“Yep. That doesn’t mean you have to do it.” John-John set his elbows on the bar. “In fact, I wish you’d blow her off.”
My gaze zeroed in on him. “Why? Is there something in your vision you’re not telling me?”
“No. I never know what events can be changed by a single decision. I think poking around on the rez and asking the bad kids Albert hung around with questions is a bad idea.”
“How do you know they’re bad kids?”
“Didja forget I grew up there? I know firsthand what cruelty teens can inflict on one another, especially angry Indian kids. It’d be best if you stayed out of it.”
“I don’t know how deep I’ll look, but I can’t blow off Estelle completely. She’s hurting. We both know there’d be no living with Sophie if I don’t do something.” I scowled. Shot number four joined shot number three gurgling in my stomach.
I saw John-John debate on mentioning the amount of booze I’d sucked down, but he thought better of it and shoved a bowl of pretzels toward me.
The music streaming from the jukebox became sappy and sentimental. I love a good he-done-me-wrong-so-why-don’t-I-just-get-drunk-and-screw-someone country song as much as the next woman, but I wanted a more upbeat tune.
You want to see if Mr. Tight Ass is still hanging around in the back room.
Yeah, maybe that, too. I hopped off the bar stool and headed for the jukebox.
The rainbow strobe lights flashed as I punched in the number for the Trick Pony song “Pour Me.” I snickered at Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” An image I didn’t need in my present hormonal state, but I played it anyway. Followed by “Unwound” by George Strait. When I spun away from the jukebox, there was my cowboy. Before I mentally begged him to turn my direction, he did.
Holy shit. My Sexy Tight Ass Cowboy was Mr. Tight Ass himself, Sheriff Dawson, looking decidedly unsherifflike without the uniform, the shades, and the perpetual stick rammed up his butt.
I groaned. It figured.
He did a double take when he saw me.
Too late to pretend I hadn’t seen him. Wasn’t life just a big bowl of rotten chokecherries?
He ambled over. “Mercy Gunderson. I didn’t expect to see you in a place like this.”
“Yeah? I could say the same, Sheriff.”
“I’m off duty.”
“If I remember correctly, my dad was never really ‘off duty.’”
“Maybe, but as I’m in here enjoying myself, I’d rather you called me by name, not my job title.”
I drew a mental blank. “What’s your first name again?”
“Mason.”
My eyes widened. “Like the jar?”
Dawson scowled. “Nothing gets by you, does it?”
Typical marine. What a jarhead. I’d had enough whiskey to want to slug him. Fuzzy logic, but if he wasn’t here in official capacity… maybe I could get away with it. As I contemplated the repercussions, a baritone voice yelled, “Hey, Mad Dog,” from the back room.
The sheriff’s head whipped around. “What?”
“You’re up.”
“Okay. Be right there,” he yelled back.
“Mad Dog?” I repeated.
He shrugged. “An old nickname.”
“From your football glory days?” I snickered.
“Nah. From my bulldoggin’ and bull-riding days.”
Ah hell. Maybe John-John’s violent vision was nothing more than my beating my head into the bar top from my questionable taste in men. “Well,
Mad Dog
, see you around.”
Back at the bar, I drained my beer. Chatted with Muskrat until two guys caused a ruckus in front of the TV. I’d signaled to John-John to tally up my bill, when the hair on the back of my neck prickled and someone crowded in behind me. I didn’t grab the guy and toss him on his ass, which was a huge step toward civilian normalcy for me.
Or it could’ve been a sign I’d had too much to drink.
I rotated my bar stool.
Dawson grinned at me—pure cowboy charm.
Shit.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“I was just leaving.”
“Come on, Mercy. One drink.”
“I thought you were playing pocket pool, Sheriff?”
He didn’t bat an eye at my dig. “Game is over.”
I sighed like I was doing him a favor. “One drink. But I refuse to call you Mason. Or Mad Dog.”
“Fine. Call me whatever you like.” I opened my mouth, and he amended, “Within reason.”
The jam-packed area around the bar pressed us together like saltine crackers. “You here alone?” I nodded. “Doesn’t seem like your kind of place. A little rough.”
“Not as rough as the club I mistakenly stumbled into in Bosnia. Makes this joint look like a church.” My finger unconsciously sought the souvenir, a three-inch scar above my ear, now hidden by my hair.
Dawson didn’t push. He didn’t look away either. “You ever want to talk, I did my stint in the marines during Desert Storm. I imagine we’ve seen some of the same things.”
Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was his condescending offer. But for once I let the horrors I’d witnessed and perpetrated flit through my eyes. “You can’t begin to imagine what I’ve seen.”
Most people would’ve missed his tiny flare of alarm. Then again, I’m not most people. I’d scared him. Good. But I knew he wouldn’t let it slide.
“Who are you? Maybe a better question is:
What
are you?”
“Just a simple enlisted girl keeping the country safe from the evils of terrorism.”
He tipped up the brim of his hat so he could bend down and whisper in my ear. “I don’t buy it. You can fool other people, Mercy, not me.”
“Then I’ll be careful to watch my step around you.”
Dawson angled his head back. Still too close for my liking. “Speaking of… I didn’t get my chance to two-step with you the other night.”
I made out the strains of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” above the usual bar noises and the strange pounding in my heart.
A dark brown hand with ruby nails appeared on his chest. Teased and frosted hair brushed my jawline as a woman crammed herself between us.
“I’d love to dance with you, Mason. You wandered off and left me all alone in the back room.”
Dawson’s face stayed neutral at her little-girl pout. “Just getting a fresh round. Laronda, this is Mercy. Mercy, Laronda.”
