Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
It’s hard, but I manage to not show any outward reaction at her words. Inside, though, my heart clenches. “And what about Rad?”
“Why would I know where he is? I’m not his keeper. I don’t know what he does or where he goes. He doesn’t even talk to me, remember?” Peyton says, a little too quickly and too defensively.
I look at her with confusion. “What? I just meant if—”
“Look, the sooner you come help me look, the sooner we can go back to where we’re supposed to be, okay? So are you going to stand here and ask all these questions or are you going to come with me? Because I’m going in that study either way.”
Her eyebrows are raised, and she has that dreaded determined expression on her face that means she’s not going to budge. So I sigh again and nod, and we take off. I’m not sure how it happens, but we make it to Marsden’s study without getting noticed.
As soon as we get in, Peyton bursts into a flurry of activity, buzzing around the room. I try to focus on my job of standing at the door and keeping an eye on things through the sliver of an opening I’ve left for the purpose. But it’s hard because there’s a wall to my immediate left that’s full of Grayson family pictures that I can’t help wanting to take a look at. I want to see him, how he was. Before. Eight years ago, even earlier. I want to see his life, his past. I want to see if he smiles when he’s in pictures. Things that are important to him. Things that make him happy. I want to see him with his family.
I realize how mundane all of this sounds in the face of everything that’s happening right now. But it’s not really mundane to me. In fact, it’s extraordinary because it has to do with him. I remind myself that it’s over now, though, and I need to focus because this has to be the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done in my life.
Even more dangerous than falling in love with an ex-con hell-bent on revenge.
“Oh my God,” Peyton exclaims, breaking into my thoughts.
Jumping, I spin around. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Peyton is looking down at a sprawling piece of paper on the desk. “I think I found something.”
I know it’s not really advisable to leave my spot, but I close the door and dash to the desk. “Found what?”
The piece of paper that she’s looking at is a map, and from what I can deduce, it’s the map of the ranch, the complete Rawhide ranch. Moving her finger over a zigzagging line that is apparently a creek, Peyton says, “I don’t know but I think it could be something.”
“Something like what?”
She flips the paper to reveal another map, this one slightly newer-looking, and somehow, she follows the same zigzagging line that she was following on the other map. She gets busy going back and forth between maps and pointing at things and tapping stuff here and there, mostly gibberish to me. Apparently when it comes to mischief and mayhem, Peyton is super detail oriented and I have zero imagination.
So I prod, “Something like what, Peyton?”
“Okay, look”—she points to something, a little box kind of thingy—“this little barn wasn’t here before. They built it recently.”
“O-kay,” I say, nodding, trying to follow her fingers and all this back and forth she’s doing. “So what?”
“So”—she does some more pointing—“there are a ton of such structures that weren’t on their land twenty years ago, which is how old this map is.” She points to the top to show me the date on the older map. “But on this one”—she points to the newer map—“they suddenly crop up and they’re everywhere.”
I slap my hands down on the maps and make her stop. “Okay, English, please. I don’t know what it means. So they didn’t have as many barns twenty years ago as they do now. So what?”
Peyton looks at me with shining eyes. “Do you remember, years ago, probably before we moved to Bozeman”—she pauses to let that take effect—“I came to you because I overheard my brother talking to my dad. About something related to Rawhide.”
I try to cast my mind back, but only bits and pieces of memory arise. “Something about some stuff happening on Rawhide. And that your dad was looking into it.”
But then, her family had always looked into the Graysons because, according to them, something illegal was always happening at Rawhide. So I don’t know why this is important.
“Yes,” Peyton, all excited, says with a nod. “It was something my brother found out. People were disappearing, Riri. All these men. And their trail led to the Graysons. To Rawhide.”
“What people?”
She is even more excited at my question if possible. “This is the best part. They were inmates. Prison inmates.”