Merciless (11 page)

As soon as he finished, he hit the shower. By the time I cleaned myself up, Mason
was packed and anxious to go. It’d take at least seven hours to reach Denver.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” he asked.

“It’s best if you and Lex have time to talk, without his mother or me around.” I kissed
his cheek. “Besides, you’ll be back in twenty-four hours. I can find something to
occupy myself.”

He kissed me. Hard. “I’ll text you when I get there.”

“Drive safe.”

•   •   •

“What are your plans tonight now that the sheriff is gone?”

I tore my attention away from a riveting episode of
Ice Road Truckers
and looked at my sister. “Been a while since I’ve been to Clementine’s. Thought I’d
catch up with the crew and the regulars.”

Hope swayed with Joy on her hip, softly biting her lip. I braced myself for the don’t-start-drinking-again
plea. But she blurted, “Can I go with you?”

I think my jaw hit the floor. “What?”

“I never get to go out. I’d like to have a conversation with an adult that’s not Jake,
Sophie, or you. No offense.”

Had Hope ever been to Clementine’s? The place had a bad reputation—deservedly so.
Plus, I considered it my bar. Might be stupid, but I had the urge to protect it even
from my sister.

“Of course, me goin’ would boil down to Jake watching Joy for a few hours.” She bit
her lip again.

The fact Hope was willing to leave her baby, a baby she rarely let out of her sight,
proved to me she needed a break. I smiled at her. “Sure, if you wanna come along,
that’d be great. You can keep me from drinking until the wee hours so I’m not hungover
when Lex gets here tomorrow.”

“Great. Umm . . . what should I wear?”

I checked out her outfit, a brightly patterned blue-and-black poet’s shirt paired
with black leggings. “You look awesome. I’m not changing. I’m wearing this.”

“Can I borrow some makeup?”

“Knock yourself out. It’s in the top drawer on the right side.”

“Okay. Be right back.” Hope passed me Joy.

“Hey, Poopy.” When I smooched her crown, her little bitty pigtails tickled my nose.
She smelled like graham crackers, apple juice, baby powder, and sweet innocence. I’d
dealt with my fears—a butt load more than I’d first suspected—and let her become part
of my life, which might seem like a no-brainer to most people, but I was at a dark
place after I killed Anna. I thought by staying away from Joy, I was actually doing
her a favor.

But Hope hadn’t allowed my distance from her child. It amazed me when I uncovered
my sister’s pockets of strength.

The barking dogs alerted me to Jake’s presence right before he walked in. Joy squirmed
and tried to jump from my arms to get to her father.

Jake only had eyes for her. He plucked her away and blew a raspberry on her neck until
she squealed. Only then did he acknowledge me. “Hey, Mercy.”

“Jake. How did things go today?” He’d been dreading moving cattle. I didn’t know enough
about what that entailed, except he did it multiple times a year.

“Better than I expected, to be honest. I had good helpers with Luke and TJ and their
boys. Where’s Hope?”

“I’m right here.”

We both turned to see Hope leaning against the doorjamb.

“Wow, babe, you look great. Do we got a hot date or something I forgot about?”

She laughed self-consciously. “Mercy’s going to Clementine’s to have a drink, and
I asked if I could tag along.” Her eyes anxiously searched his face. “That’s all right,
isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. You deserve a night out.” He paused and looked from me to Hope and
back to me. “Who’s your DD?”

“I plan to have only one drink, Jake. So we should be fine. Besides”—Hope smirked
at me—“Mercy don’t want the sheriff to get wind of her arrest while he’s out of town.”

“You’re hilarious, sis.”

“Well, you two have fun. I’ll take lil’ punkin home.” He mock-whispered, “Now that
your mama’s outta the picture for the night, I can teach you how to wrassle gators.”
Jake shot me a smile before he took off.

Hope insisted on driving. Which meant it took us fifteen minutes longer to get there
than if I’d been behind the wheel.

Clementine’s was hopping. Something had put this out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall
bar on the map in the last year. John-John halfheartedly complained about Clementine’s
becoming mainstream, but the steady stream of income softened the blow.

Muskrat was the bouncer. He didn’t give me one of his signature bear hugs, where I
felt my spine brush the skin behind my belly button as he squeezed me tight. Maybe
his lackluster response was a result of seeing Hope, since, like John-John, he wasn’t
fond of Jake. “So what brings the Gunderson girls by tonight?”

