Page 45 of Killer on the Homestead
“Curious or jealous?”
He looked down at her, matched her smug expression with one of his own. “Doesthatmatter?”
She held his gaze for a minute, then shook her head on a sigh. “I don’t mind jealous. I don’t mind curious. Never looked in that direction. Actually kind of hated him until a few months ago.”
“What happened a few months ago?”
“He worked on a case involving my cousin, Vi. Hart’s wife. She was kidnapped by her abusive ex.” Rosalie shuddered, and he found it was his turn to rub a comforting hand up and downher back. “Anyway, Copeland worked his ass off to help us find Vi. Hard to keep hating the guy after that. Though he tries to make it easy.”
Duncan chuckled. But it died, because…
“We can keep avoiding it, Ace, but it’s still going to be there.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, stepping toward the cabin with her. Avoiding it wasn’t going to change anything. And at the very least, he had awe.
Rosalie was dragging, and she knew Duncan was too. She’d tried to clean up as they went along, particularly the shattered glass, and he tried to remember what he had packed away in boxes that might be missing.
She’d coaxed him into taking some ibuprofen as they worked, but even after hours had passed, he hadn’t come up with anything to add to the list of missing items to go along with his pain pills.
When he’d stood in the same place for a good two minutes, just staring at some fancy engraved plate in his hand, she crossed to him, took it out of his grasp, and placed it in a box. “Come on, Ace, you’re beat. Let’s take a break, get some rest.”
“I’m pissed,” he corrected. He flung his good arm toward the front of the cabin. “It would have taken someone who knew their way around to get back here without passing by the main house.”
“Maybe,” Rosalie said, considering the layout of the Kirk Ranch. “Or they could have turned off their headlights. Used Neutral to cruise down the drive to your place. They could have known about the cut-throughs because they’ve been ranching these parts for years. There’s a lot of explanations.”
“They would have to know this cabin was back here, and that there might be something valuable in it. BecauseI’min it.It wasn’t random, or they’d burglarize Mom and Dad’s, which makes me sick to think about.”
She rubbed a hand up and down his arm. “It wouldn’t take much for someone to know all that, Duncan. I bet all of Bent County knows more of your business than you’d ever be comfortable with.”
He scowled at that. “Down to my pain pills?”
“Afraid so.” She could tell thatreallydidn’t sit well with him, but it was true. Maybe Bent County was a big place geographically, but interesting tidbits spread through all the small towns like wildfire.
He sank onto the couch. “Maybe other things are gone, but if they are, they’re small, inconsequential things I don’t remember. All my awards are here. I couldn’t tell you if they slipped out with a jersey, or ball or bat, or whatever the hell. There’s just nothing of any value that’s gone, I don’t think.”
She settled next to him on the couch. “Well, like Copeland said, the awards are too specific. No resale value. What about watches or… I don’t know, what do rich guys buy?” She was hoping to get a little bit of a smile out of him, but his scowl didn’t budge.
“Cars. Nice houses. All of which I got rid of when I moved home. I didn’t even bother to keep expensive suits or shoes. Why would I?”
“Okay, fair enough, but someone who knows you’re a professional baseball player wouldn’t necessarily know that. Maybe they came looking for cash, couldn’t find it, and bailed.”
“Just stumbled upon the pills?”
“Maybe.”
He looked over at her then. Shadows in his eyes, mouth downturned showing off grooves bracketing his lips. Beat clean up. She wanted to reach out and smooth the tuft of hair that was sticking up where he’d raked his fingers through it, but it felt likean intimacy that bordered too close to a bunch of things she just wasn’t sure about yet.
“You don’t sound convinced,” he said, and because he sounded so damn distraught, she didn’t resist the urge. She reached out, smoothed her hand over his hair. And it felt good. To reach out and soothe.
“I would be convinced. If not for the murder,” she said gently. She kept her arm around him. “Coincidences happen all the time, but this feels like a stretch to think they aren’t connected considering your parents haven’t had criminal issues at the ranch before, except the missing cows. Which I still think might be connected.” A lot of connections, but no answers. Still, that was an investigation. Steps, connections, and little threads, until you found the thing that bound them all together.
Connections, but not obvious ones. She looked around the trashed room. Silly just to do for some pain pills, but… “Maybe whoever did this was looking for something specific if they didn’t take anything.”
“They took the pills.”
“Yes, but surely someone capable of murder is capable of scoring their own drugs without creating this mess. What about weapons?”
“Like I told the cops, I don’t have guns down here.”
