Carly forced herself to spout the party line. “Samuel Grayson has generously done a great deal for this town,” she began, the words all but burning a hole through her tongue.
“Grayson?” Hawk repeated. She was talking about Micah’s twin brother. The smooth talker of the pair. He remembered thinking that the man could have easily been a snake oil salesman in the Old West. Last he’d heard, Grayson had hit the trail, spouting nonsense. They called that being a “motivational speaker” these days. Still a snake oil salesman in his book. “Samuel Grayson did all this?”
She nodded, forcing herself to look both enthusiastic and respectful at the mere mention of the man’s name. “He and the investors he brought with him,” she told him.
She hated the look of disbelief and disappointment she saw in Hawk’s eyes, but she knew she couldn’t risk telling him the way she actually felt. Couldn’t tell him that she knew Grayson, charming though he might seem at first, was guilty of brainwashing the more gullible, the more desperate of the town’s citizens. These were people who had tried to eke out a living for so long that when they had been given comforts for the very first time in their lives, they’d willingly fallen under the man’s spell. They had given their allegiance to Grayson gladly, never realizing that they were also trading in their souls. Samuel Grayson accepted nothing less than complete submission. He fed on the power he had over the growing population of the so-called, little utopian world he had created.
So the rumors and his first impression were right, Hawk thought grimly. This was what Micah had vaguely alluded to when he’d asked to meet with him. Samuel Grayson had established a cult out here, preying on the vulnerable, the desperate, the easily swayed. He’d used all that against them to establish a beachhead for his particular brand of lunatic fringe.
“And where is Samuel Grayson right now?” he asked.
Again, the words all but scalded Carly’s tongue, but she had no choice. She’d seen one of Samuel’s henchmen come around the back of the school yard. The man didn’t even bother pretending that he wasn’t watching her. It was enough to make a person deeply paranoid.
“Samuel is wherever he is needed the most,” she replied.
Without fully realizing what he was doing, Hawk took hold of her shoulders, fighting the very strong urge to shake her, return her to the clearheaded, intelligent woman he’d once known—or at least believed he’d once known.
Exasperation filled his veins as he cried, “Oh God, Carly, you can’t possibly really believe what you just spouted.”
Carly forced herself to raise her chin the way she always used to when she was bracing for a fight. “Of course I believe what I just said. And I’m not ‘spouting,’ I’m repeating the truth.”
Hawk rolled his eyes, battling disgust.
“There a problem here?” someone asked directly behind him.
The low, gravelly voice belonged to the town’s chief of police, one Bo Fargo. It was a job title that Fargo had apparently bestowed upon himself. The title elevated him from the lowly position of sheriff, a job he had just narrowly been elected to in the first place. But he did Grayson’s bidding and, as such, was assured of a job for life, no matter what.
Carly’s eyes widened.
“No, no problem,” she declared quickly, hoping to avert this from turning into something ugly, given half a chance. She knew how Fargo operated. The stocky man didn’t believe in just throwing his weight around but in using his fists and the butt of his gun to do his “convincing,” as well. She didn’t want to see Hawk hurt. “I’m just telling Hawk here about all the changes that have been introduced to Cold Plains—thanks to Samuel—since he left here.”
The name obviously struck a chord. Fargo squinted as he peered up into Hawk’s face.
In his fifties, the tall, husky man was accustomed to having both men and women alike cowering before him whenever he scowled. He enjoyed watching the spineless citizens being intimidated by him. He went so far as to relish it.
“Hawk?” Fargo echoed as he stared at the outsider through watery blue eyes.
“Hawk Bledsoe,” Carly prompted by way of a reminder. “You remember Hawk, don’t you, Chief?” she prodded, watching the man’s round face for some sign of recognition.
“Tall, skinny kid,” Fargo said, deliberately taking a derogatory tone.
Hawk gave no indication that he was about to back away. “I filled out some.”
There was another moment of silence, as if Fargo was debating which way to play this. Hawk was not easily intimidated, and Fargo clearly didn’t want to get into a contest where he might wind up being the loser. So for now, he laughed and patted his own gut.
“Haven’t we all?” he asked rhetorically. “So what brings you back, Bledsoe? You thinking of resettling here in Cold Plains now that it’s finally got something to offer?” he asked.
Hawk’s eyes never left Fargo’s. “No, I’m here to investigate the murders of five of your town’s female citizens.”
To back up his statement, Hawk took out his wallet and held up his ID for the chief to see.
If he didn’t know better, Hawk thought, he would have sworn that Fargo turned pale beneath his deeply tanned face.
Chapter 4
T
he next minute, Hawk saw the chief of police pull himself together. What appeared to have been a momentary lapse, a chink in his armor, disappeared without a trace. Instead, a steely confidence descended over the older man’s features again, eliminating any hint that he had been unnerved by talk of an investigation.
“I’m afraid that someone’s been pulling your leg, Bledsoe,” Fargo told him in a measured, firm voice. “We don’t allow any crime here in Cold Plains.”
Talk about being pompous, Hawk thought. The man set the bar at a new height. “Well, whether you allow it or not, Sheriff—”
“Chief,” Fargo corrected tersely. “I’m the
chief
of police here.”
Hawk inclined his head. If the man wanted to play games, so be it. He could play along for now, as long as it bought him some time and he could continue with his investigation. Not that he thought Fargo would be of any help to him. He just didn’t want the man to be a hindrance.
“Chief,” Hawk echoed, then continued, “but those five women are still dead nonetheless.”
Minute traces of a scowl took over Fargo’s average features. “I run a very tight ship here, Bledsoe. Everyone’s happy, everyone gets along. Look around you,” he instructed gruffly as he gestured about to encompass the entire town. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the town you left behind when you tore out of here after graduation.” His eyes narrowed with the intention of pinning his opponent down. “I’ve been the chief of police these last five years and I don’t recall anyone finding any bodies of dead women in Cold Plains,” he concluded, closing the subject as far as he was concerned.
