Tom wrapped up his phone call with Mary as he walked past Gates to unlock the door, trying to buy himself a minute to process this. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.
He felt the FBI agent come up behind him, but Tom didn’t turn around.
“Agent Gates,” he said as he opened the door and walked in. He had to acknowledge the guy, but he didn’t have to be polite, which was a good thing, because right now Tom wanted to grab him by his expensive suit and throw him against the wall.
“Pleasure to meet you, Marshal Duncan,” Gates said, following Tom to the conference table.
Judging from the guy’s ingratiating tone, he was holding out a hand and expecting Tom to turn and welcome him at any second. Tom didn’t look at him.
Instead, he busied himself with unpacking files from his case and getting out his laptop. He was angry and alarmed. He couldn’t let a hint of that show.
But irritation? He could show all of that he wanted. “Please tell me you didn’t fly all the way to Wyoming just because I glanced at a case.”
“I did,” Gates said.
Tom finally looked up. Gates looked to be in his late thirties, but he was still lean and in good shape. His brown hair was clipped short and styled to hide the fact that it was starting to thin on top. His eyebrows were suspiciously neat. Waxed, probably. Tom didn’t like anything about him. “I told you it was nothing,” Tom said.
“Well, I decided to poke around anyway.”
“And I assume you’ve found nothing, since there’s nothing to find. You’ve wasted your time, Agent, not to mention a lot of money. But by all means, have a seat.”
Gates smiled and eased smoothly into a chair. “I like to see things for myself. Get a feel for a place. You know how it is.”
“Sure,” Tom said, taking a chair on the opposite side of the table. “But I’m a little too busy with an actual case to show you around town.”
Gates waved a hand. “I’ve shown myself around. Talked to a few people.”
“Good for you.”
“There’s one woman I haven’t managed to track down yet. Up near where you’re stationed at the judge’s place. She’s the right age and description for Pozniak’s daughter.”
Tom leaned forward, steepling his hands and letting irritation show on his face instead of alarm. “The daughter?” Tom frowned. “If I remember correctly, she was a white brunette who’d be in her thirties now? That covers a hell of a lot of women in Wyoming. Good luck.”
“She’s got a wide mouth. Kind of a big nose. Not bad-looking, though.”
Tom shot the guy an impatient look. “I assume you showed a picture around and didn’t get a hit?” He held his breath, waiting for an answer.
Gates leaned back and eyed Tom carefully. “Not yet. If they’re here, I don’t want to alert them. These people know how to disappear. I’m not going to give anyone a chance to give them a signal. I pretended I was after someone associated with the Stevensons. Hope you don’t mind. It seemed a natural cover.”
Thank God. Isabelle wasn’t exactly active on the Jackson social scene, but in a town this size, someone was bound to recognize her. “If you want to go on a wild-goose chase, there’s nothing I can do to stop you, but I don’t have time for this shit. I’ve got real work to do, and now you’re getting in the middle of it.”
“You mean babysitting a judge?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing like the exciting search for a long-lost woman who isn’t here and never even committed a crime.”
“You don’t know that,” Agent Gates countered.
But Tom did. She hadn’t killed anyone. She wasn’t hiding anyone. The worst she’d likely done was not rat out her own father.
He sat back in his chair. “We’re on the hunt for an armed and dangerous man here, Agent Gates. You go knocking on strange doors or poking around property that doesn’t belong to you, and you’re likely to get shot, either by Saul Stevenson or one of my team or a nervous property owner. So why don’t you just get out of my hair?”
Gates shrugged. “I’ve got a job to do, too. No reason for that to interfere.”
“Really? You were the one who drove up to the summer cabins on White Ridge Road, I assume? My men and I wasted two hours checking out your tracks and following up with the property owners. I’ll be letting your boss know.”
“You think he gives a shit that a deputy marshal has a bug up his ass? Look...” Gates smiled and shot Tom a wink, as if they were old friends. “I’m sorry I stepped on your toes. There have been a lot of shady dealings around this case. You tripped a wire, and I had to come out and take a look around.”
“I told you that was happenstance.”