“That poor April,” Tassel continued. “She didn’t know Dallas had a girl or two in every town. He’d ask me to keep her busy so he could sneak off with every buckle bunny he could find. She is a nice girl, you know? You raised her right. I tried to tell her once what Dallas was like, but she didn’t want to hear it. He had her buffaloed, you know?”

Joe felt the anger rising in his chest.

He said, “Do you know if they broke up before Dallas got injured?”

Tassel looked surprised. He said, “Not that I know of.” Then: “Hell, if that had happened, I would have gone after April in a heartbeat . . .”

He caught himself and flushed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that to her dad.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Joe said, “but I’d be a lot more comfortable with you around than I ever was with Dallas.”

“Still, sorry.”

“One more thing,” Joe said. “Do you know if they left Houston together after Dallas got injured?”

Tassel thought about it. He said, “I guess I don’t know for sure. I sort of assumed they did, since all of a sudden they were both gone, but I didn’t see them leave together or nothin’.”

“Would anyone know for sure?” Joe asked.

Tassel shook his head. “I doubt it. Dallas did his own thing, like I said. I was his only friend, and that’s just because I’m stupid. He’s the kind of guy who would just leave without sayin’ nothin’ to anyone.”

Joe said, “Dallas told me that April broke up with him and played the field, trying to make him jealous.”

“That no-good son of a bitch,” Tassel said. He looked up at Joe with fire in his eyes. “Believe me, Mr. Pickett, that never happened.”

“I believe you,” Joe said, trying to keep his anger off his face. “Did he ever put his hands on her?”

“I never seen it,” Tassel said. “But I wouldn’t put it past him. I do remember she was wearing big old sunglasses for a week or so up at Calgary. She wouldn’t take ’em off, even indoors. But I never seen him hit her.”

“But you wouldn’t put it past him?” Joe said.

“I wouldn’t put nothin’ past Dallas Cates.”

Joe thanked Tassel and wished him the best of luck at the next rodeo.

As he turned to leave, Tassel said, “Mr. Pickett?”

Joe turned.

“You ain’t gonna tell Dallas we talked, are you?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be on the wrong side of that guy. Or his family.”

Joe paused. “What about his family?”

“I met ’em a couple of times when they came to see Dallas ride. They ain’t exactly a fun bunch, and that mom of his . . .”

“What?”

Tassel shook his head. “She’s just scary, man. She don’t want anybody to beat Dallas in nothin’. She’d say things to other bull riders like ‘You better let Dallas win or I’ll send my boys after you.’ Things like that.”

“Did you ever hear her say that?” Joe asked.

“Hell, she said it to me in Cheyenne,” Tassel said, shaking his head. “She’s got a thing about Dallas that ain’t healthy.”

That night, in his hotel room in downtown Denver, a few blocks from the federal forensics lab, after sending Governor Rulon his condolences regarding Cody McCoy’s ninety-two-point ride, he called Marybeth and told her what he’d learned about Brenda and Dallas Cates at the rodeo.

“It sounds like he was talking about Ma Barker,” she said.

“She scares men who ride sixteen-hundred-pound bulls,” Joe said. “That’s not nothing.”

21

At the same time, four hundred miles to the north of Denver, Liv Brannan heard the screen door slam at the main house and she stepped away from the rock she’d been working on in the wall of the root cellar.

She’d been at it all day. The tips of her fingers on both hands were raw and bleeding from digging around the rock, and she’d resorted to working by covering her hands with her shirt and wearing only her bra. She’d tried to pry one of the rusty shelf braces out of the wall, but didn’t have the leverage or the strength to get any out. She was finally able to bend and break a cross brace away from the angle iron early in the afternoon. When it finally came free, it was such an emotional victory that she stood and looked at the tongue depressor–sized piece of metal in her hand and cried.

Digging with the cross brace had doubled her progress around the rock. It was still stuck fast, but she guessed she was halfway there. The rock was oval and large, approximately the size of a football. If the hidden end was as round and even as the exposed side, she thought, she’d be able to lift it and it would cause serious damage. If she could ever get it out. And if she wasn’t caught in the act of trying to remove it.

There had been no food deliveries during the day and they hadn’t removed the waste bucket. The stench of urine hung in the dead space. The Cateses had either forgotten about her or were punishing her for what had happened with Bull the night before. Or they were simply gone. She’d guessed the latter.

Finally, midday, she had heard the sound of the Suburban entering the compound and the voices of Eldon and Brenda. They didn’t look in on her.

An hour later, Liv had heard the main house screen door open and slam shut so hard it sounded like a gunshot.

Bull said, “Where in the hell are you going, Cora Lee?”

“Way the hell away from you!”

“You ain’t takin’ the truck.”

“Fine, you son of a bitch—I’ll walk.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m walkin’. See me walkin’ away?”

There was a pause.

Then, in the distance, Cora Lee shouted: “I’m still walkin’!”

The door slammed shut again. Then a third time. A moment later, Brenda said, “Bull, go get her and bring her back.”

Bull said, “Maybe I ought to let her go. It serves her right to have to walk twelve miles to town. Maybe she’ll lose some weight.”

Someone laughed. It was a new voice Liv hadn’t heard before. A younger male.

“Hell, I ain’t gonna go get her. I just got new shocks on my truck and I don’t want the suspension screwed up. Maybe you could take the front-end loader and bring her back in the bucket.”

“Dallas, you’re no help,” Brenda responded. She sounded annoyed but patient. Then: “Bull, go get her and bring her back. We can’t have her tellin’ her story all over town. If it gets out why she’s mad, we’ve got big trouble.”

Liv thought, Dallas. The special son.

Dallas said, “Maybe you should just run her over and be done with it.”

“Dallas, please,” Brenda said.

“Shit, I’ll go get her,” Bull whined.

His truck fired up a few minutes later, and Liv could hear the gravel popping under the tires as he left the compound.

He returned a half hour later, presumably with Cora Lee in the passenger seat.

—

NOW, THOUGH, Liv heard two sets of footfalls.

She slid the thin cross brace into her jeans and pulled her shirt over her head and put it on. She hid her battered hands behind her back, out of sight, and looked up as the cellar doors opened.

It was night. The beam of a flashlight hit her in the face and temporarily blinded her.

“There she is,” Brenda said to someone next to her.

Liv couldn’t see who it was, just a form that blocked out the stars. He was wearing a cowboy hat.

Dallas said, “Not my type.”

“I didn’t think so,” Brenda said.

“Maybe if you cleaned her up,” he said, as if talking himself out of his first impression.

“Hey, how you doin’ down there?” Dallas asked Liv.

“How do you think?” Liv said back.