Stone Cold by C. J. Box Page A

the hallway toward her room. The slam of the door made the pictures on the walls jump—again.
    â€œI’ll go talk with her,” Marybeth said, getting up.
    When she was gone, Lucy looked to Joe with her eyebrows arched and said, “April. She’s
b-a-a-a-a-a-ck
.”
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    I N BED , Marybeth put down her book and asked Joe what it was about Dallas Cates, besides the age difference, that bothered him.
    Joe said, “Do you remember the name Serda Tibbs?”
    Marybeth’s reaction indicated she did.
    Eleven years before, when Joe had been on the job in the Saddlestring District for only two years, he’d heard the call from the sheriff’s department over the mutual aid channel. A half-naked girl had been picked up by a deputy while walking away from town down a rural county road. The few clothes she had on were ripped and dirty, and she was bruised and appeared to be in shock. If it hadn’t been in September when the weather was mild, she might have died of exposure out on that road.
    Serda Tibbs was a sophomore and new student at Saddlestring High School. Her parents had recently moved from the Deep South, and her father was out of town on a roughneck crew. Under questioning, she said she could barely remember what had happened to her after she’d left after school with a group of local boys who said they were going to show her around the county. The boys were popular and well known, all of them athletes and older than her. Her blood alcohol level indicated she’d been drinking heavily, but she said something had happened to her beyond that. The medical tech at the hospital suspected she’d been slipped a date-rape drug although the testing was inconclusive. They did confirm, though, she’d been assaulted and left on the side of the county road. Because she was new and didn’t know where she was, she had walked the wrong way to get back to town.
    Four boys were arrested, all members of the football team. Joe had no involvement in the investigation, but he knew how the crime rocked the community. The boys eventually confessed and the two younger perpetrators were sent to a juvenile facility and the older two to the state prison in Rawlins. Serda Tibbs withdrew from high school and her family moved to Oklahoma.
    â€œHow does Dallas figure into this?” Marybeth asked Joe.
    He said, “Serda never named all the boys involved, because she was so damaged by it, but Deputy Reed told me he suspected it was five of them, not four.”
    Reed was now the sheriff of Twelve Sleep County.
    â€œHe always thought the fifth was Dallas Cates,” Joe said. “Dallas wouldn’t admit to it, and the other boys didn’t name him. Reed said he thought they were scared of what he would do to them, and he could never make a case. Dallas was
the
big shot at the school then, if you’ll remember. That’s when he was winning the high school finals and state wrestling. He had an ability to intimidate his competition then, and he still does. Reed suspected he intimidated those other boys to keep their mouths shut.”
    â€œMy God,” Marybeth said. “And he was in our house.”
    Joe nodded. “We need to keep him away.”
    â€œShould you tell April?”
    Joe nodded.
    Marybeth was still for a long time. Then she said, “Do you think it will make any difference?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Joe confessed.
    He hadn’t slept well the rest of the night, and was at the airport looking at the sky for
Rulon One
an hour before he needed to be there.
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    â€œ M AGIC C ITY OF THE P LAINS dead ahead,” the copilot announced through the open accordion door. “Welcome to Cheyenne—the three hundred fifty-fourth most populous metropolitan area in the United States.”
    Joe nodded grimly and gripped the armrests.
    â€œAs I said, it’s likely to