Page 5 of Killer on the Homestead
Still, she preferred thinking about a grumpy teen as opposed to when she’d last seen him. On a TV screen. Along with a lot of people in Bent County, shoved into Rightful Claim, ordering beers and ready to cheer on the hometown kid.
Only to watch him all but collapse in pain after one pitch.
It was hard to be ticked that he’d called herRosiewhen she remembered that, and all the subsequent stories about a man’s amazing career being cut short. Especially when he was wearing a sling, which was the same color as the T-shirt he was wearing, so italmostblended in.
But not quite.
“Duncan,” she offered. She looked at her boss, Quinn, who ran Fool’s Gold. Quinn shrugged like she didn’t know why he was here either. “Having some trouble you need investigated?”
“Actually…” Duncan looked back at Quinn. “Maybe. You got somewhere to talk in private?”
“Sure.” She moved past him, and ignored the little jolt to her system when, underneath the flowery smell of potpourri that Quinn’s sister put out in the lobby, she caught a hint of piney aftershave and afternoon rain.
Whatever. Rich guysshouldsmell good. She didn’t tell him to follow her, or gesture him to, but he did all the same. She led him into her office. Only she and Quinn were full-time employees right now, so they both had their own offices. There were two other rooms with doors off the lobby that part-time investigators could use to talk to clients, interrogate witnesses, or whatever else was needed.
Maybe she should have taken him into one of those rooms, she thought as he moved into her space and started studying her array of desk pictures, but it was too late now. He was already staring at the newest addition. A picture from her second cousin’s wedding last month. Vi looked pretty as a picture in her simple white dress, holding her one-year-old. Thomas Hart,her husband, was handsome in his suit, the jacket hiding his own sling after he’d been shot trying to save Vi just a few weeks before the wedding.
Audra, Franny, and Rosalie fanned out next to them in their spring dresses, smiling at the camera, the Young Ranch and mountains spread out behind them.
It had been a good day. A healing day. Rosalie wanted to remember it always. But there was something about Duncan Kirk looking at that moment captured in the picture, knowing some of the players, but not all, that felt…weird.
She closed the door, took one quick second to settle herself, then turned to look at him. He’d stopped staring at her pictures and was studying her.
“We tend to lean toward helping women,” she began. Which wasn’t the kindest way to ask him what he was after.
“Well, in a way you would be, since it’s my mother who sent me.”
She raised an eyebrow as she moved behind her desk. “Your mother is not the kind of woman who sends someone else to do her dirty work.”
“No, she isn’t.”
He didn’t offer anything else. She sat and motioned for him to do the same on the other side of her desk.
He looked at the chair, the desk, the picture, then sighed and took a seat. She couldn’t quite read him. So she waited for him to explain.
She tried very hard not to fidget when it took a lot longer than she consideredpolite. “I don’t haveallday, Duncan.”
“Right. There’s been some trouble at my parents’ ranch. Some missing cows. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about it?”
“I can’t say that I keep up with the ranch gossip. That’s Audra’s department.” Which still left Rosalie feeling guilty. Sheloved the ranch, but as an abstract. As a home. Not as a business to see to.
Which meant all the nuts and bolts of running that ranch fell on her older sister’s tough and capable, but way overworked, shoulders.
“I guess, one by one, cows have been disappearing from the ranch. Dad was worried he was just getting…forgetful. He talked to Sheriff Hudson in Sunrise, but he hadn’t heard of any found cows. I guess he doesn’t like some detective from Denver being at Bent County, so he doesn’t want to call there.”
“Yeah, Beckett ruffles some feathers, but he’s not all bad,” Rosalie responded. She worked with a lot of the deputies and detectives in Bent County. Or harassed them into giving her information. Copeland Beckett wasn’t her favorite, but watching him work on her cousin’s case last month had softened her a bit in that department. That and the fact that Vi’s husband worked with and trusted him.
Still, it read fishy to her that Mr. Kirk didn’t want to call the actual cops, who might be able to help him.
“My mom’s worried,” Duncan continued. “About him. About the missing cows. She just wants someone to look into it. See if itcouldbe someone purposefully taking those cows.”
“Problem with that theory is a few months back, Audra found some of your dad’s cattle on our land. Looked like a fence had just been left open. Nothing nefarious. The cows were returned.”
“Maybe this is different.”
“Maybe.” But in her experience, cattle rustling wasn’t much of a money maker around these parts. One cow at a time didn’t exactly scream criminal plot. “Any ranch hands suspect?”
“Mom didn’t think so, but I don’t really know the players. Except my father.”