“That’s because they weren’t found here,” Hawk explained evenly. “The bodies were discovered in five different locations throughout Wyoming over the last five years.”
The expression on Fargo’s face said that the matter was settled by the FBI agent’s own admission. “Well, if you know that, then I don’t understand what you’re doing here, trying to stir things up. We’re a peaceful little town, and we don’t need your kind of trouble here.”
A “peaceful little town” with a whole lot of secrets in its closet, Hawk was willing to bet. Out loud he said, “All the women are believed to have been from here at one time or another.”
“Hell, what someone does once they leave Cold Plains isn’t any concern of mine.” Though he continued to maintain the mirthless smile on his lips, Fargo’s eyes seemed to bore into the man he considered an interloper—and possibly a problem. “If they found you dead, say in Cheyenne, that wouldn’t be a reflection on the place where you were born, now, would it, Bledsoe?”
Hawk knew when he was being threatened and none-too-subtly at that. He had a feeling that Carly knew, too, because he saw her grow rigid, and just for a moment, that empty smile on her face had faded. She almost looked like the Carly he remembered, the Carly he still carried around in his head, despite all his efforts not to.
“It would be if I was killed here and then
moved
to Cheyenne,” Hawk countered calmly.
He saw a flash of anger in the watery eyes before the chief got himself under control. “Is that what you’re saying, Bledsoe? That these women were killed here and then somehow magically
lifted
and deposited in different places, all without my knowing a thing about it?” He drew closer, more menacing. “You think I’m that blind?”
“No, I don’t,” Hawk answered evenly. “And what I’m saying is that I need to investigate their deaths further, and that since they did come from Cold Plains, I wanted to ask a few questions starting here.”
Fargo crossed his arms before him, an immovable brick wall.
Daring
the other man to say the wrong thing. “Go ahead.”
Their battlefield would be of his choosing, not Fargo’s. “When I have the right questions,” he told the chief mildly, “I’ll be sure to come look you up.”
Fargo’s eyes narrowed into pale blue slits. “You do that.” He shifted his gaze to Carly, who had been, for the most part, silently witnessing this exchange. Though there was a smile on the older man’s lips, he looked far from happy. “Looks like recess time is over, Ms. Finn.” He waved at the children behind her. “You’d best get those little ones back to their classrooms.”
It was a veiled order, and Carly knew it. Nodding, she let the chief think that she appreciated his prompting. There was no point in digging in now. She needed Fargo to believe she was as mindless as all the other women who had chosen to cleave to Grayson’s remodeled version of paradise on earth.
“Right you are, Chief.”
Turning, she deliberately avoided making eye contact with Hawk, afraid he would see too much there, things that would give him pause. Because if he thought that what she was doing might all be an act, she was certain that Fargo, who was smarter than he actually looked, would pick up on it.
Worse, the chief might act on it. She didn’t want any harm coming to Hawk. Though it might sound callous to someone else, she didn’t care about the women whose murders were being investigated. They were dead, and nothing would change that. But Hawk wasn’t. She didn’t want Hawk getting hurt, and if he stayed here any length of time, he just might become a target.
It wasn’t safe here anymore.
Hawk had always shot straight from the hip, and around here, that was dangerous. Fargo wasn’t a man to cross and neither was Grayson or any of his cold-blooded henchmen. The only way to deal with any of them was to pretend to play the game.
As Carly withdrew, Fargo remained standing where he was, his right hand resting on the hilt of his holstered weapon as he regarded Hawk.
“Anything else I can do for you?” Fargo asked.
Hawk knew the value of retreat in order to regroup for another time, another battle. “I’ll let you know, Chief,” he promised noncommittally, just before he turned and walked away.
“You won’t have any trouble finding me,” Fargo called after him. “I patrol these streets pretty regularly. Seeing me among ’em is what keeps folks on the straight and narrow.”
“Got it,” Hawk replied without bothering to turn around. He did his best not to sound dismissive.
When he had initially left town, he remembered that Fargo had been a deputy, not the sheriff and certainly nothing as pretentious sounding as “chief of police.” In addition, the man had also been the town bully, more given to causing trouble than to quelling it. Fargo took over, according to the information that he’d collected, when the old sheriff died in a freak accident.
He wondered just how much of it had been an accident and how much had involved a freak. Might just be something else to investigate, Hawk thought, after he cleared up this matter of the five women’s murders.
Crossing to his car, Hawk blew out a breath. Just what the hell had happened here in the past five years or so? Five years was also about the time that the first body had turned up. And
that
coincided with another piece of information that the Bureau had discovered about Grayson and his band of not-so-merry-men. They had descended on the town, under the guise of being business “investors,” and started buying up property with the intention of making renovations five years ago.
He’d read the reports that had been compiled, but he’d never dreamed the extent to which all this actually went. Grayson had transformed everything, as well as everyone he encouraged to remain in the town, creating what he freely touted as being “paradise on earth.”
There was no such thing and they all knew it, Hawk thought, getting into his car. Or were supposed to know it.
After closing the door, he fastened his seat belt. What Grayson had really created was a town of zombies. Key in hand, Hawk remained sitting in his car, observing the people on Main Street for a few more minutes. He was acutely aware that Fargo was watching him watch the good citizens of Cold Plains.
It struck him in less than another minute that there was something
really
wrong with this scenario, something that went beyond the inane smiles and the overly neat clothing. Didn’t anyone get dirty anymore? Not even the kids? What he noticed was that there wasn’t a single neutral expression in the whole lot.