Page 41 of River Justice

“There is nothing funny about any of this.” That his son found humor in it both infuriated him and disappointed him deeply. How could Treyton be Margie’s son? No one was kinder than the boy’s mother. But Margie had died, leaving Holden to raise the kids pretty much by himself. He had no one to blame but himself for the way his eldest had turned out.

“What did you expect?” Treyton said, going on the defensive. “Who is she, anyway? And don’t give me that malarkey about you doing some friend a favor.”

Holden bit his tongue. Every time he tried to reach his eldest son, it turned into an argument. He wasn’t up to one today. “I just wanted you to know what was going on. If you hear anything...”

Treyton shook his head. “Why would I hear anything?”

“If you should see her...”

“Trust me, I’m not going to see her.” He turned and opened the door but stopped as if not finished.

Holden’s cell phone rang, saving him from whatever hurtful thing his son was about to say—and the argument that was bound to follow. “Close the door on your way out.”

His hope that the call might be something about Holly Jo vanished the moment he heard the neighboring rancher’s voice. He listened to the man say how sorry he was and finally cut him off with a thank-you and, “We need to keep this line open.”

He disconnected, trying to remember a time when he’d felt this miserable, this scared, this hopeless. He heard his father’s voice as clearly as if he were standing in this room. “Looks like your chickens have come home to roost.”

THEORIGINALOWNERof the Sanderson Funeral Home, Lloyd Sanderson, was long deceased. The person who greeted Sheriff Stuart Layton was John Banner, manager. Banner led him into his nicely appointed office and offered him a chair.

Stuart introduced himself and told him that he was inquiring about Robert Robinson, who died after a fall off The Rims. He gave him the date the officer had provided for Robinson’s death and waited as the man searched his files.

“Yes, I have it here,” Banner said. “He was cremated. There was no service.”

Stuart had been afraid of that. “I need to know about next of kin.”

“There’s his wife—”

“What about siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, anyone?”

“I wasn’t employed here at the time, but according to the records, his wife came in, requested a cremation. There was no viewing.Thisis odd, though.”

Stuart waited. “What’s odd?”

“No one picked up the ashes. It looks like the bill was paid, but...” Banner looked up and frowned. “I think we still have his ashes.”

Minutes later, Banner came out with a cardboard box with Robert Robinson’s name and a date on it.

“I need to borrow these as part of an ongoing investigation,” the sheriff said and signed a form saying he would be responsible for the ashes.

Once out in his SUV, he swung by the crime lab and left the ashes. He needed to know why a man’s wife hadn’t cared enough to retrieve her husband’s remains. All his instincts told him the answer would be in the DNA results.

HOLLYJOFRANTICALLYlooked around the room for something to fight off the two people as she heard their footfalls growing closer. But there was nothing even if she had felt strong enough. Earlier, the man had taken her plastic spoon and the paper plate, leaving her with only the bottle of juice. She spotted the small plastic bucket and her empty juice container on the floor in the corner, her heart sinking as she heard the key in the lock.

As the door swung open, she knew there was nowhere to run, no place to hide. For the first time, they both came into the room, making her terror rise after what she’d heard the woman say outside the door. The man had his mask on. The woman didn’t wear one. Her face was pale in the dim light, and she looked as scared as Holly Jo felt.

But it was what she held in her hand that had Holly Jo too terrified to cry or speak. The woman carried a large pair of scissors.

Holly Jo frantically looked around the room again for something to use to defend herself. There was nothing. There was no one to save her, and even if she hadn’t felt so weak and tired, she knew she couldn’t fight them both off.

“Let’s just get this over with,” the man snapped, shoving the woman toward Holly Jo and closing the door.

She pressed herself against the wall as they approached and heard herself begin to whimper. Her body felt so sluggish from the juice drug that when the man rushed her, she could hardly lift her arms to fight him off. He forced her down on the floor.

She tried to curl up in a ball, but he jerked her head up by her hair.

“I’ll hold her. You do the cutting,” he snapped at the woman, who had stopped in the middle of the room. “Come on. Do this.”

The woman took a step closer, then another. She was shaking her head and looked close to tears. “You said I wasn’t going to have to do anything.”

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