Do Not Forsake Me(143)
Jeff walked off to help Jake, and Lloyd hesitated, watching after him. He studied Jake as he took gauze from his supplies, and all the while Little Jake stood there with his arms wrapped around his grandpa’s leg. The kid was nuts about Jake. So was Stephen.
He glanced at the prisoners. One of those still hog-tied glared back at him. “Which one of you bastards shot my brother while his hands were in the air?” he asked.
Lloyd put a hand to his side and walked closer. “I did,” he sneered. “The sonofabitch didn’t try to help my sister.”
“And you’re just like your pa—a ruthless, no good sonofabitch! My brother was unarmed!”
“So was my sister!”
“You must be Lloyd Harkner.”
“I must be.”
“I’ll remember that name. Someday I’ll come for you, Lloyd Harkner.”
Lloyd just smiled. “Be my guest. I’d like nothing more than a chance to kill you right here and now, but I can’t. You come back at me with a gun and I’ll have my excuse to blow you away.”
“Yeah? Well, if they don’t hang me, I will come back. You can count on it.”
Lloyd nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Holt. Mike Holt. Remember it.”
“I’ll do that.” Lloyd looked back at Jake. Jeff was helping wrap his arm, and Little Jake still clung to his leg. He thought about Mike Holt saying he was just like his ruthless, no-good sonofabitch father. Jeff had made the comparison also, but not in such derogatory words.
“Well, if I’m just like Jake Harkner, I guess I don’t mind so much,” he muttered. “Mean and all.”
Thirty-six
Randy brushed her hair, thinking how Jake liked it long and loose. She’d been home two days and still no word. The constant worry over whether Jake and Lloyd and Evie and Little Jake were alive stabbed at her constantly, leaving her unable to sleep. Everything seemed unreal, and loneliness engulfed her.
Someone lightly knocked at her bedroom door. “Randy? It’s Peter. Can I come in?”
She wrapped her robe tighter around herself. “Yes.”
He opened the door and left it open as he stepped inside, folding his arms. “I know you’d rather I didn’t come into this room, but Katie and Stephen went back across the street to help her parents with more cleaning at her house, and there is a woman here who wants to see you. Now, mind you, I’m not real familiar with her type, but I’m pretty sure she’s a prostitute.”
Randy rose, drawing in her breath. “Then she knows Jake! Maybe she’s seen him!”
Peter shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Let her in, Peter! Have her come in here and close the door.” Randy retied her robe.
Peter looked her over with a frown. “Randy, she’s a harlot.”
“And she has news of Jake—I’m sure of it. And don’t look down on her, Peter. Jake wouldn’t.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course not. It’s probably Dixie James. They’re good friends.”
Peter’s eyebrows raised in disbelief. “And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Not at all. It’s all right, Peter. This is Jake we’re talking about.”
Peter dropped his arms and then put his hands out as though to give up. “Of course. What was I thinking?”
Her eyes teared. “Peter, she knows something important, or she wouldn’t be here. Whatever it is, I need to know too. Maybe…maybe Jake’s dead and she knows it.”
He reached out and touched her arm. “Don’t think that way. And by the way, she has a kid with her—maybe eight or nine years old, blond hair, kind of shy. Do you know who he is?”
Randy frowned. “No. Maybe he belongs to Dixie.”
Peter sighed and left. Moments later he ushered in a plump woman with faded blond hair that was pulled into a twist at the nape of her neck. She showed subtle signs of having once been pretty. She’d left off the heavy paint such women usually used, other than a little face powder and lips demurely painted with a soft pink color. She wore tiny diamond earrings and a prim, close-fitting dress and straw hat with a blue ribbon that brought out the blue in her eyes. She turned to the boy with her.
“You stay out there with that nice man, Ben, till I talk to Jake’s wife, all right?”
The boy glanced at Randy. “She’s real pretty. I knew she would be ’cuz Jake said so.”
Randy frowned in confusion as the boy turned away, and the woman came inside and closed the door.
“You’re Dixie James,” Randy said matter-of-factly.
“Yes, ma’am. How did you know?”