He heard voices, but not directed to him.
“We need to kill the other three now,” Sarah was saying.
“You don’t know Jessy. I do.” That was Darrell Frye. “If you kill them, she won’t help us. She’s stubborn.”
“How the hell did the old bugger get out here?” That was Hugo Blythe.
“He stole a car, how the hell else?” Sarah demanded. “You assholes are going to fuck this up, just like you’ve fucked up everything else. At least the idiots you hired to kidnap the girl are dead now. And you, you fool,” she said to Darrell. “Maybe we were out of camera range, but couldn’t you see that Rudy Yorba character staring right at the limo and Tanner Green? I studied the damn tapes, and I could tell what they’d see eventually.”
“Oh, we’re fuck-ups, are we?” Darrell challenged her. “Once you get Dillon out here, he’d damn well better know where the gold is so we’ve got the money to get out of here. Because someone will put the pieces together sooner or later and figure out that we were working as a team. Your stupid father is going to miss Hugo, for one thing.”
“Relax. We have dead men who can take the blame,” Sarah reminded him.
The line went dead then, so Dillon hit his own end call button. He was close enough to the town now that if the phone rang again, he would answer it. Because he knew how he wanted to play out the scene when he arrived.
With a little help from the dead.
17
The door opened, and a flashlight blazed into the bank. Beyond the blinding light, Jessy could see that the sky was turning bloodred as the sun began to set.
“Jessy, get out here,” Darrell ordered.
She didn’t move.
“Jessy Sparhawk, get your ass out here or we’ll start shooting,” Sarah warned.
“Jessy,” Sandra said, touching her shoulder.
“It’s all right, Sandra. You just have to stay calm.”
Jessy turned, trying to see Timothy in the darkness that shadowed the bank.
He must have sensed her movement, because he said, “It’s all right, granddaughter. We are assembled.”
Timothy’s words and his preternatural calm were almost more unnerving than trying to figure out how to deal with Sarah so she didn’t risk all their lives. Because she knew that Sarah really would start shooting, she walked to the door of the bank and stepped outside.
Sarah thrust a cell phone into her hand. “Call Dillon and pray he answers this time. Make sure he knows that if he doesn’t show up alone, I’ll put a bullet through your head myself. I may go down, but I’ll take you with me.”
Without a word, Jessy took the phone from her and keyed in Dillon’s number.
She half hoped to get his answering machine because that might buy them more time. But Dillon answered. “Dillon,” she said.
“Jessy?”
“I’m at Indigo with a woman named Sarah Clay who says you know her. And Darrell Frye and Hugo Blythe,” she added.
“I know,” he told her quietly.
“She says that if you don’t come alone and tell her where the gold is, she’ll kill me.”
“I figured that,” he said softly.
“Tell him again—he comes alone. And he gives me the location of the gold,” Sarah said.
“All right, I heard her. Listen to me, Jessy. Tell her that I’ll be happy to let her have the gold. But I know that she also has Timothy, Sandra and Reggie, and they had better be all safe and in one piece when I get there. Tell her that she has to bring all of you into the saloon. Tell her that I can only figure out exactly where the gold is if we reenact the shoot-out. Tell her that I need all of you in the saloon.”
Sarah ripped the phone from Jessy’s hands. “Hello, Dillon,” she said pleasantly.
Jessy couldn’t hear his reply, but she saw Sarah frown.
“Don’t tell me what to do. I have the guns—and your friends—and this redheaded slut you apparently find so attractive,” she said.
Dillon answered with something that brought a furious “What?” from Sarah, whose eyes shot to Darrell Frye. “You don’t need to talk to Darrell. I’m the one in charge.”
“Sarah, we’re all in this together,” Darrell said, his own eyes narrowing.
“Who was the brain to put this all together?” Sarah responded furiously.
Then she stared at the phone incredulously. Dillon had hung up on her.
Sarah spun around. “Get the rest of them. He wants them all in the saloon. Move it!”
She shoved Jessy in front of her, pushing so hard that Jessy almost fell, but an unseen hand seemed to help her find her balance.
She heard the jingle of a spur, and she lowered her head and allowed herself a little smile. Ringo must have come with Timothy. He was here, and there was something oddly comforting in that fact.
She walked toward the saloon, aware that Darrell and Hugo had gone to get Sandra, Reggie and Timothy.
