FORTY-NINE
At the hospital, Nathan stood with Henry in the hallway down from Dad’s room.
Henry angled his head, a look of respect in his eyes. Not that Nathan had never seen that before, but a bright spark of admiration shone there too. “You did good work, Nathan.” He clapped him on the back. “Like father, like son. I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”
“Thank you.” Nathan took the words to mean that he and Henry were good again, despite Nathan stepping into the fray when Henry had told him to stay out of it. Still, Henry understood that Dad had put Nathan in an impossible situation.
“Now, get out of here and go check on her.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Nathan left the hospital, relief welling and overflowing on so many fronts. Dad was talking. He was himself again. He needed a little therapy, sure, but he was well on his way to recovery. But his hospital room had gotten crowded with cops—the locals in Montana and from his district back East, and a few federal agents as well, taking statements. Asking more questions to figure out the whole convoluted mess.
A few reporters were waiting around too. Everyone wanted to get the big story.
Dad had pieced it together, aside from a few stray bits.
Lieutenant Sullivan had been the man waiting for Finn near the abandoned tunnel—not by any real choice. But he had a half brother, Paul, whom no one knew about who had joined the rank and file of the McPherson crime family, and he was feeling the pressure to redirect Newt. If Cara Byrne was going to be found, the McPherson clan would be the ones to do it. But do one thing for a crime family and you have to keep bending to their will. So Sullivan had no choice but to follow the McPhersons to Montana. He did it under the guise of checking on Dad, but his goal was to find out if he was talking and how much he knew.
Dad had already figured out most of it and would have told Nathan everything if he hadn’t been shot by Ricky Flannagan, who hadn’t expected his bomb planted in the dam to malfunction.
Nathan tried to embrace the fact that he’d hit a home run and Dad was there to watch, in a manner of speaking. But the game wasn’t over yet. There was still the matter of winning Erin’s heart. Winning her back before she ran again.
He’d seen that skittish look in her eyes. The same one he’d seen before when she broke things off with him.
He drove from Bozeman back toward Grayback County, more specifically Stone Wolf Ranch, where Erin and Celia were staying for the time being.
On the drive, Nathan thought back to the story Dad had shared.
Dad had been investigating the murder of a thirty-seven-year-old college professor—Kevin Cobbs. An ordinary enough guy, except for the fact his grandfather had gone into WITSEC thirty years before. Kevin hadn’t been in contact with his grandfather in that long, at least. The investigation reminded Dad of the articles Dwayne had shared about the crime family boss, Collin Byrne, whose daughter had disappeared. Dad worked Cobbs’s case and at the same time looked into the missing woman in the articles for Dwayne. Dad had failed to follow through while Dwayne was still alive and felt he owed him.
Dad had been in law enforcement long enough that he had plenty of connections and learned that Kevin Cobbs’s grandfather, Jacob Cobbs, had also been murdered—down in South Carolina, where he lived under his WITSEC identity as Jason Cain.
Mr. Cobbs/Cain wasn’t a member of a crime family but thirty years or so ago had the unfortunate luck to have witnessed the murder of Ryan McPherson committed by Collin Byrne, and Cobbs gave his testimony in return for a new identity. His testimony put the crime boss in prison. But not before Collin Byrne warned his daughter, Cara, to disappear if she wanted to live because the McPhersons would come for their revenge.
Cara fled to Wisconsin and changed her name to Celia Jones. Only a few years later her true identity was discovered and a child was abducted—but it was the wrong child. Missy had been taken instead of Erica, all due to that pink hat.
Finn McPherson, Missy’s abductor, had hoped to kill Cara and Erica in a most spectacular way to hurt Collin. Frustrated that the women had eluded him for too many years, Finn decided to kill anyone associated with his brother’s murder. Kevin Cobbs was targeted because Finn believed he knew where his grandfather had moved, and Finn beat it out of him and murdered his grandfather. The man had stood by, watching Ryan’s murder and doing nothing to prevent it, and then had the audacity to assist in putting Collin Byrne in prison and out of Finn’s reach.
Brotherhood of psychopaths.
Then Finn finally found Celia and Erin and would have followed through with their murders, except his imprisoned father, crime family boss Jamie McPherson, got wind of money hidden in a mine and warned Finn off from killing anyone until they got the money first.
What they didn’t understand was that the money wasn’t buried in the mine—why would it be? Nathan chuckled to himself.
The money had been invested in the mine. Turned out that Collin hadn’t sent his daughter off empty-handed, and she left having memorized bank account numbers and codes to be used at the right time—and not in a way that would draw attention to herself. Celia had the chance to start a new life far from the organized crime mentality. She believed she had invested wisely in the copper mine through a shell company created to protect herself and Erin.
As for Collin Byrne, he was still serving time in prison.
Nathan was just glad it was over, especially considering those innocents who died because they got in the way. Missy, for one, and then more recently Ian Sandfield and his mother, Lena. Kevin Cobbs and his grandfather Jacob.
Finally, Nathan turned onto the drive up to Stone Wolf Ranch, hoping—praying—that Erin was still there and that she would be happy to see him. He’d exchanged a few texts with Terra, begging her to make sure Erin was there when he arrived.
He slowly pulled around the circular drive and parked behind a USFS vehicle. Looked like Jack and Alex were here too. Great. That’s all he needed—an audience, because he had no intention of letting them distract him from his purpose. From his mission.
Nathan climbed from his vehicle and jammed his sweaty hands into his pockets and headed for the front door.
Erin stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her. She rushed forward and he thought she would jump right into his arms, but she hesitated.