“And no one’s defied him?” I asked.

“I’m sure some have tried, but he retaliates by getting another person who owes him a favor to take care of them.” He paused. “Or he got his right-hand man, Purdy, to do it.”

Carson Purdy, who’d tried to kill me and Marco and Wyatt. Who’d supplied the tainted drugs that had killed Hank’s daughter and been an accessory to his grandson’s murder.

Exhaustion crept into Hank’s voice. “Like you, I suspect Purdy wasn’t acting on his own. Once I retired, Drummond saw Bingham as his biggest threat, and maybe he thought he could move into his market. Money’s been tight for Drummond, and runnin’ his land ain’t cheap. His ‘spa’ in Ewing ain’t bringin’ in money, and neither is the Alpine Inn in town. It stands to reason that he’d try to find a new source of income, and he let Purdy be the face of it.”

“Do you think he’d ask his new manager to pick up where Purdy left off?”

He turned to me in surprise. “Has he hired someone?”

I swallowed, my small hairs standing on end. “Jerry Nelson.”

His eyes widened. “You’re kiddin’.”

A lump formed in my throat. “I wish I were.”

He was silent for several seconds as he studied the bird feeder. “Jerry wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“He killed Carson Purdy,” I countered.

“That was different,” Hank scoffed. “He was protectin’ you and Marco.”

“What if Bart convinces him he’s protectin’ someone?” Sure, Marco thought Jerry knew what he was doing—that he might even be playing Bart—but I couldn’t see that man as anything but an innocent. I took a breath. “Maybe this makes me sound like a narcissist, but I can’t help thinking Bart hired him because of me. He was hired at the tavern, of all places, and they kept giving him more and more responsibility. Drummond told him he was promoted to the overseer position as a reward, both for his hard work and for protecting Wyatt, but what if he did it because he wanted something else over me?” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “I know I sound crazy, but Bart Drummond has made it clear there’s a target on my back, so is it really that far-fetched?”

Hank petted the kitten in his lap, his gaze far-off. “Maybe not,” he finally said. “Drummond’s definitely playin’ the long game here. He’s gonna keep tethering you to him with hooks until he’s ready to call in that favor. Maybe he thought he could use Wyatt to hold you, but when that fell through, he set his sights on Jerry.”

“And you,” I said, deciding to put all my cards on the table. “He’s threatened to expose you.” He’d made that threat back in November, and I’d kept it a secret, but I realized Bart had probably expected me to do just that. He’d isolated me by putting up barriers between me and the people I cared about, presuming I’d keep my silence to protect them. So far his plan had worked, but I was done playing by his rules. I was making my own, and the first step was to make Hank part of my team, not treat him like someone I needed to protect.

“Expose me?” he asked with a chuckle. “What exactly is he plannin’ to expose? Everything’s out there in the open.”

“Then why aren’t you in prison?”

“Because I had my own deals with the sheriff’s department back in the day, and because there’s no proof at this point, not to mention the statute of limitations.”

“What if he has proof?”

He snorted. “Trust me, if Bart Drummond had evidence that could put me in prison, he would have used it by now, especially back in the nineties with Reagan’s War on Drugs. He can’t hurt me.”

“What’s the statute of limitations for selling drugs?”

Releasing a chuckle, he said, “The hard stuff? Fifteen years. I’m just about out of prosecuting range.”

“But there’s no statute of limitations for murder.”

Hank’s face lost all expression. “I did what needed to be done.”

I was referring to the man Hank had killed last fall. One of his grandson’s killers had broken into the house to murder me, and Hank had gotten to him first. It had been self-defense, but if Bart had somehow caught wind of it, he could find a way to construe it as cold-blooded murder. But Hank’s choice of words implied there were more crimes that could be used against him. I suspected I wasn’t the only person he’d protected in that way.

“What if Bart has evidence of a murder? Even if it’s concocted?”

“He would have used it by now,” he said. “Just like I would have used anything I had against him.”

“Turned him in?” I asked with a short laugh. “Somehow I doubt it. Something tells me you’d handle things more like Bingham.”

He was silent again. “I think it’s fair to say I was a mix of the two. I could play the role of the gentleman, but I was ruthless when necessary.”

I’d already come to that conclusion. His past had come up before, and the more I learned about how he’d conducted business, the more I learned that the man I currently knew was very different than the man he’d once been.

And some days I wasn’t sure what to think about that.

Chapter Ten

Hank knew where Sandy lived, so finding her address was easy. She would have been able to direct me to Ashlynn, but I didn’t necessarily want to ask. A lot depended on how our talk went. So instead I called Greta at Watson’s Café, knowing she was on the morning shift on Wednesdays.

“I hope I’m not getting you into trouble calling you at work,” I said.

“Not at all,” she said in a cheerful tone. “We’re past the morning rush. What’s up?”

“I heard about Pam Crimshaw and I feel just terrible,” I said, which was true. “I wanted to take her daughter Ashlynn a casserole, but I don’t have her address. Do you have any idea who might?”

“I can help you there,” she said. “Ashlynn was younger than me, but I dropped her off after school a few times.”

“Thanks, but I need to know where she’s livin’ now.”

“It’s the same place,” she said, then added, “well, kind of. She and Chuck live in a trailer on her parents’ land.”

“Oh.” That was actually better. It gave me an excuse to see where Pam lived. I was about to thank Greta and hang up, but I couldn’t help wondering what she knew about the whole situation. Even if it was just hearsay, I could sort out fact from fiction later.

“I just can’t believe Pam would do such a thing,” I said in a sympathetic tone. “She used to come into the tavern a lot, and she always seemed so quiet and meek around her friends. But then you probably knew her because of her daughter…”

“I didn’t really know Pam,” Greta said. “But the few times I saw her, she was with Ashlynn’s dad, and he’s not a very nice man, if you know what I mean.”

“He’s angry?” I prodded. “Short on patience?”

“That and more—rude, overbearing. I think he hit his wife and kids. It wasn’t all that unusual for Ashlynn to show up to school with bruises.”