“Rented a room, I think. Somewhere not too far because she walked to work most days,” Wanda offered. “I think she said she had family in San Bernardino that she was hoping to see . . . that was it, right? No, wait, maybe it was San Jose, oh, hell all those towns in California sound the same to me. Donella, you knew her better. Where did Stacey say she had family. San Jose?”
“I didn’t know her that well,” Donella denied, giving a quick shake of her head, her ponytail wagging. “I thought she said . . . San Jacinto. Maybe.”
“No, that ain’t it.” Wanda let out a frustrated sigh. “All I know was it wasn’t
San Diego or San Francisco, but it started with San . . . wait, or maybe Santa. There’s a lot of those, too.”
“Talk to Tanisha,” Donella declared. “She’s the one who talked to her the most.”
He’d thanked them, then, hours later, had shown up for Tanisha’s night. The place was rockin’ by then, a band coming on at nine, but he hadn’t been thinking it would make any difference as Anne-Marie had told everyone she worked with a different story about heading out to somewhere in California, or Las Vegas, or Phoenix. Diversions to hide her true destination.
However, Tanisha, who happened to be one of the bartenders, had given him his first real clue.
“Yeah, I talked to her, but she kept to herself,” she confided in a smoky voice that hinted at too many cigarettes. A short, black woman with a hard stare if a customer was getting too rowdy, she added, “Said she was from Texas somewhere. Maybe Houston. I can’t really remember.”
Encouraged, Ryder had stuck around, ordering drinks and placing healthy tips in the jar on the counter.
Finally, Tanisha remembered. “You know, she did say something once about looking up an old boyfriend. When I asked her who he was, she clammed up and said she’d thought better of it. Didn’t say his name, but I think he was some kind of cowboy. But y’know, we’re in Colorado. Everybody’s a cowboy here.” She’d laughed then.
But Ryder had known Anne-Marie must have been talking about Cade Grayson. “Did Stacey ever talk about Montana?”
Tanisha was polishing the long wooden bar with a cloth and a man at the far end raised a finger, indicating he’d like another drink. Ryder had been impatient, wishing he had the bartender’s attention all to himself, but then she said, “Y’know, that’s about the one damn place in these United States she didn’t mention.”
Bingo.
He’d then canvassed the area and found a rooming house where the landlady who, for a little cash, admitted that her last tenant, a woman she “never trusted,” had moved on and told her to forward any mail to a post office box in LA. Ryder hadn’t taken that bait. He’d been fooled by Anne-Marie too many times. Instead, he’d followed the only clue that had made any sense to him—that she was going to hook up with an old boyfriend. Maybe that had been her plan all along, to go to Cade, or maybe it was a move out of desperation. Whatever the case, one-time rodeo rider Cade Grayson was Anne-Marie’s ex-boyfriend and a bona fide son of a bitch.
And he’d returned right to his hometown of Grizzly Falls, Montana.
Chapter 10
Seated across the table from Santana in a booth at Wild Will’s, Pescoli frowned at the screen of her cell phone.
“Bad news?” he asked, taking a swallow of beer as he eyed her.
The restaurant was crowded and noisy, most of the tables filled. Waitresses and busboys flitted through the cavernous dining area decorated with rough plank walls, wagon wheel chandeliers, and the heads of game animals mounted on the walls beneath the rafters.
“Depends on your perspective, I guess,” she said and managed a perturbed smile.
They’d left on bad terms the other night when he’d called to offer his condolences about Grayson, and true to form, she’d been a stone-cold bitch, icing him out and pushing him away. Sometimes she wondered why he put up with her. They’d met in the parking lot after a brief phone call where Santana had suggested they have dinner at the familiar restaurant on the banks of the Grizzly River, just under the falls.
They hadn’t met in person since Dan Grayson’s death, only spoken on the phone. Seeing Santana again had brought tears to her eyes. Standing by his truck, he’d opened his arms wide and she’d stepped into them, letting him pull her close. He’d whispered, “God, Regan, I’m sorry.”
She’d felt like a heel for how she’d treated him and had let herself be wrapped in the warmth of his embrace. He’d smelled earthy, of leather and horses and a bit of musk. With the snow beginning to fall around them and the rush of the river tumbling over the falls in her ears, she’d closed her eyes and forced herself not to cry.
“I am, too,” she’d admitted. “Not just for Grayson, but for the other night. You wanted to come over and I . . . was dealing with a lot.”
“I know,” he’d said, but he hadn’t told her that her behavior was okay, because it hadn’t been.
But he did allow her to be herself and she knew he would never try to change her. Santana, more than anyone, understood how devastated she’d been with the loss of Grayson, that she had witnessed the horror of the sheriff being shot, and that she’d woken up screaming in the middle of the night, reliving the experience. She hoped the nightmares would cease or at least abate soon. Always before, whether it had been dealing with her grief after Joe had been killed or handling the aftermath of her own terror at the hands of a psychotic killer, she’d spent several weeks, even months reliving the horror in her dreams. With time and effort, she had shed the need to replay the awful scenes in her subconscious.
She only hoped the same would happen this time.
“So?” he said, nodding at the phone. “Work?”
With a quick shake of her head, she said, “Bianca’s a no-show. Again.” Pescoli didn’t want to think what that might mean. “Third time this week.” She glanced down at the text one more time. At Lana’s. Homework. Be home later. A frowning emoticon followed the word homework.
She couldn’t help feeling that she was being played. Never before had one girlfriend taken up so much of Bianca’s time. Pescoli had considered this new friendship a good thing, as Lana was a more studious girl than those Bianca usually hung out with, the more boy-crazy crowd. However, she was second-guessing her daughter.