg better than a broken heart?”

  I hadn’t thought of that day in a long time. It had been a grand day, despite me getting a fat lip and Carly smashing a finger between the sled and a fencepost. The laughter and activity had helped her far more than the pain hurt.

  What meaning should I take from this? That I ought to let Carly go? I couldn’t be her protector? What about Shelly?

  I sighed. “Okay. Tomorrow we’ll talk to Barnett.”

  Kyle’s hand tightened on his thigh. “Now. We need to go now.”

  I glanced at him. “I need some time to think how to go about this. I’m out of my jurisdiction, and Barnett doesn’t like me. If I go barreling in without a plan, I won’t get anywhere.”

  “Let me do the talking. I’ll get somewhere.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. You aren’t going.”

  “Screw that.”

  His reaction didn’t surprise me. “You’re too hot. I’ll figure something out, maybe ask his advice about something. Go in through a window instead of breaking down the front door.”

  There was serious danger of him pulverizing his jaw. “We should go now.”

  With my calmest voice, I said, “We know Shelly is okay. She was at the school today. Tomorrow is soon enough.”

  Kyle didn’t speak for the rest of the drive back to town, and I didn’t have anything to add. As usual, Poupon kept his own counsel, only emitting a deep sigh occasionally. I didn’t bother sneaking into the courthouse, since Betty and Ethel would have foxtrotted out the front door ten minutes ago.

  Voices at their end of the corridor surprised me. Ethel shot from her office, closing her door with more violence than necessary. She jabbed her key into the lock and, with a great show of annoyance, huffed and muttered and sped by me and Poupon and out the front door.

  A gurgling cough preceded May Keller’s exit from Betty’s office. May ranched north of town and had survived husbands, drought, bad cattle prices, and blizzards. Wrinkled and shrunk, like an apple forgotten in the fridge, May gave me a once-over as I stood in the corridor.

  She ambled to me and assessed Poupon. “What the hell kind of pony is that?”

  I patted his head so he wouldn’t feel insulted. “Diane’s dog. I’m keeping him for a few days.”

  Her voice sounded like shaking a bucket of gravel. “Not much of a dog.”

  Betty scurried from her office and locked her door. She glanced at Ethel’s door, probably feeling the agony of defeat that Ethel had checked out before her.

  I winced when she bustled up to me, hoping to deflect what I knew was coming. “Did it rain here all afternoon? Kyle and I went back up to the rez on official business.”

  Betty’s smile looked as if strained through a lemon. “I know you like to help with the other jurisdictions. But, truly, I need your budget.”

  Another anvil of guilt dropped in my stomach. “I’m sorry, Betty. I’ll get it done tomorrow.”

  She patted my arm. “I’m sorry to be so grumpy. It’s been a long day.” She gave May a pointed look, smiled at us both, and practically ran out the glass doors.

  In her faded plaid cowboy shirt and pearl buttons, May fingered the ever-present cigarette package in her breast pocket. “I love coming in here at closing time. It gets the hens all rattled.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  May gave a wet cough. “It does the
old biddies some good. Everybody ought to get shook once in a while.” She pointed a bony finger in my chest. “Like you.”

  A few fat raindrops splashed into the puddles on the walk outside the doors. “Looks like another shower.”

  She pulled out the cigs. Addicted as she was, I couldn’t believe she’d lived so long. A true testament to ornery, though she was barely more than twigs and bark. “I’m talking about you, missy. I know the whole damned town wants to mate you up like you’re a prize heifer.”

  I didn’t want to have this conversation with May Keller, whose no-good husband had mysteriously disappeared during the Eisenhower administration. “Did you—?”

  “They tried to do the same with me and I fell for it. Didn’t last long and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

  Gone without a trace. And May Keller a happier woman, with some secrets.

  “It’s not—”

  She wasn’t here to listen to me. “You don’t need to have some man mucking up your life. Oh sure, you need to bang boots once in a while. And for that, get up to Rapid City or Denver every now and then. Get the itch scratched.”

