Page 35 of Killer on the Homestead
She didn’t grin back. She was guarded again, trying to hold him off with cool indifference. But he saw the faint hint of pink at her cheeks. There was no way she wasn’t reliving—at least a little bit—that kiss from last night.
And that put him in quite the good mood.
Rosalie didn’t wantto have Duncan in the close quarters of her office, cowardice or not. Especially the way he was grinning at her, like he could read her mind. Or her memories.
She still hadn’t been able to shake that damn kiss.Kisses.
So she stayed where she was, leaning against her office doorframe, while Quinn and Sarabeth said their goodbyes and left.
“I’d apologize for them, but… Sarabeth’s a special kid. She’s been through a lot. Deserves a thrill of a lifetime, no matter how misguided she is for thinking your signature is a thrill.”
Duncan, of course, didn’t take offense to her little jab. His grin didn’t die. He just keptlookingat her and moving toward her. Normally, she’d refuse to retreat, but she had a bad feeling if she let him get within touching distance, she wouldn’t have the presence of mind to stop whatever he would do.
So she turned her back to him, moved into her office, and sat down in her chair behind her desk. To create a nice boundary between them. She refused to acknowledge the amusement on his expression as he took the seat across from her desk.
“I’ve got what I call character sketches of all the ranch hands,” she said, jumping right into business. “Terry, obviously, is going to garner the most attention from the detectives since he had akey. So I want to let the detectives handle that, and I’ll put my attention elsewhere. Cover all our bases.”
Duncan nodded. “I’ve got the map. Mom’s recollection of what happened on the days the cows went missing.” He put the folder she hadn’t seen him carrying on her desk.
Rosalie opened it. She was most curious about the map. She wanted to picture everything, visually. Get a sense of the space of the whole timeline of events. She spread out the map on her desk, then stood so she could see it better.
“The red circle is the general area they think the cows disappeared from.Xsare where they found dead cattle—just the one time. Hash marks are where the rest of the herd was, approximately. It’s dated here, and the dates match up to Mom’s recollections.”
Rosalie didn’t want to look at the recollections or dates just yet. First, she wanted this sense of place. The missing cattle didn’t cluster. There was the first incident—the missing cows found on the Young Ranch.
She wouldn’t call what she noticed a pattern exactly, but it was movement.
She pointed it out to Duncan. “They move. Slowly. Closer and closer to the west side of the ranch. First, you had three end up on our property.” She put her finger on the map, slid it over. “Then you had two disappear, and a cow found dead here. Seemingly two different problems, but maybe not.” She moved her finger again. “One disappears here. Two weeks before the murder.”
“Doesn’t this kind of follow the pathway you drove me on the other day?”
Rosalie nodded. She didn’t like that. Didn’t like the proximity to Audra and Franny and their own herd.
Duncan pointed to a spot on the map. The pasture where Owen had found Hunter.
“If you include the murder, it follows the movement.”
“But not the path,” Rosalie murmured, considering all the different angles.
“No, but there’s a cut-through right here.” He pointed again, slid his finger from that point to the pasture. “Or there was when I was a kid. I haven’t paid close attention, but when I go back this afternoon, I’ll check it out. Back when I was a kid, we used it as a cut-through. Ranch hands, dogs, horses, whoever and whatever if we didn’t want to take the service road around but needed to get up to the house.”
“Or maybe, in this case, the pasture.”
Duncan nodded grimly. “But what does it mean?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll go through your mom’s recollections. I might go over it with Audra too. How she got the cattle back to your dad.” Rosalie had been avoiding Audra since last night, and wanted to continue to do so, but eventually she’d have to face her. Might as well be for work.
“In the meantime, I want you to go over these write-ups I put together on the other ranch hands besides Terry. Add your own interpretations, and ideally, your mom’s. Unless it’ll be too tough on her.” She got out the papers she’d printed out earlier, stapled them together and handed them across the desk.
“No, she’ll want to help. And she’ll be able to give Dad’s real opinions on them too—not just the no-one-would-murder one he gave the cops.”
That was good. Rosalie didn’t see any reason for it not to be a Kirk ranch hand, evenifthe guns confiscated weren’t the murder weapons. Someone on that ranch had to have helped.
If she hadn’t heard from someone at Bent County by dinner, she’d head down to the department and see what she could irritate out of Copeland. If that didn’t work, maybe she’d stop by Vi’s on the pretense of catching up and playing with Mags and see what she could pump out of Hart.
“You’ve been hard at work,” Duncan said, skimming over what she’d put together about all the ranch hands.
She had indeed been hard at work, and not just to avoid all the things she was hoping to avoid. She didn’t like the way this case nagged at her. Like there was a very clear piece she was missing, when, of course, nothing was clear, or Copeland and Bent County would have figured it out by now.
