Breaking Point

lot—that we’d just sign it over to them and they could keep it. But she said they didn’t work that way.”
    Joe noted the rage building in Marybeth’s face as she listened.
    He said to Pam, “This was yesterday when she called?”
    “Yes. She said there were some special agents driving up from Denver to hand-deliver the documents.”
    “Did you tell Butch?”
    “I tried. I called his cell phone, but he didn’t pick up. I figured he was on the tractor up there and couldn’t hear it ring.”
    Joe felt his stomach growl from tension. “So those two agents drove up there to your property and Butch didn’t know they were coming?”
    “No.”
    “How did they know he’d be there?” Joe asked.
    “I have no idea,” she said.
    “Pam,” Joe said, “do you think he snapped when he saw them?”
    Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t cry. She said, “That’s what I keep asking myself, Joe. But what else could it be?”
    “And he didn’t get in contact with you? He just never came home last night?”
    “That’s what happened. I thought maybe he was so depressed again he just froze up. I kept waiting for him to call or come by, because I wanted to read those papers myself and call the lawyer. But instead of Butch, Sheriff Reed showed up and started asking me questions.”
    Joe pondered his drink, thinking he wanted another.
    “So what should I do, Joe?”
    “What you should do is stop talking to me,” Joe said. “Get lawyered up and don’t say another word to anyone.”
    “Won’t that make us look even more guilty?” Pam asked, looking from Joe to Marybeth. “That’s the whole thing here—why should I have to look guilty? We didn’t
do
anything.”
    Marybeth said, “Pam, Butch may have murdered two federal agents.”
    Pam reacted as if she’d been slapped, as if the realization of what Marybeth said had finally hit her.
    So did Hannah and Lucy, who had just come around the corner into the kitchen from Lucy’s room but stood there with open mouths.
    —
    H ANNAH R OBERSON HAD THICK, dark curls that framed her face. She was shorter than Lucy, although she had a year on her, and she had light blue eyes—now rimmed with red—and a soft, melodic way of speaking.
    “Mom?” she asked. “Is it true there’s a reward out for Dad?”
    Joe was jarred by the words.
    Pam sighed. “Where did you hear that, honey?”
    “Somebody texted me.”
    “It’s not official,” Pam said. “But some idiot said some things like that.”
    “That’s just
wrong
,” Hannah said, her eyes fierce.
    “I know, honey.”
    “But maybe he didn’t do it,” Hannah said. “Did they ever think of that?”
    “They’re not thinking right now,” Pam said. “They’re just reacting.”
    Hannah said, “He’s my
dad
. They talk about him like he’s some kind of animal.”
    Joe looked away as Pam, Hannah, Marybeth, and Lucy gathered together and began to cry. He rose and refilled his glass and wasn’t sure what to say. He certainly wasn’t going to join in the crying circle. There were many things wrong with Pam’s story, he thought, but it resembled what he knew of the Sackett case so closely it was remarkable. It made no sense to him that something like that could happen twice. But what if it were
true
?
    That was a possibility he had trouble accepting.
    “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, slipping out through the back door.
    —
    H E FOUND S HERIDAN in an empty horse stall under a hissing Coleman lamp, feeding strips of raw chicken to her kestrel. The bird was hooded and perched on a dowel rod she must have rigged up herself, he thought. The square rabbit cage she’d appropriated for the little hawk was sitting on a set of old sawhorses.
    The falcon was the smallest of all the falcons, barely larger than a mourning dove, but Joe could see its slate-blue wings, ruddy back feathers, and a glimpse of black-and-white marking beneath the edge of the hood.
    “A little male, then,” he said.
    “Nate once told me to start small,” she said, “but I didn’t want to. I wanted a prairie falcon or a red-tail, maybe even a peregrine. But I can see the sense in it now.”
    She nodded toward the falcon. “This guy is probably going to be a lot of work because he’s hurt and he wants to eat all the time. Will you help me build a real mews in here so I don’t have to keep him in a cage?”
    “Sure,” Joe said, “but what—”
    “Am I going to do with him when I go back to school?” she said,