Hope tittered. God. I hoped she remembered she was a married woman and didn’t flirt
with every guy who paid attention to her, as the old, needy Hope would have. “Just
looking to get out of the house for some social time.”

Some of the same regulars filled the bar. Vinnie, the biker, and his posse holding
court beneath the TV. Construction workers and cowboys in the back shootin’ pool and
shootin’ the shit. Lots of folks in here I didn’t recognize. I weaved through the
crowd until Hope and I reached the main bar.

John-John saw us, but he was too busy mixing drinks to do more than nod.

I could tell Hope was trying to play it cool and not gawk at the customers who were
blatantly checking her out.

Winona gave me a one-armed hug from behind. “Mercy! Damn, girl, I miss working with
you. Why you hauling yourself in this mangy hole? You and the sheriff have words?”

“No, smart-ass. I’m here with my sister and we’re thirsty.”

“I’ll get you two beers since John-John’s glaring at me.” She slid two bottles of
Bud Light in front of us.

Hope was stuck sitting next to Lefty. I intended to warn her about the crotchety old
rancher. But Lefty, who hated everyone, seemed taken with my little sister.

I sipped my beer and kept playing Name That Regular to amuse myself. I was more happy
about who I didn’t see—no Cowboy Trey, no Kit McIntyre, no Tiny, no Laronda. Didn’t
appear Saro’s group was around, but that didn’t shock me.

I’d learned through the FBI that Saro was restructuring his organization after his
brother Victor’s murder. Shay had hoped the resident rez drug runner would be crippled
by the loss, but Saro rallied, although he and his group were staying pretty far off
the radar.

John-John stopped in front of me and wiped his brow.

“Looks like business is booming.”

“I’d hate to see what crazies it’d bring out if we actually ran happy-hour specials.”
He tossed a handful of nuts into his mouth. His eyes locked onto mine. “Why are you
palling around with Hope?”

“Last-minute thing,” I said, and didn’t explain further. “When it dies down, I’d like
to pick your brain about a couple of things.”

“Did
Unci
put you up to grilling me about my mom?”

“No.” Was he touchy and snappish tonight, or was it just me? “She’s worried about
Penny.”

“Join the club.” He pulled taps and opened the cooler.

I should’ve waited to get a better bead on his mood, but the question had just popped
out. “Has Saro been in lately?”

John-John lifted his head abruptly. The war braid with the red feather tip swung into
his face, and he impatiently batted it aside. “Why are you asking me for this information?”

“I’m asking because I’ve had Saro’s blade at my throat, and I’m not eager to repeat
the experience.”

He shot me a look that I interpreted as distrustful. Before I could cajole him or
try charm, he said, “Why don’t you ask your partner? He’s been in here several times.”

Partner? At first I thought he meant Dawson, but I figured out he meant Shay. “Why
has Turnbull been in here?”

“I asked him the same thing. He said he can drink anywhere he wants. Which sucks for
me. If I blackball him, he’ll show up with a federal raiding party to see what I’m
hiding, even though I ain’t hiding a damn thing.”

Christ. Talk about paranoid. But my defense of my employer and Shay would only piss
him off, so I bit my tongue.

“So I serve him. He’s been in here once when Saro showed up. They ignored each other,
although the brooding G-man was awful damn interested in Saro’s new recruits.”

“And here I hoped Saro had given up his evil ways after his brother was murdered.”
I sipped my beer. “Is Saro recruiting in here?”

“Doubtful. He’s only been in a half-dozen times in the last five months. But he don’t
have to do much to recruit anyway. People line up to get in with him, even after all
the shit that went down. People you’d never expect.”

That comment caught my notice. “Like who?”

“Like punks with no other job choice. Like idiots who have a falling-out with their
family.”

I frowned. He wouldn’t give me names; he expected me to guess. Or he expected me to
know. Except I didn’t have insight on the inner workings on the Eagle River rez. I
never had. The one person who had that knowledge, Rollie, was currently pissed off
at me. Rollie was pissed off at everybody, it seemed. Me. Verline. His son.

Wait a second. My eyes met John-John’s. “Junior Rondeaux?”

He nodded.

