“Haven’t you been listening? Hell, yes, I believe it. Spence must have arranged it before leaving for Jackson Hole. When it’s discovered that tonight’s only fatality was your dog, they’ll try to dispose of you by some other method.”
Whey-faced, she sucked in a quick breath. In a voice that was huskier than usual, she said, “You’re telling me that my life’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.”
“Essentially, yeah.”
She rested her forehead in her palm. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Don’t,” he said sharply. “We can’t create a scene. Breathe through your mouth.”
Gray sat tensely until her nausea passed. After a while she asked for a glass of water, and he signaled the waitress. She noticed that Barrie wasn’t feeling well. “Is she okay?”
“Morning sickness,” Gray said, thinking how goofy his fake smile must look. “Except she gets it at night.”
“Oh, that’ll pass after the first few months, honey. How far along are you?”
“Uh—”
“Three months,” Gray said.
Patting Barrie on the shoulder, the waitress offered to bring her a cup of hot tea. “She’ll be fine,” Gray said. “But thanks.”
Reassured, the waitress moved away. Barrie took several sips of water. “You lie very well.”
“You don’t.”
“I know.”
Gray realized that she was still in shock. Tears were close to the surface.
“I’ve dragged you into this, haven’t I, Mr. Bondurant?”
He gave an indifferent shrug.
“I have,” she insisted tremulously. “Because I went to see you, your life’s in danger too. You share the story they can’t allow to be told.” The more she talked, the more anxious she became.
“You took an awful risk by coming here. You should have stayed in Wyoming. If you go home now, maybe they’ll forget that you know. They’ll think that you dismissed me.”
He was amused by her naiveté but kept a straight face. “They don’t forget. They don’t leave any loose ends, either. Geography doesn’t matter. They want whatever happened to the baby, and whatever’s going on with Vanessa, to be deep-sixed. And our curiosity along with it.”
“How’d you get here so fast?”
“I trashed Spence’s computer and turned in his rental car by dropping the keys and the paperwork into the quick-checkout box at the airport. Then I used the return portion of his ticket.”
Knowing there were a limited number of commercial flights into Jackson Hole, Barrie asked, “Were you on my plane?” He nodded. “I didn’t see you.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“Oh.” She paused, trying to figure out how he had escaped her notice. “Why didn’t you just warn me somewhere along the way? If you had, Cronkite might still be alive.”
“I miscalculated. I didn’t expect their first warning to be the coup de grâce. I thought they’d start with a veiled threat, like your source at the hospital probably received. But they’re not screwing around. They didn’t want you scared into silence—they wanted you dead.”
“So you’ve said.” She gnawed on her inner cheek. “Where’d you leave it with Spence?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how’d you get hold of his airline ticket? How’d you manage to elude him?”
He held her stare for a long time, wondering how much he should tell her. Finally, all he said was, “I didn’t.”