Page 44 of Waiting in Wyoming

If the boy lived long enough, that was. Wayne wasn’t stupid. Dale Fisher was up to something. And this boy had a prime target on his back.

He took a left, heading toward the cafeteria. He needed to put some space between him and the girl that could identify him.

He didn’t think she would. She tended to stay out of people’s business, he’d noticed. Just polite courtesy to the inn’s variety of guests. Then she’d retreat back to her kitchen or her room. He wasn’t anticipating her being much of a problem.

Wayne slipped down to the hospital cafeteria. He had one goal in Finley Creek—located a man by the name of Timothy Grundenman. Just locate him.

And go from there.

Do whatever it took.

35

Charlotte disappeared.She’d told Meyra that she was going to the TSP building to see what the lab needed from her. Charlotte had a determination in her eyes that Meyra thought she understood. The people who had been hurt in Texas were Charlotte’s friends. Meyra wasn’t stupid—she doubted her cousin would be going back to Wyoming with her. And that was okay. Meyra could fly back by herself.

Or with Brandt.

Meyra had stayed with him and his brothers. He had held her hand and pulled her close when they shared a booth seat in Charlotte’s favorite diner in Finley Creek. Everyone in the restaurant was kind of quiet. She liked it there—it reminded her of her own diner in Wyoming. It even had the same kind of paneling on the walls.It smelled the same as home, too.

That was probably why Charlotte liked it.

Everyone was watching the big television in the corner. There were a lot of people in there with police uniforms on. And some of Charlotte’s friends that Meyra had met before were in there. Including Zoey. She’d been shot before when Charlotte had.

Her husband was a cop, Meyra thought. She’d come over to their table and spoken with Brandt and his brothers. Asking how their family was and saying she was going to the hospital after she took her kids to a babysitter or something. Other people asked questions, too. Brandt just answered them patiently.

People liked him. It was hard to miss.

He introduced her, too. Held her hand. Like they were together.

Which she supposed they were.

She never would have flown across the country to get to him if they weren’t together, after all.

36

The young guy,who went by the nickname ofSonny,was a complete waste of space.Like all the others that populated this kind of world, the kind that didn’t matter. Wayne had gotten the call to meet with him while he was in Texas just as he’d left the hospital to find something to eat that wasn’t cafeteria garbage.

That hospital had horrible food.

They settled into the back booth of a little diner on Seventeenth Street the clerk at the Super8 had told Wayne about—and Sonny deposited the baby carrier in the booth next to him. Wayne looked at what he thought was a little girl. “Babysitting?”

“She’s mine. Mom’s dead. Girlfriend took too much OPJ. Had a heart attack a day later.” Sonny shrugged, then adjusted something on the carrier. “My mom refused to babysit. Said she’s my responsibility.”

“Well, do better,” Wayne told him before he could stop himself. The baby couldn’t have been more than a month old, and her clothing was filthy. Her face, too. “She’s your daughter, take care of her better. Keeping her clean is a good place to start.”

The baby woke and fussed. Sonny got her out of the carrier and pulled out a small bottle of formula.And tried to feed her while eating himself.

Wayne held out his arms. “Hand her over. You should realize how lucky you are.”

He hadn’t been there for the birth of their daughters—another man had had that privilege—but Wayne intended to be right there, God willing, when the grandkids came. He fed the baby and delivered his message.

He knew why he had been sent to meet this man. The last idiot whose woman had died because of that damned drug those assholes out of Texas had peddled everywhere had turned rogue. Bruce Tyler was another on the list of men Wayne was looking for.

Wayne was a good little bloodhound, after all. Just as good at tracking a man as he was at executing one.

Bruce Tyler was still out there. Probably watching very, very close.

Wayne could almost guarantee it.