Page 52 of Long Past Dawn
“Easily four hours ago,” I answered, checking the clock. “Maybe a little bit less.”
Ash was tapping the paper on his pant leg and grimacing.
“Say it, Ash,” I ordered, stomping my foot. “Whatever you’re thinking, say it.”
“He once told me if he ever found out who killed his momma, he’d take them out himself. An eye for an eye and all that. He was a hotheaded kid back then, and I told him that violence shouldn’t beget violence. I told him he should leave it to the courts.”
I motioned at the letter in his hand. “Why would he do that, though? The guy says right out that he’s going to die. He could already be dead. That letter is weeks old!”
Amity took my upper arm and held it tightly. “Beau isn’t thinking logically right now, Dawn. He just found out who his daddy is and that he killed his momma. Beau has kept Samantha on a pedestal for years. Now that he knows that she died at the hands of the man who created him, Beau will not process that well, especially when he’s alone.”
My chin fell to my chest in frustration. “I was cold and sore last night, so he didn’t open the letter because we fell asleep.” That wasn’t the entire truth, but I wasn’t about to go into my sexcapades with Beau’s parents. “He must have read it this morning when I was sleeping. I should have gotten up when I heard him get up!”
“Shhh, child,” Amity said, her calmness what I needed right now. “We’ll find him. How far can he get in four hours?”
“It’s a little bit under four hours to get to the Cities,” Tex said, looking up from his phone. “There are nonstop flights from Minneapolis to Dallas later this afternoon.”
Ash let out a cuss word I could tell Amity disapproved of, but one that we were all feeling. “We may not be able to catch him in time.”
I stood in the bedroom, shaking my head. Anger filled me at the man who wrote the letter and at Beau. “He should have come to me!” I exclaimed. “Dammit!”
Amity lovingly put her arm around me and leaned in. “We’ll find him. I know Beau. I know he flies off the handle immediately, but his common sense eventually returns. He’s a cowboy. He reacts first and thinks second. We’ll find him.”
“Okay, but we have to pray Beau thinks before he gets on a plane and throws his life away.”
Ash spoke next. “Let’s call the airport and see if he’s bought a ticket.”
“I don’t think they can tell you that,” I said, but he was already out the door with his phone to his ear. I turned to Amity. “I’m taking my truck and heading toward the Cities. I have to stop him.”
“You can’t go alone,” she said, looking to Tex. “Can you go with her?”
“No, I’m going alone,” I said, shaking my head. “If I find him, I don’t want him to think we are ganging up on him.”
“He hasn’t bought a ticket,” Ash said, coming back into the room. “At least not for any flights today.”
“Do you think he’s driving to Dallas?” I asked, my nerves jumping to do something, anything, to find him.
“Doubtful that his truck would make it that far,” Tex said. “Doubtful that truck would even make it to the Cities. He took the old ranch one.”
I stood there, my hand grasping my neck as I thought about Beau and what I knew about his past. “Amity, where was his mother buried?”
“She wasn’t. She left her body to science. While Samantha was murdered and didn’t die of natural causes, they still took her body to study the effects of lupus on her organs. She always told Beau that she didn’t want to be remembered in one place. Samantha wanted to be remembered everywhere. She wanted him to remember her every time a bird flew over the horizon, when the apple blossoms bloomed on the trees, and when the waves washed over his toes. Samantha always knew she would die young, and she worked to prepare Beau for that. She told him to look for her in nature, not at a gravestone, for she wouldn’t be there.”
“I wish I had met her. She must have been a fantastic woman,” I said, my mind picturing all those things she’d mentioned. I snapped my fingers and stared at her in shock. “I know where he is!”
“Where?” Ash asked in confusion. “How can you know?”
“Trust me!” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran for the back room where my keys hung. “Ash, ride with me. When we get there, I want you to drive his truck back. The spare key is on the hook,” I said, motioning toward it before I grabbed my coat.
I hugged Amity and then Tex. “I’ll bring him back. Just promise me you’ll be patient and don’t crowd him. Let me talk him through this, and then I’ll bring him home.”
“We trust you, Dawn,” Amity promised as I ran out the door with Ash on my heels.
If Beau was where I thought he was, it was over an hour before we could get to him. If he wasn’t, then it was time wasted. Until Beau reached out, all I could do was follow my gut and my heart. They both told me I would find him watching the birds fly over the horizon with the waves lapping over his toes while he searched for the answers he so desperately needed.
Fourteen
I gazed up at the sky, where the seagulls swooped over the water. What they were looking for, I didn’t know. What I was looking for, I didn’t know. I tossed a rock into the water and watched an eagle fly over me while it searched for fish.
