The Bitterroots (Cassie Dewell #4) - C.J. Box Page 0,4

I remember you from earlier. Are you some kind of cop?”

“I’m a licensed private investigator. My name is Cassie Dewell. I’m here to take our friend back to his parents’ house.”

“He ain’t my friend.”

“He used to be.”

“Well, he ain’t no more. He’s an asshole.”

“I’ll give you that.”

Cassie neared Antlerhead and holstered her weapon. He writhed on the asphalt with both of his hands clamped between his thighs. His clothing was white from the film of ash on the ground.

“Did you hear that, Jerry? It’s time to go home. We can do this without getting the police involved. How does that sound?”

“Just get him out of here,” Nayna said. “I don’t ever want to see his stupid fucking face again for the rest of my life.”

From Antlerhead, a childlike sob. His body shook as he cried.

“Come on, Jerry,” Cassie said. “Let’s go over to that Jeep across the street.”

“Nayna,” he cried. “Nayna.”

Cassie could see that Nayna was positioning herself for another kick so she stepped between them. The waitress backed away.

“Please get back to work,” Cassie told her.

*

Arm in arm, they staggered across the street toward her Jeep. Antlerhead was unsteady on his feet and he hadn’t stopped sobbing.

Cassie saw the Big Timber PD unit turn the corner and drive slowly down McLeod Street toward them.

“Straighten up,” Cassie said sharply. “Act like a man.”

She guided him into the passenger seat and closed the door. Antlerhead slumped forward and put his head in his hands. Cassie would have preferred to cuff him and stow him in the back for the drive to Laurel but she didn’t want to draw attention from the local cop who passed by.

“That was close,” she said as she climbed in and turned the key to the ignition.

“Nayna.”

“Oh, please,” Cassie said as she drove cautiously out of town toward I-90. “You’re not the victim here.”

“The hell I ain’t,” he said. “She told me she loved me once and now she kicks me in the nuts.”

That struck Cassie as funny and she looked away so he couldn’t see the expression on her face. The release of tension from the situation and Antlerhead’s perceived victimhood made her want to laugh out loud.

After a few minutes, she said, “Let me know when you stop crying and can hold it together long enough for me to return a phone call.”

two

The law offices of Mitchell-Estrella were on the second floor of a newish office building on Main Street on the western flank of downtown Bozeman. It was a cool sunny morning tainted by the brackish odor of smoke from the forest fires in the mountains. Not until the temperature climbed to forty-five degrees would the inversion layer open up and allow the smoke to disperse into the atmosphere.

Cassie parked in the first visitor space in the lot and fished a notebook out of her handbag. She left the tools and weapons and stuffed the bag under the passenger seat so it couldn’t be seen from the outside.

Before getting out, she paused and sighed heavily. She was tired and it wasn’t even nine in the morning. She’d not arrived home until one thirty after delivering Antlerhead to Buford and Nadine Allen, and she’d been up at six forty-five to make breakfast for Ben and spend some time with him before he went to school and Isabel got up.

Of course, her son had barely spoken, and when she asked him about school, wrestling practice, and his friends he’d said all were “fine.”

“Just fine?”

He rolled his eyes, exasperated with her. “What do you want me to say, Mom?”

Fourteen-year-old boys were a challenge.

And so was making the effort to see Rachel Mitchell, even though Cassie had known this day would come.

Climbing the stairs to Rachel’s office, she fought the feeling that she was crossing a line that she didn’t want to cross.

*

Everything that happened in western Montana happened in one of the valleys between mountain ranges. The towns, the roads, the rivers, and the railroads were all funneled into the valleys between the Absaroka and Beartooth Range to the southeast, the Gallatins and Crazies to the southwest, the Bridger, Big Belt, and Elkhorn ranges to the north, and the Bitterroots to the northwest.

Cassie worked those valleys on a daily basis, and it wasn’t unusual for her to drive three hundred miles in a day as a private investigator working several different cases at once. She was the owner and principal of Dewell Investigations, LLC. She was a fully licensed private investigator and her services included skip tracing,