"Maybe," Grim replied. "The people in Phoenix are awake, though, and Jesse's talking. Neither of those things changes if Holt comes back." Clay's smile tightened. Grim recognized the hunger beneath it, the desire to make somebody flinch, to restore the balance of fear the way a man presses a crooked picture frame straight. For once, he did not offer that satisfaction.
"That woman belongs with me," Clay said. Grim heard the word belongs and felt rage flash hot and familiar through his chest. It would have been easy to move toward the man, to allow every old story about the skull ring and his temper to turn into another story before sunrise. He imagined Ethan waking to hear that Grim had been arrested or killed over a fight in a parking lot. The image checked him.
"Sarah Cole doesn't belong to you," Grim said. "Neither do her children. She needed a doctor and a safe place, and she got them. You have something to say about it, tell the people who are investigating your business." Clay glanced toward Danny, who had come out of the diner and stopped several paces behind Grim. "You've gotten sentimental in your old age," Clay said.
"Maybe," Grim answered. "I'd rather be sentimental than think a woman is property." Danny did not speak, and Bill Garrett, who had slipped out after him, stopped near the door with both hands resting harmlessly at his sides. Three men stood within reach of the building's light, while Clay's drivers watched from their vehicles. The ratio meant little to Grim. What mattered was that the door stayed closed and nobody moved toward it.
A minute passed, then another. Clay looked at the empty space where Holt's cruiser had stood and seemed to recognize that the story he had planned for the night no longer had its required witness. If violence followed, there would be no friendly deputy standing ready to declare who had begun it. If intimidation followed, there would be witnesses in a diner and perhaps records already being preserved elsewhere. He stood in the rain and measured the cost of acting against the cost of retreat.
At last he climbed back into the pickup. The first truck made a slow turn, followed by the second and then the others. Their tires ground across wet gravel, their headlights swept over the diner windows, and one by one they pulled onto Route 66. Nobody cheered when they left. Grim watched until the last lights were gone and only the rain remained.
Bill Garrett exhaled heavily. "I ought to get paid extra for coffee like this," he said. Danny laughed, a short startled sound that seemed to surprise him.
Grim looked at the trucker and nodded. "I appreciate you standing there," he said. Bill shrugged. "I didn't have anywhere more important to be for a few minutes."
When they went inside, Millie was waiting behind the counter with her arms crossed. "They're gone?" she asked. "For now," Grim said.