Having It All Read Online Free PDF Page A

instead.
    But, supposedly, I don’t know that. “‘Word is’ he’s after me? Who’s saying that?”
    Landauer doesn’t tell me but continues, “And word is, there was an altercation between Gray and Reichmann out at the Corral a couple of weeks ago, and that maybe you were in the middle of it.”
    I wasn’t in the middle of it. I was in a booth and shoved up against a wall with Reichmann threatening me until Saxon pulled him off. But I only shrug. “I was there with Saxon but I didn’t see any altercation.”
    “Word also is that Reichmann came into the ER about a week after that to have three of his fingers reattached. Says he got them caught in a mower. The doctors saved two.”
    His fingers had been cut off? I don’t have to lie about this. “I don’t know anything about that.”
    But I’m not sorry or shocked, either.
    The sheriff lifts his shoulders in an easy shrug. “Eh, he lives on a farm. All kinds of accidents can happen, especially if you’re mowing at night as he says he was. But it occurs to me that a pattern is forming—and escalating—and that your man might have taken the latest hit tonight. Which means the next hit will be worse.”
    He’s right. I can’t imagine that the Hellfire Riders won’t strike back hard and fast, and that it’ll be bloody. I’m not giving Landauer what he wants, though. “So all these words are flying around—and they’re saying I might be in danger—and this is the first time you’re talking to me? Why is that? Maybe because until someone is shot or raped, there’s not much you can do to help me? That’s a little too late, isn’t it?”
    “I can help now.”
    No, he can’t. Because even if I hand him the men who attacked us tonight and he makes an arrest, those Henchmen aren’t going to point their fingers at Reichmann and say he’s the one who gave the orders. They’re going to keep their mouths shut and nothing will change. I’ll still be in danger. Landauer can’t protect me. Saxon can.
    The only question is how much he’ll pay for protecting me. Again.
    “I might have run over one of the shooters,” I say. “Or maybe it was Saxon’s mailbox. I don’t know; I was hunched down in my seat because they’d just shot out my back window.” All of which he’ll find out by looking at my truck; I’m not telling him anything he doesn’t already know or won’t discover. “You’ve got my truck so I guess you’ll know whether it was a man that I ran over, and if you find a body with tire tracks on it, I guess you’ll know whether I killed him. So, what do you think? Is Crane going to come after me for manslaughter because I was in a rush trying to save a man after he’d been shot? Because that doesn’t seem much different than prosecuting a man who accidentally killed someone while saving a girl from being raped.”
    “It doesn’t sound much different at all,” he surprises me by agreeing. “What does sound different is taking out the ‘accident.’ Say, if a man trying to protect his woman decides to retaliate instead of just defend. Maybe you think the only difference is the law drawing a line, because protection is protection…but it’s a difference that will send a man away for a long time.”
    I know. And the crushing weight in my chest is suddenly heavier, colder. “I wish I could help. But I didn’t see who they were. I was turning to go into the house when he was shot and then I was ducking behind the truck.”
    “And you didn’t hear anything?”
    The boss wants his whore. “No. Maybe they said something, but I didn’t hear it. I was making a lot of noise, too—I started screaming after the shot went off and I realized Saxon had been hit.”
    Saxon’s neighbors will confirm that.
    He gives a deep sigh. “All right. If you suddenly do remember seeing or hearing something, though, you’ll let me know?”
    “I will.”
    “Good thing.” Landauer slaps his thighs like he’s about to get up, then pauses.