Jonas’s lip trembled.
Then he whispered back, “Me.”
“Look out for Krys,” Tate directed.
“Okay,” Jonas was still whispering.
Tate let him go but hooked him with an arm around his shoulders, yanking his son into his body and squeezing tight. Then he let him go again and his eyes swept Krys. She was standing and he saw her eyes were bright but her jaw was clenched. Gritting her teeth to keep back the tears.
“Be back with Laurie,” Tate told her.
She swallowed.
“Right, Tate,” she said.
They were out the door, Deke peeling off to his truck, Bubba to his, Tate to the Explorer when they saw lights coming up the lane. They stopped to see Shambles and Sunny’s VW van park off to the side. Both got out, Shambles ran to them, Sunny coming slower.
“Word?” Shambles demanded.
“We’re goin’ to look for her,” Bubba answered.
“I’m coming,” he turned to Tate. “Jonas?”
“In the house,” Tate answered and looked at Sunny. “He could use you.”
She didn’t even nod. She ran to the house.
Shambles ran to the passenger side of Bubba’s truck.
They all climbed in and went down the mountain.
*
Jim-Billy
He should have bought one of those cell phones.
He really should have.
But he didn’t and there was no time to spare.
He also shouldn’t drink so goddamned much.
But it was Christmas and every twinkling light, every swaying garland, every Christmas tree blinking in every goddamned window reminded him.
So he drank too much.
But not too much not to remember gabbing with Dalton ages ago, it had to be over a year, and Dalton telling him about his place. Jim-Billy hadn’t even thought about it, not then, not later when all that shit with the girls was going down. It was a nothing conversation he put out of his mind.
But Dalton had told him he didn’t have an apartment in town or a house. He lived in the hills, the hills where the hippy chick was attacked.
“My Ma’s old place,” he’d muttered.
And drunken Jim-Billy – hearing about Laurie when everyone at the bar was murmuring about it, panicking, the men heading to the garage – fear threaded its way through the alcohol drenching his system and he’d remembered pretty Jane Simpson who’d gotten knocked up in high school and had a boy. She’d lived up there with her folks until she got herself a man and she’d moved to Ouray to be with that man. And he remembered vaguely hearing word that she’d been killed, knifed to death by her boyfriend who swore he didn’t do it, swore he loved her, swore she was the love of his life even though he was charged and found guilty and went to prison for it. Everyone they knew, Jim-Billy remembered the talk filtering from Ouray, had been stunned. All those folks said Jane and her man were tight, they were in love, they meant the world to each other. And with Jane’s folks both dead by then, Jim-Billy remembered hearing her son had gone into foster care.
No one had lived up at that house for years.
Or at least they thought no one had.
Dalton was a good kid, everyone liked him, especially Tonia. Jim-Billy spent a lot of time in that bar and he’d noticed the way she’d looked at him. She’d crushed on him huge, always trying to catch his eye. Jim-Billy figured her clothing got scantier and her flirting got flirtier as she got more desperate to make an impression or make him jealous.
But Dalton wasn’t interested, not in her, not in any of the girls. He’d flirt but that was it. Hell, Izzy had been working there less than three months and that kid got laid practically every night. Jim-Billy knew all about it. Izzy was young but he wasn’t as good-looking as Dalton so he bragged, a lot.
Not Dalton.
Young, good-looking guy like that? That wasn’t right.
Jim-Billy had never thought anything of it.
Never.
Until now.
Now he had Laurie and he was going to hurt her. Hurt her like he hurt Tonia. Like he hurt Neeta. Like he hurt that pretty, sweet hippie chick.
And Laurie was Tate’s Elise. He had Jonas, so she wasn’t his everything, but that didn’t mean she didn’t make up half his world.
Once half of your world was torn from you, you could live to be a hundred and never build it back up.
Never.
And Tatum Jackson was a good man. He didn’t deserve Jim-Billy’s life, going home alone to a cold bed every night and staying awake remembering what it felt like when his bed wasn’t cold when he slipped into it, when he never felt alone, even when he wasn’t with her.
And he was going to do something about it.
He knew he should call the cops, or even call Tate, but he didn’t have a cell phone.
And he didn’t have time.
Someone had to get to Laurie.
*
Tate
“It’s a federal investigation, Jackson,” Chief Arnie Fuller said through the phone.