Page 49 of Reckoning with the Cowboy
“It isn’t the same and you know it. Sis…” She had reached for her hand, but Amy Sue had pulled back out of her reach. “I’ve seen things.”
With a loud groan, her sister had stepped even farther away. “Oh, I should have known that would be next. You and Grandmother, the predictors of gloom and doom. So what exactly did you see?” When Josie hadn’t answered right away, Amy Sue had laughed. “Right, you can’t quite see it, but you feel it, right?”
“Yes,” Josie had said quietly. “I think he’s going to try to kill you.”
Amy Sue stepped back some more, shaking her head as tears filled her eyes. The sound of a motorcycle engine filled the air. Shane had left to run an errand and now he was almost back.
“I’m trying to warn you,” Josie had cried and again reached for her sister, needing to touch her, needing to get through to her.
Amy Sue had stumbled away from her, headed for the door. “I love him. He loves me. You aren’t going to ruin this for us.”
Josie had heard the thump of the bike’s engine die.
When she’d looked out, she’d seen her sister in Shane Wagner’s arms with him looking up at the house over her shoulder. As Josie’s gaze had locked with his, he’d smiled up at her. The promise in that smile made Josie fight for breath from the weight on her chest. He was coming for her and couldn’t wait.
Now back in her office apartment, she realized that she knew nothing about prison pen pals. She’d assumed that few people wrote letters via postal mail anymore because of the internet. She hadn’t realized that some prisoners didn’t have access to the web because of their crimes.
What surprised her when she went online was to find that there were programs to help inmates find nonincarcerated pen pals. Just as there were ways for those interested to find prisoners interested in a pen-pal relationship. The letter writers made social connections, relieved loneliness and improved their mental health through the correspondence with the outside world.
She thought of Amy Sue. Had she been lonely? Was that what had led to this?
Pen pals, she learned, were usually strangers whose relationship was based primarily if not solely on their exchange of letters, and some of those relationships lasted for years. Some also led to romantic attractions, with some falling in love.
Josie was aware how intimate a letter could be compared with a text or even a phone call. But surely these nonincarcerated women—since she guessed they made up the larger number of letter writers—should have been warned of the downside of this interaction.
She did find some rules that pen pals were advised to follow. Don’t offer legal advice or assistance. Don’t share confidential details with others about your pen pal. Amy Sue had definitely followed that one to a T.
Why didn’t they also warn people against sharing too much about themselves, including where they lived? At least there were rules for not getting scammed by your prisoner pen pal. A red flag was if the prisoner repeatedly asked for financial help. Josie hated to think how much money her sister had sent Shane, making him think there was more to be had where that came from.
Josie felt sick at the thought of how Shane had taken advantage of her sister. How he was still doing just that—not to mention what his main goal might be. Josie had tried to see, but as her sister had said, she’d only come away with a feeling after that one image of her sister dying on the ground.
She felt helpless, something new to her. Even when Roger Grimes had his arm around her throat and a gun to her head, she’d believed that she could get out of the situation. With her sister, this was even more dangerous because she couldn’t do anything until Shane broke the law.
Her cell phone rang. She quickly picked up, although half-afraid it would be bad news.
“I’m looking forward to our trip to Billings this weekend,” Cordell said, sounding excited. “Be sure to bring your swimsuit. We’re staying at a hotel with a pool.” When she didn’t respond right away, he said, “Don’t try to get out of this, Josie. You can’t do anything about your sister, and you need this. Also, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in a swimsuit.”
He was right about her needing to get away. If Shane was after the land, then he wouldn’t do anything to Amy Sue—except scam her more. Since her talk with Cordell about the situation, she’d since gone to the bank and moved as many of the farm’s assets into an account that her sister couldn’t touch. She hated doing that, but she told herself it was the only way to protect Amy Sue and the farm.
As for her own safety, Josie knew she would be safer away from the farm and Shane this weekend.
“I’m picking you up Friday right after lunch,” Cordell said. “Do you still have that black swimsuit with the low neck?”
“You wish. I’ll see you Friday after lunch.”
* * *
Max hadn’t wantedto do it. But to pacify his brother, he made the call to the warden at Florida State Prison. He yearned for the day when he never had to hear Grimes’s name ever again—let alone say it out loud.
“I have a strange request,” the sheriff told the warden when he came on the line. “I need to know if Roger Grimes and a man named Shane Wagner had any contact that you know of while in prison there.”
“Any particular reason you’re interested?”
“Both of them ended up in Montana.”
“I heard about Grimes taking some hostages and getting himself killed along with another former prisoner from here, Dave Peters.”
“Montana draws them, I guess,” Max said. “I appreciate you doing this.”
