Page 13 of Killer on the Homestead
Once they moved, the excitable ranch hand, whose name Duncan couldn’t think of though he was sure he was a relation of some sort, started running away from them, like a dog alerting people to danger. So he and Rosalie followed. Rosalie had her cell out, no doubt already dialing 911.
Running jolted pain through his arm with every step, but the frantic terror in the ranch hand’s voice meant he couldn’t stop.
Until he saw a body in the pasture. Then he came to a skidding halt, even as Rosalie shoved the phone at him and rushed forward. She went right up to that bloody body and kneeled down next to it. She was careful, but she didn’t recoil. She reached out and touched his neck.
Another unrecognizable person, except this time not just because he didn’t know anyone anymore, but because the head of the very,verystill body was covered in blood.
“He won’t move!” the ranch hand yelled, not fully running up to the body on the ground. He looked from Rosalie to Duncan. “I kept shouting his name, and he won’t move.”
“What is your emergency?” Duncan heard vaguely from the speaker, jolting him back to his body—not some far-off place of shock. He lifted the phone to his ear. “Sorry. It seems… Someone’s been hurt.”
“We’ve already dispatched police and an ambulance. What kind of injury has the person sustained?”
“I’m not…sure.” Duncan didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help himself. “There’s blood.”
“Is the person conscious?” the dispatcher asked with a kind of detached calm Duncan envied. He felt jittery and outside his body. Because Duncan didn’t think consciousness probably had much to do with anything right now. When Rosalie’s gaze lifted to his and she shook her head slowly, he knew it didn’t.
Duncan had to clear his throat to speak. “I don’t think he’s alive.”
The dispatcher had him stay on the line and answer questions. Rosalie tried to calm the ranch hand who’d found them, but the kid just kept repeating the same information.
I called his name. He wouldn’t move.Why won’t he move?
As they waited, a few more ranch hands appeared, and Rosalie somehow managed to corral them all in the same area. She was about a foot shorter than all of them, but she had a kind of stature and calm in the face of allthisthat had every single person obeying her without question.
Duncan heard the blaring sirens before he saw the vehicles approaching. The police cruiser appeared first, followed by an ambulance. Both vehicles came to a stop on the drive, close to where they all stood.
Even as the paramedics rushed forward, Rosalie was walking past him, right for the uniformed cop who was striding toward the body. He couldn’t make out exactly what she was saying, but her tone was confident. Authoritative.
And it was clear, the cop didn’t like it. So Duncan moved over to her, not sure what he thoughthe’ddo about anything. Only knowing he didn’t like the scowl on the cop’s face.
Rosalie didn’t acknowledge his approach, but she must have noted it because she held out her hand. “Give me my phone, Duncan. I’ve got a phone call to make.”
“You can go crying to your friends in the bureau, but that’s not how this works,” the cop told her. And not kindly.
“It’s a free country, Stanley, which means it’s howIwork.” She jammed a finger onto the screen of her phone and whirled away from the police officer.
Who was now studying him. “Name?” he demanded.
For a full minute, Duncan could only blink at the guy. “What?”
“Your name? You’re not Natalie or Norman Kirk, so I need to know your name and reason for being on the property.”
Duncan supposed he shouldn’t be offended. Not everyone who knew his parents was going to know who he was, especially by sight, but the guy’s tonegrated. Everything about this guy grated.
“I amaKirk. I’m Duncan Kirk, their son. So I’d say I knowNatalie and Normanpretty well and have a pretty damn good reason for being on the property.”
The guy looked taken aback for maybe a second, then went back to big-chested bluster. “Where are your parents then?”
“Mom’s running errands.” But he wasn’t sure where his Dad was. With her? Somewhere on the property? But if he was around, shouldn’t he have heard the commotion and come running?
Duncan’s entire body went cold. OhGod. What if…? The phone in his pocket buzzed just as the fear of something awful befalling Dad gripped him.
It was a text from his dad.
What the hell is going on up there?
Duncan thought his legs might fully give out, just from relief alone.We’ve got a situation. Come on up to the north gate.Thenhe shoved his phone in his pocket and tried to find his strength again.
