“Maybe. No promises, though.” Once a month would be heavenly, but who knew what the future held? “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I have to get some sleep or fall on my face.”
“I know,” Olivia said, and yawned.
Sela stumbled as she went into her own house a few minutes later. The house was cold; the fire had died down, though some hot embers remained. She carefully added a few sticks of kindling and closed her eyes while she waited for the fire to catch. She dozed, sitting there, and came awake to see the kindling had almost burned up. She added more, and this time stayed awake to add wood. When the fire was blazing, she went to the couch, wrapped up in a blanket, and was asleep almost before her head hit the cushion.
The day just wouldn’t fucking end.
There was the gasoline to give out, plans to be made with the community patrol—and Ted Parsons was there, still sullen, but there. Showing up counted for something, though he kept an eye on the man. Resentment could fester in unexpected ways, and have ugly consequences. After he laid out the plans to systematically search every valley residence for vehicles with bullet holes in them, as well as someone who was wounded, he watched as the patrol members loaded up and headed out. Parsons was approached by a lean, youngish man with a feral expression, and the two stood and talked for a few minutes. Ben studied the young man, committing his face, build, and movements to memory.
“Who’s Parsons talking to?” he asked Harley Johnson, who turned to squint in Parsons’s direction.
“Hmm. Not sure. I think it might be the Dietrich boy, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”
“I don’t like the looks of him.” Ben didn’t mind making snap judgments, because doing so had kept him alive several times. The man gave the impression of meanness, with the hollow cheeks and eye sockets that he associated with drug use. Not only that, his body language said that he considered himself in charge of whatever he was talking to Ted about.
“If it is Dietrich, I’d say you’re right to feel that way.” Harley frowned. “I don’t like Ted talking to him. The Dietrichs are heavy into drugs, from what I hear.”
“Then that moves him to the top of the list of who might have tried to steal the gasoline.”
At Ben’s flat statement, Harley gave Ted and Dietrich a wary look. “You’re not wrong.”
“That also moves his place to the first one that gets checked. Now might be a good time.”
Harley nodded, understanding completely, and moved away to talk quietly to Mike and Trey, both of whom carefully didn’t look toward Ted but split up and moved to their own vehicles.
People were still coming and going, getting gasoline and leaving, making it easy for their activity not to attract attention.
Ben watched until Ted moved on; the Dietrich man got back into his car and stayed in line to get gasoline, which, if he had been one of the bunch who had attacked the store, was damn ballsy of him—but then, people on drugs would do literally anything to get more drugs. Ben looked down the road; the line of vehicles was non-ending; people would get their allotted five gallons, go to the back of the line, and get in line again for more. At five gallons a time, pumping out thousands of gallons took time, but this was the fairest way to spread it out over the valley inhabitants.
When Dietrich was almost at the head of the line, Ben moved away to let someone else handle things, so he could concentrate on watching. Briefly he considered simply overpowering Dietrich and taking him somewhere private to persuade him to talk, but hell, if he was going to live with these people he had to act as if he was halfway civilized, which he was no longer certain he was. If he knew this man had been among those who shot at Sela, it would be game over—but he didn’t know, he only suspected.
Sometimes shit-heads put on an act of friendliness, as if they needed to convince others they weren’t truly shit-heads, but they usually went overboard in their act, talking too loudly, laughing too much. Dietrich—and it was Lawrence Dietrich, because Ben heard the name he gave whoever was now keeping track of who got the gasoline—was smarter than that. He kept his voice down and didn’t say much, other than “Thank you,” when he’d gotten his five gallons. Ben saw the quick, furtive look he cast around the store and parking lot, perhaps double-checking that nothing identifiable had been dropped and was lying around unnoticed, or maybe making plans to come back.
Ben walked over to the woman who was keeping tally and casually asked how many gallons had been pumped.
“I haven’t added it up,” she replied, but flipped back over several pages of entries. “It looks like a lot, though; I’m already seeing people who have already been through the line once.”
“Good. We’ll keep going until the tanks are empty,” Ben said, noting that Dietrich was listening. That was their intention, and he wanted to make damn sure Dietrich knew it, knew there was nothing to come back for. As a precaution, after Sela had gone home, Ben had pulled his truck over the access to the small tank of pure gasoline, and also blocked sight of the pump he’d assumed was for kerosene before Sela had told him different. Maybe they needed to remove the pump, so no one got suspicious and started poking around.
Dietrich left, probably to go to the back of the line again, and Ben took one more look down the highway. Yep, this was going to take all day.
Chapter Nineteen
The men who had gathered in the bank parking lot looked as crude as their friend Lawrence. They all looked to be between the ages of twenty and forty, though it was hard to tell when personal hygiene wasn’t high on anyone’s list. Ted did his best to ignore their rough appearance. They might’ve looked just this way before the CME, but then again, they might’ve been clean-cut upstanding young men before the shit hit the fan.
No, not that much time had passed. This was a tough and not-very-upstanding crowd, he admitted it to himself. Still, in times of crisis . . .
The events of the morning still stung, more than a little. He kept seeing Sela Gordon’s middle finger thrust into his face. How dare she? And people around them had laughed! Not at her, of course not, but at him. That hurt as much as anything else. He wasn’t accustomed to being humiliated, and he damn well didn’t like it.
Ted shook off the annoyance and tried to focus on the future. Maybe Sela and her pals didn’t appreciate him, but this bunch did—or would. Sela could keep her damn patrol. He could bring these men in line, the same way he had with the employees at his tire stores. Some of them had started off pretty rough, too, but his guidance had brought them around. Sometimes. Some people were lost causes.
Lawrence introduced Ted to the others. The men who wanted to join them in this new organization were a cousin, friends, a brother, a neighbor. Unsavory appearances aside, they were friendly enough, and seemed to look up to Ted. They saw him as a leader, they needed him.
His pride swelled. Here he was appreciated.
One of the younger men, Lawrence’s cousin Patrick, took a step forward and winced as he almost stumbled. It was only then that Ted noticed that the jeans high on one thigh fit tighter than at the other. A thick bandage underneath, perhaps? That, and the wince, and the paleness around the man’s eyes . . . he’d been hurt.