Page 43 of The Promise
"Who says he has to have a reason?" Ginny grumbled.
"There is one more thing." Loralee chewed on her lower lip, her eyes narrowed in thought.
"Oh?" Patrick sat back, waiting.
"Everybody knows Amos Striker thinks of himself as a lady's man. He's picky about his women. He's not the type that comes to the cribs. He prefers the women over at Belle's. Higher class whores, so to speak. Frankly, I've always been grateful for that." She ducked her head. "He's not known for being gentle."
Patrick looked over at Ginny. "And Della?"
"She worked in one of them fancy parlor houses. Started out doing their laundry, but she was young and pretty andambitious." Ginny sighed, lost for a moment in the memory of her daughter.
"If he does have preferences, then that explains his interest in Della, but not his interest in Corabeth. Maybe they were seeing each other someplace away from the cribs?"
"Patrick, Corabeth was my friend. If she'd been seeing Amos, I'd have known it. Corabeth didn't have any kind of relationship with the sheriff. None at all. I'm certain of it."
"So, that would mean either Amos picked her by chance, or there's something here we're missing. And I don't think Amos Striker does anything without a reason." Both women shot him triumphant looks as if they'd just given him the missing piece of a complicated puzzle. "Look, ladies, even if everything you're saying is true, I don't see what any of it has to do with telling Striker about finding Jack."
The triumph faded some.
"We don't know either." Loralee leaned forward, both hands resting on the table. "But there's got to be a connection somewhere."
"All we're trying to say, Patrick, is that maybe you should think twice about telling the sheriff anything. At least until you've had time to sort this all out and make sure there isn't some kind of link between your pa's death and Corabeth's."
Patrick let out a long breath and held up his hands. "All right. You win. I'll wait."
Ginny beamed at him like a proud parent and held the platter under his nose. "Have some more cake."
Patrick pulled his jacket closer,urging his horse forward. It was colder than a witch's teat out here. He laughed to himself.One of Pete's favorite expressions. He wondered why anyone would actually want to feel a witch's teat, and once they did, whether they'd live to tell about it.
Smiling to himself, he tipped back his head and looked at the stars. They were beautiful, spilling through the night sky with careless abandon. Looking up there, a body would never suspect so much could be wrong with the world. Specifically, his world.
"Patrick? That you, boy?" Pete's worried voice came out of the shadows off to the left of the road.
"Yeah, Pete, I'm here."
The wrangler materialized out of the dark, guiding his horse alongside Patrick's. "I was getting worried."
"I'm fine. Just wound up staying in town a little longer than I'd planned."
His foreman nodded and they rode for awhile in companionable silence, Patrick replaying the conversation at the tea party in his head.
"Pete, you know a Ute woman by the name of Ginny?"
"Don't know her. Heard of her though." Pete pulled the collar of his frayed coat closer around him.
"Well, I met her today. Turns out she's a friend of Loralee's."
Pete nodded, but made no comment.
"Anyway, she had an interesting story to tell me, one that may relate to the dead woman I found yesterday."
"Corabeth?"
"Mmm hmm. Seems this Ginny had a daughter. You know about that?"
Pete nodded, his face grim.
Patrick shot him a look.
