Page 17 of The Promise
She needed Corabeth. Her friend would know what to do.
"I don't knowwhat happened. I only know that my father is dead and Michael is missing." Patrick ran a hand through his hair and paced restlessly around the sheriff's office, his mind still reeling from the shock. "There's got to be some kind of connection."
Amos leaned back in his chair, his booted feet propped up on his desk. "Best I can tell your father was robbed."
"His pocket watch was gone." Patrick frowned at the sheriff. "But I doubt he had anything else of value on him."
"I've seen men killed for a whole lot less than a watch, Patrick. And everyone knew he carried it. Hell, wouldn't let the damn thing out of his sight."
"My mother gave it to him. It was all he had left." Patrick tried but couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"Ain't no way round it, Patrick. Robbery's the most logical explanation."
"Maybe, but that still doesn't explain Michael's absence. And then there's the horses."
Amos leaned forward, dropping his feet to the floor, his brows drawn together in consternation. "What are you talking about?"
Patrick sat on the spindle back chair in front of the desk. "Well, doesn't it seem a little odd to you that my father was found on the road without his horse, and that Roscoe came home, as pretty as you please, only without Michael?"
Amos waved a hand in dismissal. "Jack probably wandered off somewhere."
Patrick frowned. "Not a chance. That horse can smell fresh hay five miles away. And the ranch was in view. If Jack was there, he'd be at home in his stall right now filling his belly."
"Maybe the fellow who robbed Duncan stole him."
Patrick smiled, despite himself. "Only if the thief was addle-brained. Jack isn't exactly prize horseflesh. In fact, sometimes I wonder how he manages to make it from one day to the next." He sobered, his mind returning to grim reality. "Something here doesn't add up, Amos. I can feel it in my bones."
"Look, I know it ain't what you want to hear, but as I see it, the facts simply don't support a connection. It's just a lousy coincidence."
Patrick glared at the sheriff. The two events simply had to be connected somehow. In one fell swoop he'd lost an entire family, and he had trouble swallowing the idea that it was only a lousy coincidence. But Amos wasn't listening. He'd already made up his mind. So there was no use in ranting on about it.
"Fine, I'll let it go for now." He stood up and the sheriff followed suit. "But my brother is still missing, and until he's found, I've no intention of letting the matter rest completely."
"Let what rest?"
Patrick turned as Owen Prescott strode into the spartan office, his face worn and haggard. Patrick breathed a sigh of relief. Owen was his father's best friend—a second father. He'd sort through all of this.
"I came as soon as I heard." He clasped Patrick's hand and pulled him into a quick embrace. "I'm so sorry, son."
Patrick nodded, trying desperately to hold onto his emotions. He suddenly felt like a kid again. Seeing Owen, hearing the sympathy in his voice, somehow lent a cruel reality to the tragic events of the morning. He sucked in a breath and quelled theurge to give in to tears. He was a man after all, and men didn't cry.
"What aren't you going to let rest, Patrick?"
He struggled to follow the gist of Owen's question, focusing on the concern in the older man's face. "I was just telling Amos that it's reasonable to think that there's some sort of connection between Michael's disappearance and my father's death."
"Amen to that." Pete ambled into the office, perching himself on the windowsill, his shrewd glance sizing up the others in the room.
Owen looked over at Amos, who was seated again, concentrating on lighting a cigarillo. "Amos, what do you think?" He pulled up a second chair and sat, facing the desk.
The sheriff looked up, the thin cigar, dangling from the corner of his mouth, a thin wisp of bluish smoke curling toward the ceiling. Patrick couldn't help but think how discordant the picture was, an angel indulging in a devilish habit.
Amos blew a ring of smoke. "I'm guessing that Duncan's death was part of a highway robbery, nothing more."
Owen frowned and looked at Patrick. "But you have more questions?"
"Damn right I do. I have a little trouble accepting the fact that my father was murdered on the very same night my brother up and disappears."
Amos narrowed his gaze. "Now there's a thought. Michael getting along with Duncan all right these days?"
