Hauck realized that if he hadn’t taken a step toward Watkins, that would have been his head. “That was for me.”
“Well, I told you you should’ve been in that car of yours, on that road and gone. You know they were wrong,” the farmer said, his eyes growing a bit glazy. Marie Watkins came running across the fields.
“About what?” Hauck said, folding his shirt over and pressing the other side down.
“Trey. I did love him, Mr. Hauck. I loved them all.”
“I know you did,” Hauck said. “I saw that, too.”
The siren continued to wail. Marie Watkins arrived, fear in her eyes. “Chuck, Chuck, are you all right?” She saw him on the ground. “Oh my God, Chuck!”
“He’s been hit in the shoulder,” Hauck said. “I think the bullet went right through him. I think he’ll be okay.”
“The police are on their way. I told them there was shooting.”
“Riddick?” Watkins rolled his eyes with a sarcastic snort. “That’ll kick me over the edge for sure.”
Suddenly a thought rose up that sent terror through Hauck’s blood.
Dani …
He’d left her in town. By herself. If they’d come after him in this way, right out in the open, what would they do to her?
“I need to go,” Hauck said. “My niece may be in danger. I left her back in town.”
“Go on, go!” Watkins said, gritting his teeth, “I’ll be all right here.”
“I need something from you first …” Hauck looked at Marie.
“What? Anything.”
“I need a gun.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Dani was at the counter at the one café in town. There were only a couple of tables filled, the conversations ranging from the Wounded Warrior Basket Drive next week to the prospects of rain to the Colorado Rockies.
She ordered a club sandwich, and sent a couple of emails to Geoff and her roommate, Patti, and went over in her mind what Jen Keeler had told them. The mystery was filling in. They now knew that Trey was killed to force his father and the other farmers to back down from their suit against the town. The only question now was what could be done about it. They knew that bringing in the local police would be about as effective as filing a complaint with RMM’s customer service department.
And then there was Wade. Something just didn’t sit right with her. How he’d dragged his feet from the start, hidden the fact that he’d impounded the film from the park that implicated Robertson. How he’d called her just the other night, sounding strange, vague. Almost drunk, she thought. Do the smart thing, and come on back …
The smart thing. Meaning what?
It seemed to come to her all at once.
They’d gotten to him, too. Just like they’d gotten to the people here. The police and the lawyers.
They wanted to come after Trey and they’d somehow bought Wade off. He was a walking, talking advertisement for a payout even from a couple of hundred miles away.
That was why he’d sounded so helpless on the phone the other night. Do the smart thing, and come on back.
Because she and Ty were in danger here.
She checked the time. Ty had been gone for well over an hour now. Typical … The little bell jingled when the front door of the café opened and Dani turned, expecting to see him come in. It was another man. She went to text Ty again. The man looked around the small café and came up to the counter. There were three or four stools open but he took one next to her. He was in his twenties, nice build, short hair, with a scruffy beard and muscular arms, wearing a South by Southwest T-shirt over his jeans.
He smiled affably. “This seat taken?”
“No.” She moved her bag and phone closer to her. “Sorry.”
“No worries.” The guy had nice, green eyes, though there was something about him that seemed vaguely familiar. Maybe she had seen him at the funeral, she thought. Or around town somewhere.
She hit redial again, set to step outside if Ty picked up, but his voice mail came on again. She clicked off the phone, having already left a message.
“So what do you think, the chili or the bison burger?” the guy next to her asked.
Dani shrugged. “I don’t know. First time here myself. Well, second, actually.”
“Same here. I don’t find myself in town much during the day. But we shut down the well site today, so they gave us the afternoon off.”
Dani turned toward him. “You work on one of the wells?”
“Betsy Three South. Seven days a week. Think I’ll go with the burger. You don’t see fresh bison on the menu everyday.” He seemed pleasant and polite in a midwestern kind of way. “Been pretty much spending twenty-four/seven out there.”
“That’s crazy. For how long?”
“I don’t know … For over a month now. Gotta feed the beast while it’s hungry, as they say.”
“Or thirsty, I guess.” Dani smiled.
“Or thirsty.” The guy grinned back. He ordered from the waitress, along with a Diet Coke.
“So who do you work for?” Dani asked.
“Freelance mostly. Betsy’s a nat gas well. Man, it feels good just to get these hands out of the dirt. So what brings you here? I’ve never seen you before around town.”
“Just visiting,” Dani said.
“Well, then you’re lucky.” The guy grinned, flagging the waitress. “The only thing I get to visit is a hydraulic compressor valve that separates natural gas from mud and water.”
“Well, not that lucky,” Dani said. “I came for a funeral.”
“Oh, sorry. Meant no disrespect.”
She smiled back. “That’s okay.”
The waitress came over with his soda. The guy took a glance toward the front door.
“So what sort of work do you do there?” Dani asked.
“Valve hand. On the water flow,” he said.
“For fracking?”
“That’s the only way to get the product out,” he said. He took a sip of his soda and sighed.
“I actually always wondered,” Dani said, “where all the water comes from for something like that. You need a lot of it, right?”