Marybeth slid her side window down a few inches, listening for the sound of a car starting up in the dark. But she heard nothing. Was he on foot?
There were not many homeless people in Saddlestring. Transients came through in the summer months looking for a more hospitable location, but rarely in the winter. She was very aware of them, because as the director of the county library, she knew that her building was like a magnet for those who had no place else to go. Transients used the restrooms, the couches, and the computers. No one had ever vandalized the interior or harassed her patrons, but she did have to call the sheriff on one middle-aged woman who insisted on wheeling her shopping cart full of possessions inside with her three days in a row. When Marybeth had followed up with Sheriff Tibbs, he told her they’d driven the woman to a halfway house in Casper, a hundred and thirty miles away.
She looked around to see if she could see the man again. Hopefully, she thought, she’d catch a glimpse of him under a streetlight, doing his best to get away. What worried her was the possibility that he had simply ducked around the corner of the library and was lurking in the bushes or in the stairwell that led to the basement storage area.
Marybeth tapped out 911 on her phone but hesitated to hit the call button. The county library was a public building, after all. The man hadn’t been trespassing or attempting to break in, as far as she could discern. Patrons were encouraged to return books at all hours via a slot in the building. Maybe he had overdue books and he didn’t want to return them in person and pay a fine? There were plenty of other scenarios she could think of.
She wasn’t a jumpy woman and she didn’t want to be characterized as one. Her husband was in law enforcement, and the dispatcher at the county building was notorious for gossiping about the calls she received. That the director of the county library had called the cops to check out a man returning a library book after hours would certainly make the rounds and portray her as foolish.
So instead, she called Joe.
“What’s up, babe?”
“Probably nothing.”
She could envision him on the other end getting ready to go to work. He was likely pulling on his red uniform shirt with the pronghorn patch on its sleeve or packing his lunch. Daisy would be trembling with anticipation near the front door.
Although he was still limping from his injuries in the mountains the month before and he’d yet to have all of his stitches removed, Joe was nothing if not conscientious. Annoyingly so. It drove him crazy when he was not doing his job in the field, especially during the last weeks of the big-game hunting seasons. It drove her crazy that he wouldn’t stay home to recuperate and rest, like their doctor had ordered.
It was especially maddening now, she thought, since their fortunes had changed almost overnight. A lot had happened within the past month. Joe had been injured and had nearly lost his life up in the mountains. The trauma of the experience still affected her. The community itself was still in shock from the violent incidents that had taken place and the familiar people involved, and so was Marybeth. She couldn’t get Joe to talk about it yet.
Also unsaid between them was the strangest thing of all—the possibility that, for the first time in their married lives, they were . . . wealthy?
Maybe.
* * *
—
She told Joe about the man she’d seen and what he appeared to have been doing.
“Was he sleeping there, do you think?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you can’t see where he went?”
“No.”
“You’re sure you didn’t recognize him?”
“I’m sure.”
“Make sure you check your mirrors so he doesn’t sneak up behind you in the dark.”
That sent another chill through her and she quickly confirmed that there was nobody behind her van.
“Stay put,” Joe said. “I’ll be there in twelve minutes and check things out.”
Joe knew exactly how long it took to drive from their state-owned game warden home on the bank of the Twelve Sleep River to the library.
“Really, you don’t need to do that,” she said. “I’m still on edge, I think. Now I feel kind of silly for calling you.”
“What are you doing there so early, anyway?” he asked. She could tell from the background noises that he’d shut the front door of their house and was making his way across the yard toward his pickup.
“I left you a note on the refrigerator,” she said. “I wanted to get an early start. I was hoping to knock off after lunch today so I could get home and start cooking, since April will be back tonight and Lucy’s coming tomorrow.”