  A roar that sounded like an ocean hit the roof. May’s head jerked to watch a curtain of rain out the front door. “This’ll damn sure make the grass grow.”

  “That’s—”

  Without hesitating, she strode out the front door into the driving rain.

  I waited another ten minutes to let the worst of the storm pass, then loaded Poupon and yippee-ki-yi-yayed home. The ditches along the road ran in mini rivers, and small lakes formed in the dirt road. A duck’s paradise, the cold, damp, and gray seeped under my skin. My encounter with May didn’t fire me up with Women Power. Was I destined to end up like May, alone, shriveled, getting my kicks by teasing old ladies and passing out wisdom to whippersnappers?

  “I’ve got to find a—” My phone rang, and I interrupted myself to answer. “Sheriff.”

  “Thank God.” Relief washed from Sarah’s voice and flooded anxiety into me. “I need you.”

  My heart clogged my throat. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the baby. I’m losing it. Hurry!”

  “Where’s Robert?”

  She grunted in pain. “He had a meeting with bull buyers at the golf course. Must have…” She paused for another cramp and started up again, panting. “Must have left his phone in the pickup.”

  “I’m on my way.” I squealed into a U-turn.

  Another scramble because of a phone call. More heart-pounding uncertainty. More pleading with the universe for everything to be okay. Six months pregnant and none of it easy, they’d started trying for a baby at the same time as Ted and me. They couldn’t lose it now.

  I pushed the cruiser and cut the drive from the usual twenty minutes to ten when I rocketed to the front of Sarah and Robert’s house and slid on the gravel. I might as well have teleported to the living room for all the awareness I had of running up the porch and through the front door.

  Sarah lay on her side on the navy leather couch, her knees drawn to her chest. Tears streaked her face and she gasped. “Damn, it hurts!”

  My insides turned to curdled milk to see her moaning and writhing. I’d known her to take a tumble from the saddle, climb back on without a word or even a wince, ride five miles home, then drive herself an hour and a half to the emergency room in Broken Butte to have her broken wrist set.

  I knelt beside her and placed my hand on her forehead, not even sure why. She didn’t feel hot. “It’s okay.” Those words came out without any meaning, just something to calm her.

  She arched and grabbed my hand, crushing it in hers. “It is anything but okay.”

  Panic threatened, and I mentally slapped myself. Sarah and her baby needed me. “Do you think you can stand and make it to the car? I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  She blinked tears and pulled her hand from mine to swipe at her wet nose. “Pretty much have to. You’re too weak to carry me.”

  Sarah never caved to panic. I squatted for her to sling her arm over my shoulder and hefted her up. Her belly barely bulged under her sweatshirt. She had a couple of inches on me, and though more statuesque (and the one who always drew the guys over to our table), she carried more weight, and it landed firmly on me as another contraction wracked her.

  Her moan sounded low, like a heifer laboring with its first calf. But she never needed to know that. “The baby, Kate.” She started to sob halfway to the door. “What if something is wrong with Tigger?”

  I made up something so stupid even I cringed. “Tigger is fine. It takes a lot to harm a baby that’s all safe and secure in a woman’s stomach.”

  Sarah let out a guffaw and doubled over, almost sending me to my knees. “Damn it, Kate. Don’t make me laugh. That was the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  We waited for the contraction to pass. How long had it been between them? Why did I even concern myself with counting? Six months was too early for any of this. I had to get Sarah to the hospital, and they had to save Tigger.

  No tears, shaking voice, or sympathy from me. That would only make it worse for Sarah. “Of course I was making something up. I admit it wasn’t good, but it’s hard to think when a giant is crushing you.”

  Still bent, Sarah shuffled with me toward the door. “Screw you, pipsqueak. Get me and Tigger to the hospital and let the professionals handle this.”

  We made it to the cruiser. I flipped on the light bar and drove like a jackrabbit with a ’yote on its tail. “Did you try Robert again?”

