Free Fire - C. J. Box [109]
Joe tried to join in, tried to relax, but he felt like an impostor. The .40 Glock was clipped to his belt and was uncomfortable. He felt his heart race every time he saw another vehicle, and his palms broke out in a sweat at the sight of a dark one.
At norris geyser basin, the girls ran ahead on the boardwalk.Joe and Marybeth dawdled, holding hands, letting them get ahead.
“Your heart’s not in this, is it?” she asked him once the girls were far enough ahead not to hear the conversation.
“It’s not that,” Joe said. “I really want them to have a good time. I want you to have a good time. This is such a great place.”
“You’re wound tight,” she said. “I feel like if I let go of your hand, you’d unravel. Is it because your father is here somewhere?”
He tried to laugh but it sounded like a cough. “It’s not about my father. Well, maybe a little. He’s a distraction, but that’s all he is.”
“Cold,” she said.
“He’s nothing to me. I don’t want him involved in our girls’ lives, or in ours. I don’t want them to even meet him.”
“It might be unavoidable.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“And that’s not all, is it?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” she said softly. “You’ve got your gun with you even though you’re trying to hide it, and you keep checking the rearview mirror to make sure Nate’s Jeep is still behind us.”
“You saw him back there, huh?”
“I don’t miss much.”
They walked along in silence, until Joe said, “It’s hard to believeso many bad things can happen in such a good place.”
“Stay strong, Joe.”
“I’m trying,” he said. “There’s so much going on, and so littleI’m able to change or figure out. I want Judy to recover. I want my father to recover. I want to know what causes a flamer, who killed Mark Cutler, and why Clay McCann assassinated six people. I want to talk to Chuck Ward and make sure the governor is still engaged and that I’m still employed. And I want to talk to you alone, and to Nate. He’s hovering, as you know. He knows something and he’s waiting for the right opportunityto tell us.”
Marybeth nodded toward Sheridan and Lucy, who had paused at the railing to stare into the depths of a hot pool. Lucy shouted for them to hurry up so they could see the bones deep in the water. After seeing Cutler’s body, Joe didn’t think he wanted to see any more bones.
“We’re not here at the best time, are we?” she said.
Joe pulled her close. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Havingyou and the girls here helps me focus. But after what happenedlast fall . . .”
“Enough,” she said, but squeezed his arm in appreciation.
He said, “So I hope you don’t mind that I slipped the desk guy Simon fifty bucks before we left this morning and asked him to move all our stuff to another cabin during the day but not to reflect it on the register. I know that sounds paranoid . . .”
“Yes, it does, but I appreciate it.” She looked up at him, smiled. “I hope we can find a little time together before I have to get the girls back.”
He laughed. “Me too.”
“But we have these darned girls with us.”
“You’re the cleverest person I know,” Joe said. “You’ll think of something.”
“Where there’s a will,” she said, letting her hand slip from the small of his back into the back pocket of his Wranglers.
“You haven’t said much about your mother lately,” Joe said. “Are things going okay?”
They drove on the road that connected the upper and lower loop toward the headwaters of the Gibbon River. Joe had noted how pleasant it looked a few days before when he passed, and noted trout rising in the evening. He thought Sheridan and Lucy might like to try fly-fishing there, although both were napping in the car at the moment.
“I’ve deliberately not said anything,” Marybeth whispered, checking to make sure their daughters weren’t listening, “becauseall the signs are still there for a train wreck coming.”
Joe grimaced.
“She’s had two”—Marybeth made quote marks in the air with her fingers—“arts council meetings in the past week. I asked around and confirmed that Earl Alden just happened to be at both of them. And,” Marybeth said,