“Nice to meetcha,” she said, leaving her hand on his shirt, practically digging her claws in as a sign of ownership.
This was the type of woman Mad Dog went for? Beauty queen meets Elvira? I could understand his liking her huge boobs. But having to put up with a bad dye job, fake nails, a fake tan, clown makeup, and a quart of perfume just to get his hands on those enormous jugs? Not worth it.
Plus, she couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. That made him roughly twice her age and me… in desperate need of another shot. I caught John-John’s eye. He poured the Wild Turkey and slid it in front of me. It went down the hatch smooth as honey.
“You from around here?” Laronda asked.
“Used to be. How about you?”
“From Belle Fourche, originally. What do you do?”
Kill people
. Nah. Not a good midwestern response. “I’m a rancher. You?”
Her witch’s beak wrinkled as if I smelled of cowshit. “I’m a secretary. For now. I’m studying for my real estate license.”
“Sounds interesting.”
Awkward silence.
Laronda looked from Dawson to me. “How do you two know each other?”
“We don’t.” I swallowed a big drink of beer. “Actually, I was trying to pick him up and drag him back to my place to have my wicked, nasty way with him. You’ve got incredibly bad timing, Laronda.”
She glared at me.
Some people have no sense of humor.
“She’s pulling your leg. Mercy’s dad used to be sheriff. That’s how we know each other.”
“Oh.”
When Laronda made no move to skedaddle, Dawson said, “I ordered a round. Let me settle up and I’ll be right there.”
“Don’t be too long.” She smiled at me—a feral flash of crooked teeth—and raked her talons down his arm.
After she stomped off I said, “She seems nice.”
Dawson stared at me like I’d grown horns.
John-John swept up the empty shot glasses. “Need anything else?”
“Four pitchers for the back room.” Dawson tossed thirty bucks on the counter.
“Mercy?” John-John paused in front of me. “How you doing?”
“I’m good.”
“You’re never good, Miz Mercy.”
I half chided, “Not the best information for you to share with the sheriff, John-John.”
“True. But I’m hoping he’s talking some sense into you.”
“About?” Dawson asked casually.
“Keeping her from getting involved with the Yellow Boy family’s troubles.”
The beer mug stopped halfway to Dawson’s mouth. “Come again?”
But John-John was oblivious to the tension. “
Unci
had no right guilting Mercy into helping Estelle, no matter how close she was to Estelle’s grandmother.”
As if Sophie could guilt me into anything. I had this perverse habit of finding trouble on my own, and I had just stepped into a heaping pile of it. I sent John-John a cold look, but he’d fled the scene.
Dawson’s eyes burned with fury. “You messing in my investigation, Miz Gunderson?”
I fiddled with my empty shot glass.
He crowded in. “Answer me.”
“Since my dad was sheriff I know I’m not legally obligated to answer a damn thing.”
Dawson got his mean on. “I don’t give a damn how long your daddy was sheriff. If I find out you’ve uncovered information on an active case that you’re not sharing with me, I’ll throw you in jail so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
“You threatening me?”
“Bet your sweet ass I’m threatening you.”
“Nice try. On what grounds are you going to lock me up?”
“The dead kid found on
your
land, who just so happens to have a tie to
your
family via
your
nephew. That’s enough right there.”
He was bluffing. Had to be. “Try it.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“My lawyer will eat you for lunch. Let me tell you something else, Sheriff. If you were doing your job, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
His gaze turned razor sharp. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Why is it that a grieving parent is hounding
me
for answers?” I paused. “Because she isn’t getting the answers she needs from you. You think I enjoy having my friend begging
me
to figure out why her child was killed?”
His mouth tightened.
“Just because my father was sheriff she thinks I have some magic fucking insight into the criminal mind and how to catch them. I don’t. But I sure as hell won’t brush off her concerns.”
“And I am?”
“Goddamn right you are. It’s been over a week since they buried Albert. According to Estelle, you haven’t talked to his friends or his other family members. You haven’t done a thing besides piss and moan that people aren’t flocking into your office to unburden themselves. You want people to talk to you and stop treating you like an outsider? Then start acting like you give a shit about what happens inside this county.”
I didn’t wait for his response. I grabbed my purse, ducked under his arm, and made a dash for the bathroom before I did something I’d regret. Good thing I hadn’t brought my gun.
In the stall, the strength of the Wild Turkey shots hit me full force. My vision doubled. I felt sick to my stomach. I’d pay for this in the morning. Guaranteed.
Dawson wasn’t hanging around when I’d slunk back to the bar. With any luck, he’d left and was brushing up on his riding skills with Laronda.
The loud people and the thick smoke made my head throb and my lungs seize up. Although I wasn’t in any shape to drive home, the thought of being cooped up another second made me nauseous. I slipped two twenties in John-John’s hand and bolted.
Outside, I sucked in several breaths of fresh air. I could sleep this off in the truck. Wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before; wasn’t like I wouldn’t do it again. Hell, wasn’t like I had anywhere to go tomorrow.
On my way to the back of the parking lot, I stumbled over empty beer cans. Bottles. My own damn feet. Muskrat really ought to install lights out here. I couldn’t see a thing.
Your vision is limited out of your right eye at night anyway, even when you’re sober.
Nice timing for that cheery reminder.
I tipped my head back and studied the stars. Ooh. Bad move. Made me dizzy. I closed my eyes for a minute, and the keys tumbled from my hand.
As I bent over to pick them up, footfalls echoed, something struck me in the back of the neck. I fell forward and everything went black.