  She winced in pain and waited a beat. “Yeah. No answer.”

  I raced down the highway and pulled out my phone.

  Sarah put a hand on my arm. “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Jeremy. Sending him out to the golf course to fetch Robert.”

  She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her belly. “Wait. Robert will freak out if Jeremy flies out there.”

  “He needs to know what’s going on.” I hated arguing with her when she felt so terrible.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and panted a moment. With her head tipped back on the seat, her voice came out scared and small. “Let me do it my way. Please. Just stay with me.”

  I didn’t know what to say and kept my speedometer over 100 mph on the straight, empty road.

  She squeezed out more words. “I need all of me to do this. I can’t spare anything for Robert. If he’s here, I’ll worry if I cry, he’ll panic.”

  I understood how he’d feel. I was close to falling apart at the thought of losing Tigger, or watching Sarah in such pain. “Okay. But he’ll be mad when this is over and you’re fine.”

  Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Don’t pull that bullshit with me. You know this isn’t good. And you’re going to have to help me deal with it.”

  Sarah and I never skirted around reality, and this wasn’t the time to start. “We’ll get through it together. We always do.”

  She whimpered and squirmed, panting and squeezing the door handle as contractions came and went, and I got us to the Broken Butte County Hospital as fast as possible and screamed into the ER bay. I had radioed ahead, and the crew met us with a wheelchair and whisked Sarah away.

  I parked and by the time I found her, she lay on a bed in an exam room. They’d hiked her sweatshirt up and strapped a fetal monitor across her belly. A heart rate monitor clamped her finger, and I thanked my stars I’d missed the PICC line insertion. A nurse hung a drip bag on a pole next to Sarah’s bed.

  I grasped Sarah’s ankle. “How’re you doing?”

  Her eyes, still watery, were wide with fear. She swallowed slowly and held my gaze.

  “Should I call Robert?”

  She nodded. “Text. Use my phone.”

  She lifted a hip and jerked the hand with the IV attached. I jumped forward and reached under her to clasp the phone from her back pocket. “Got it.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Say, ‘I’m okay. Tigger’s okay. At hospital.
Come pick us up when you can.’”

  I stared at her. She could be losing her baby. “That’s what you want to text?”

  She growled at me. “Don’t want him driving too fast.”

  Oh, brother. She needed to quit worrying about Robert. But she could handle this however she needed. If it made sense to her. I sent the text.

  It took a stressful ten minutes for the on-call doc to drag herself from her workout and reach the hospital. Docs didn’t man the ER 24/7 in Broken Butte. On the occasion one was needed, the on-call doc was usually minutes away. I met her at the doorway since I was on my way to escort her myself. With extreme self-control, I didn’t rip into her about how I’d called ahead and why had it taken her so long to arrive. She was here now, and all my righteous frustration wouldn’t contribute to her helping Sarah.

  She hurried into the room ahead of me. “I’m Dr. Brainard.”

  I glared at her, even though she had her back to me. I’d never heard of a Dr. Brainard and wished Doc Kennedy, the man I trusted above all others, had been the on-call doctor. I tamped down my urge to ask her where she’d come from, where she earned her degree, what experience and qualifications made her worthy to treat Sarah and Tigger.

  Dr. Brainard stared at the heart monitor and read from a chart. She studied the fetal monitor.

  I had to admit, Sarah seemed much more comfortable now than when we arrived. The fluid must have helped and she seemed less tense, which probably minimized the cramps.

  Sarah’s phone dinged, and I glanced at the screen. “Robert says he’s on his way.”

  “If he calls, let it ring. Text him back that I’m ready to go.”

  It felt like lying not to tell Robert the whole truth, but I did what Sarah wanted.

  Dr. Brainard put her hand on Sarah’s belly. “Your heartbeat was elevated when you came in. But it’s normal now. How do you feel?”

  Her eyes still topped the worry chart. “Better. Still having cramps, though.”

  Dr. Brainard considered that. “What did you eat today?”