Sarah shoved her inside first, and to Jessy’s amazement, Dillon was already there. He was seated at the poker table, one foot resting on it, as if he had grown weary waiting for them to arrive.
Sarah, coming in behind Jessy, gasped with surprise, but she collected herself quickly. “You’re here. And you’re an idiot. You might have taken one of us by surprise and improved your odds.”
“Why? You’re going to give me my friends back, and I’m going to give you the gold,” Dillon said. “We’ve got to do this right, though. You’ve obviously researched your past, you know you’re Varny’s descendant—sorry, double descendant. What kills me is, you could have made it to the top. You aced the academy.”
“I have no money!” she lashed out. “Oh, yeah. I researched my past. My idiot mother was in love with my father. She let him pay her off, then absolved him of any financial responsibility for my welfare. He refuses to recognize me. But he’s a fool—he’s going to lose every asset he has. I’ll see to that. He’s in debt, deeply in debt, and once I get the gold and set myself up, I can actually call in his banknotes. Then I can throw him out to the wolves—before I kill him. I’ve played this very carefully. My father is a jerk. He believed in Hugo, and Hugo has been with me for years. Hugo doesn’t want to kiss my father’s ass, he wants his share.”
“What about Darrell?” Dillon asked.
“She…she knew about—” Darrell began.
“Shut your idiot mouth!” Sarah warned him, then sighed. “What the hell. He was skimming casino profits, and I had him dead to rights. But he had the knowledge we needed to effectively stage Green’s death. He knows the Sun inside out—including where all the cameras are. And I knew that once Green was killed, you’d stick with the case no matter what. I was brilliant, I really was. I convinced my father to hire you, then killed Tanner. And I could feed you information, and you believed in me, too. Now, if you want anyone to live, you’d better find my gold for me.”
“I told you,” Dillon said. “We need to reenact that night so I can get into John Wolf’s head.”
Sarah looked at him skeptically, then nodded just as the others entered.
“All right,” Dillon said. “Let’s see, Timothy—sorry, George—you go over by the piano. And you, too, Milly.” He cleared his throat when no one moved. “That’s you, Sandra. Reggie, you stay with your mom, and I need Jessy with Timothy. I can’t be two people at once, so when we get to that point, we’ll have to imagine Mariah standing at the door. Ringo, take your place at the table. Tanner, you were with Varny’s men, I’m afraid. Rudy, you were at the table.”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Darrell demanded irritably, looking around nervously.
“Humor me. I’m talking to dead men,” Dillon said cheerfully.
Ringo let Jessy see him then. He shrugged to show her that he didn’t know what Dillon intended, either. But he took a chair, scraping it against the wooden floor and making the others jump.
“What the hell are you pulling, Wolf?” Hugo demanded, an edge of fear in his voice.
“Do you want the gold?” Dillon demanded. “Then let me work through this. All right, we’ll pretend that Cheever is here at the table—he’d be the sheriff. And you, Sarah, you’d be Varny, of course. Then there were the four thugs who died right away. I’m sorry, Tanner, that would be you, along with the two men you killed, the ones who tried to kidnap Jessy.”
“You only saw one body,” Sarah said.
“Yes, you were just so helpful, calling me about that so quickly,” he said. “I guess they haven’t found the other body yet.”
“It’s here,” Jessy told him.
“I should have figured as much,” Dillon said thoughtfully. “We really should get Cheever out here.”
“I told you, no cops, or she dies,” Sarah said. “All of you die, for that matter.”
She was going to kill them all anyway, Jessy thought, and Dillon had to know that.
“I didn’t call Cheever, so you can cut out the threats,” Dillon said. “Okay, one of you is Tobias, and one of you is just another henchman.” He studied Darrell and Hugo. “Which is which? I didn’t get to talk to Brent long enough earlier, and I’m not even sure he figured it all out, anyway. But no matter, we’re all here except for the sheriff. Maybe Billie Tiger can take his place for now,” he said thoughtfully.
Jessy barely contained a gasp when someone walked by her. It was the tall Seminole she had seen in her dream, the man Timothy talked to. And there they were, four men—well, three ghosts and one man—sitting at the table.
“Enough already,” Sarah snapped. “Get on with it, Dillon. Quickly.”
Jessy stared at Dillon, who was looking at her with an expression that offered strength…and something more. She remembered the word John Wolf had whispered in her dream, and suddenly, she understood.