Page 41 of Backtrack

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“I thought you said they were long gone with the diamonds.”

“Looks like I was wrong,” Cutter said matter-of-factly.

Johnson gave a low whistle. “I don’t hear senior guys admit that very often.”

“Hell, kid, I’m wrong all the time,” Cutter said. “Better to adjustmy heading in the moment than dwell on it. Now, grab thatKojaklight out of the glove box. Plug it into the cigarette lighter and put it on the roof.”

Johnson did as instructed.

“Hey!” Cutter snapped as the kid rolled down the window. “That thing’s got a strong magnet. Careful of the paint job.”

Cutter punched the gas, opening up the El Camino’s big block 454. He was doing eighty by the time he hit the Interstate.

Johnson took the handheld from his belt. “You want me to ask Dispatch for directions?”

“I know his place,” Cutter said. “I’m out there every eight weeks or so, putting shoes on his horses.”

“You shoe horses for every cop in Parker County?”

“A good many,” Cutter said, honking his horn, weaving in and out of traffic. With no siren and only the minuscule red bubble light on top of his personal car, he was an eighty-mile-an-hour lawsuit waiting to happen. “Why? You got a horse for me to shoe?”

“No,” Johnson said. “I realize you need the money, but I still. … Seems like a tough way to make a living after a long day of work.”

“This?” Cutter chuckled and pushed harder on the gas. “This isn’t work, kid.”

They covered the fifteen miles to the Brock turnoff in a hair under eleven minutes. Ray Bryant’s place was just a couple of miles south of the Interstate.

A departing ambulance met them as they crossed the cattle guard onto the Bryants’ driveway. There were two County patrol units and a Weatherford PD squad car in front of the old farmhouse, along with the Bryants’ personal vehicles.

Sue Bryant sat on a folding chair by her husband’s pickup holding her German shepherd’s leash in one hand and a Mini-14 rifle in the other. Her right arm was expertly bandaged but already showing signs of bleeding through. She knew Cutter and his El Camino well from the many visits he’d made to put shoes on her three horses. He rolled down his window and waved anyway. People tended to wear blinders when they were under stress.

Her hands full with a very energetic shepherd, Sue used the rifle to gesture at the house.

“They’re about done clearing it,” she said. “Grimes and Villarealfrom the County are in there with Ray Gene. Sergeant McAllen came out from the PD to help.”

It made perfect sense that WPD Sergeant Gladys McAllen would leave the city limits to check on one of her own. The youngsters at Weatherford PD called her Ma. She was barely forty, but she was such a mother hen, the name fit. One of the handful of female officers in north Texas and the only one in Parker County, she was well-loved and respected by lawmen in every agency—and fiercely protective of her hatchlings.

“You okay, Sue?” Cutter asked.

“Just a scratch,” she said. “Maybe some mild shock …”

He did a double take. “Shock?”

“I’m kidding,” Sue said. “One of the assholes cut me. The EMTs said I needed stitches, but I’m not leaving until I know my house is safe.” Her head snapped up at Cutter, glassy eyes homing in on him. “You’ve had your house burgled?”

“I have not.”

“Well, let me tell you, it sucks.”

She put the rifle across her knees and hugged the dog with her good arm.

Ray Gene came out the front door holding an empty Folgers coffee can.

Sue jumped up from her folding chair, then stomped a foot in the grass. “The bastards better not have stolen our Colorado money!”

“Sorry, hon.” Ray Gene dropped the empty can in the yard. He glanced toward the El Camino. “Thanks for coming, Cutter, but it looks like the guys who did this are long gone. I can’t see that they took anything besides the money.”