Page 77 of Waiting in Wyoming

Someone climbed out of that van really fast.

The van took off, with the driver of the truck inside, too, sending mud and snow everywhere. Splattering against the windshield.

They disappeared around the curve, leaving Dylan just staring. Not believing what she was seeing at all.

“Meyra!”

She threw open her door and jumped out. “Dorie, stay in the car! Mey! What happened? You’re bleeding? OMG. Mey, tell me what happened.” Dylan studied her cousin. What was going on? “Mey, talk to me, please talk to me.”

Then Dorie was there. That baby sister did not listen very well. Dylan was going to have to retrain her, apparently. “I don’t have any signal, Dyl. Meyra, how badly are you hurt?”

“Brandt, they have him. They took us off the road. To set him up for what happened in Finley Creek. He’s hurt or drugged or something. Back there. And?—”

Meyra was freaking. Dylan knew that. She had seen Dahlia freak out enough times to recognize the signs.

“Brandt’s in trouble.” Meyra was shaking, rocking. Doing that hand thing she did sometimes. Dahlia used to stand up and down on her tiptoes and drum her fingers when she’d get overwhelmed and freaked. Meyra twisted her hands and flapped her fingers.

Dylan grabbed her cousin’s arms and tried to turn her. Until Meyra was looking right into her eyes. “Where? Where is Brandt? Who shot him?”

Meyra pulled in a deep breath. “I can’t freak, I can’t freak.”

“No, you can’t. But you’re not alone. I promise.” That was Dahlia’s big thing. When she was having a Dahlia meltdown. She was afraid she would be alone and something bad would happen that she couldn’t handle. “Tell me what happened.”

“Those men—Kurt and Ashton and Judge Fisher. It was Judge Fisher. Sierra’s dad. They took us off the road and drugged Brandt and put me in a closet. They were going to kill us all and set us up. To make it look like Brandt is the one behind all the bad stuff happening here and in Finley Creek. And they killed her dad. The guy. At the inn. The one with?—”

Meyra looked down. “Her. With her.”

Dylan looked down. And literally almost peed her pants.

There was a baby tucked inside her cousin’s hoodie—a really young baby. And she was covered with blood.

Dylan looked closer. At the sweet, sweet face she had seen before.

“Is that…is that Katie?”

69

Meyra couldn’t panic.She couldn’t. She’d found help. She’d gotten away from Auggie and Junie and Em’s evil father. She had gotten away. She was alive, and the baby was alive. And she had people who could help her.

She pulled the little baby out of her sweatshirt. Bruce Tyler had pulled her from the carrier and shoved her at Meyra and told her to get out. That they were divorcing, that it was him not Meyra. And she’d get over him eventually. Then he’d thrown the carrier out of the van.

That man was totally insane.

She put the baby into Dorie’s arms. “Take her, Dorie. Take care of her. Hurry. Get her in the car.”

And then Meyra turned. They were maybe a quarter of a mile away from that place. But Sage and Gil lived ten miles that way. They weren’t far from help.

“I have to go back. I have to. Brandt needs me. I just left him there—Bruce Tyler put me in his van and we just drove away, with Katie.” Meyra turned. To go back the way she came. “Get help, Dylan. We have to help him.”

“What do we do?” Dorie said. She held the baby really close. To keep her warm. It was far too cold for a baby out here.

“Keep her warm. Go to Gil’s house. Go to Gil and Sage. Go up this road to Preston Road, and turn left. Just keep going. There will be help there. At Sage and Gil’s. I promise. Her daddy is dead now. They killed him. She’ll need help.”

“Who is she?”

Dylan looked down at the baby. “Her name is Katie…her dad is a guest at the inn. He’s dead, Mey? You sure?”

Meyra fought a sob. “Yes. He’s dead. I saw him, Dylan. I saw him lying there when Bruce was carrying me out. He was dead.”