Free Below Zero by C. J. Box Page A

you. It’s about all of us. We all have to do what we can, not what we want to do.”
    “But we do so much,” Patty said, tears in her eyes. “I told you about Think Green. We recycle, don’t we, Alex? And we replaced all of our lightbulbs. You know, with the ones that don’t work very well? And one of my cars is a Prius. It’s not like I don’t care.”
    “Then show me how much you care,” Stenko said. “You’ve got two minutes to make the wire transfer.”
    They stared at each other in silence for the first minute. She wanted Alex to help her, to agree with her out loud. To stomp the living shit out of this Stenko.
    “Do something,” she said to Alex.
    He sighed.
    Through gritted teeth, she said, “Send the goddamn money, Alex. You’ve got it. It’s not like you won’t get more.”
    She leaned forward until her lips brushed Alex’s ear, whispered, “Do it. There have to be ways of canceling a wire transfer after its been made. We’ll call the police and my dad and get it canceled.”
    Alex snorted, looked away.
    “Alex, you’ve got the money,” she said.
    “So do you,” Alex said, sullen.
    She was shocked, and she sat back and glared at the side of Alex’s head, thinking that perhaps she hated him.
    “I don’t care which of you does it,” Stenko said, “we’re running out of time.”
    “It’ll have to be you,” Alex said to her.
    She looked at him, openmouthed.
    Alex said, “Sorry, Patty.”
    “My God,” she said, “you’d actually choose your money over our marriage? Over me? That’s why you brought him in here?”
    “Don’t forget the planet,” Stenko said helpfully.
    “I’m sorry, Patty,” Alex said again.
    Stenko said to Patty, “This is the man you want to spend your life with?”
    She laughed harshly, more of a bark. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
    “So,” Stenko said to her, “it’s up to you. You want the phone?”
    She looked from Alex to Stenko and back to Alex.
    Stenko said, “Sorry kids. I’d hoped we could come to an understanding, but like I said, I’m impatient. Time’s up.”

7
    Saddlestring
     
     
    JOE ROLLED INTO TOWN AT THREE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING as the fingers of morning mist began their probing ghost-creep from the river into Saddlestring and the single traffic light at First and Main blinked amber in all directions. There were no lights on yet downtown, and the traffic consisted of a single town cop spotlighting a raccoon in an alley. The only people up, it seemed, were the bored clerk reading a newspaper on the counter of the twenty-four-hour Kum-And-Go convenience store and the morning cook at the Burg-O-Pardner starting on the biscuits and sausage gravy for early rising fishermen.
    His street was dark as well except for the porch light burning at his house and the kitchen light next door at neighbor Ed Nedney’s, a retired town administrator who’d no doubt arisen early to get a jump-start on late-fall lawn maintenance or putting up the storm windows or plucking the last few errant leaves from his picture-perfect lawn— completed tasks that would make Joe’s home look poorer by comparison and Joe himself seem derelict. This is what Nedney lived for, Joe thought.
    Joe didn’t like his house, and every time he came back, he liked it less. It wasn’t the structure or the street; it was simply that he didn’t like living in town with neighbors so close, especially after years of waking up on Bighorn Road to the view of Wolf Mountain and the distant river. But it was where his family lived, and that fact far outweighed his dislike of the location.
    His neighborhood was new in terms of Saddlestring itself—thirty years old—and had grown leafy and suburban. The Bighorns could be seen on the horizon as well as the neon bucking bronco atop the Stockman’s Bar downtown. The houses seemed to have been moved a few inches closer together since the last time he was home a week ago, but he knew that was just his tired eyes playing tricks on