“Holy shit.” Jesus, I was an idiot.

It hit me, then, the seriousness of my rookie mistake, keeping the information Mackenzie
Red Shirt had given me about Junior Rondeaux to myself. It could have tremendous impact
on this case, since Junior had ties to that murderous bastard Saro, and to Arlette.
Turnbull would have every right to dress me down when I finally came clean with him.

John-John leaned closer. “Why’s this so surprising to you?”

“Because I tried to track Junior down yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Some of that pesky fed stuff you don’t wanna know about and I can’t tell you about
anyway.”

He shrugged. “Well, you ain’t gonna find him in here because he’s banned.”

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

“What did he do to get blackballed?”

“He’s a Rondeaux.”

“That’s it?”

John-John glanced away and then refocused on me with eyes as hard as concrete. “I
know you’re friends with Rollie. But he ain’t no friend of mine or my family. I’d
lose customers if him or any of his spawn stepped foot in here. So they ain’t welcome.
Ever.”

“Rollie knows this?”

“Yep.”

“But . . . you let him in when Geneva’s group talked me into running for sheriff.”

“They didn’t give me a choice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this Rondeaux clan ban when I worked for you?”

John-John ignored me and walked to the end of the bar.

Goddammit. I hated not knowing shit like this, even when I told everyone to leave
me out of their family dramas. For years Rollie had made barbs about John-John’s psychic
abilities. And about Sophie being uppity. I don’t know why I hadn’t drawn the parallels
that there was bad blood
between him and the whole Red Leaf family. I’d always chalked it up to Rollie being
an ass.

I spun my bar stool toward Hope.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you know why the Red Leaf family and the Rondeaux family are enemies?”

She picked at her thumbnail before she met my gaze. “No. And that’s not me protecting
Jake. He won’t talk about it, Sophie won’t talk about it. But it seems to be more
a problem between the Pretty Horses and the Rondeaux. The Red Leaf kids and grandkids
got caught in the middle.”

Sophie had two kids—Penny and Devlin—with her first husband, Von Pretty Horses. After
he died, she remarried Barclay Red Leaf, and they had three sons: Del, Jake’s dad;
Terry, Luke and TJ’s dad; and Ray, who’d fathered a half-dozen kids before he’d passed
on, leaving the small Red Leaf Ranch, adjacent to our ranch, to Terry. I’d never met
Del or Ray. They’d both died by the time Sophie came to work for us.

“Even now that I’m married to a Red Leaf, they won’t discuss family matters if I’m
around,” Hope said.

“But you’re family to them. Hell, I’m practically family to them.”

Hope shook her head. “Not in their minds.”

Maybe it was beer causing the sudden ache in my belly. “Is that because so many of
them have worked for us for so long?”

“That’s part of it. Sophie is different to me when we go over to her house. She . . . snaps
a lot. Not at me. Then she and her grandkids start speaking Lakota, and I can’t understand.
It makes me uncomfortable.”

That piqued my anger, but I also realized Hope might be a wee bit paranoid. “Do they
treat Joy like an outsider, too?”

“No.” Hope reached for her beer and sipped. “Still, because of . . . that and some
other stuff, Jake’s even suggested to Sophie that she retire from workin’ for us.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard Sophie’s response to that. Do you think—”

Out of the blue we heard, “Hope Gunderson? Is that you?”

Hope faced the woman bellied up to the bar next to her where Lefty had been sitting.
“Betsy? Omigod! What are you doing here?”

A lot of squealing and hugging, and then my sister disappeared into the back room
with her old high school friend.

And once again, I was drinking alone.

After five minutes, the rush of people up to the bar sent me outside for fresh air.
In hindsight I should’ve snuck out the back door. My one complaint about Clementine’s
has always been the lack of lighting in the parking area. It’s a bitch even for people
who don’t have my night vision problems.

I jammed my hands in my pockets and glanced up at the sky. No stars. No moonlight
peeked through the thick cloud cover. I half expected to feel snowflakes hitting my
face, the temperature had dropped so drastically since this morning.

I paced, mind racing, and I’ll admit none of my thoughts were very flattering to the
Red Leaf, Pretty Horses, or Rondeaux families. But I wasn’t so deep in thought that
I wasn’t aware someone moved between the parked vehicles off to my left.