Page 42 of Rocky Ride

“Yes, that will be done in stages. When I handed her over to Rafe Cumberland, she was barely coherent. No telling what the outlaws in that camp did to her, but she walked into that situation of her own free will.”

“Something I don’t want to think about, girl. But I’m glad she’s safe and in a secure place where she can’t get into any more trouble and commit more crimes.”

“I’ll see her when I can and keep you up to date, sugar. Doctor Fielding is good, and he’ll help her, I’m sure of it.”

“Thanks for all of it, Annie. I haven’t been as helpful as I should’ve been. Send me the bill from the bounty hunter and I’ll reimburse you. The guy must have busted his butt finding her in the swamp.”

“He did. Competent guy. One who doesn’t give up. I liked him, even offered him a job.”

“Huh. Maybe I’ll meet him someday. If I do, I have some questions for him about the outlaws.”

“I’m sure you do,” said Annie. “From my understanding, most of them were killed during the skirmish when he took Tammy away from them.”

“That’s good news. Happy to hear that.”

“How are you doing? I was sorry to hear about Olivia’s accident. The boys told me.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Keeping on. You know.”

I’m not telling her about the wolves.

Sunday was able to come up with a black Wrangler in the Ellington driveway and she could read first three letters/numbers on the tag and wrote them down.

She called to Billy, and he came into the office to see what she had. “Black Wrangler, Billy. We need to run local registrations for this vehicle starting with BZ 7 and see what we get.”

“Did you get the year and the model number?”

“I wrote it down.” She pushed the paper towards him.

Billy smiled. “Now we’re cooking. I’ll get Molly to run this through the data base and see who’s driving the black Wrangler.”

“I’ll get a coffee while we wait for the results.”

Sunday joined Travis in the break room and sat with him at the table. “Don’t you use your office, Dale?”

“No, I gave it to Billy because of his leg.”

“How did he hurt his leg?”

“Put an axe in it chopping wood. It’s healed now. As good as it’s going to get.”

She nodded. “Now both of you have bad legs. You’ll have to let the boys do the chasing down from here on in.”

Travis laughed. “That’s for sure. They’re good at it too. Best deputies a sheriff could have. Where are they anyway?”

“Virge is putting a load in at the laundromat down the street.”

“Did you make that up or will there be young girls there?”

Sunday shrugged. “Could be a couple. This is a pretty small town.”

Travis chuckled.

Duds and Suds. Coyote Creek.

Me and Virge had work to do but he was keen on putting a load into one of the washers down the street to see if Sunday was right about the girls hanging around.

When we went in, the only girl we saw was the one on duty watching the place. She was cute, short spiky hair, about seventeen. The right age for my brother.

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