Killer Cowboy

“I intend to question each of them as potential suspects.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “You questioned them all when the seven skeletons were first found and nothing came of it. Maybe you should ask Humes’s men what they were up to last night. They crashed the party and you know they’ve always been trouble.”

There was no question that she lusted a bit after Dillon Bowie, but at the moment that emotion wasn’t anywhere in her heart.

It was so much easier to embrace anger rather than to entertain her physical attraction to the chief of police, or give in to the tears that had threatened to fall since the moment she’d seen Sam’s body.

She glared at him. “Why don’t you leave my men alone? They’ve done nothing to make anyone believe that one of them is capable of murder.”

“Calm down, Cassie.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Has nobody in your entire life ever told you that telling a woman to calm down is like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull?”

His cheeks reddened slightly. “I’m not the enemy here, Cassie,” he said softly. “Everyone who attended the barn dance last night is a potential suspect. In fact, what I need from you is a list of all the people who came to the party last night.”

She frowned and leaned back in her chair, her momentary burst of anger gone. “You were here along with more than half the town.” She sighed. “Okay, I’ll do the best I can to come up with a complete list of names.”

“I appreciate it. Now, tell me how Sam was working out here. I know he was a fairly new hire.”

“I hired him on two weeks ago, along with Donnie Brighton and Jeff Hagerty. According to all the men Sam was fitting in just fine. Every time I saw him he had a cheerful smile on his face.” She bit her bottom lip to keep her grief at bay.

“And nobody mentioned having a problem with him?”

She shook her head. “Nobody on this ranch. I don’t know if he might have had issues with somebody in town.”

“He’d moved in here when you hired him?”

“Yes, he moved into Tony Nakni’s room after Tony moved in with Mary Redwing.”

“Can you open his room for me?”

“Of course.” Cassie got up and moved to the small built-in desk and opened the top drawer. “All of the men allow me to keep an extra key to their rooms for them in case of an emergency.” She pulled out a key ring with an oversize charm of a huge pair of gemstone-red high heels. “I’ll go with you.”

She was grateful he didn’t protest her presence as they walked out the back door. She was unsettled and didn’t want to just sit inside the house with only her dark thoughts as company.

Grief for the young cowboy she was just getting to know weighed heavy in her heart, along with the uneasiness of knowing that last night a murderer had paid a visit to the Holiday ranch...to her ranch.

She had to double-step to keep up with the tall, long-legged man next to her. It had been months since the skeletons had been found on the property, and Dillon had been a familiar sight around the ranch and yet she really didn’t know him very well.

All she knew for sure was there were times when his gaze lingered on her a bit too long, when wild butterflies shot off in the pit of her stomach. However, there were no butterflies right now as she glanced at his stern features.

They reached the cowboy motel where several of her men stood in a group outside their rooms. “Hey, boss, are you doing okay?” Sawyer Quincy’s copper-colored eyes held welcomed warmth as he gazed at her.

“Thanks, Sawyer. I’m okay,” she replied.

“Hell of a way to end a party,” Brody Booth said darkly. “Anyone tries to bash me in the back of the head with an ax, he’ll get a bullet in his gut before he can even get close to me.”

Cassie turned to Dillon in alarm. “Do you think the rest of my men are in danger?”

“There’s no reason for me to believe that at the moment, but we’ve barely started this investigation,” Dillon replied.

“You don’t have to worry about us, Cassie. We all know how to take care of ourselves,” Flint McCay assured her.

Cassie wanted to believe that, but yesterday she had believed that Sam Kelly could have taken care of himself. “I just want all of you to watch your backs,” she said.

Aware that Dillon was waiting on her, she fumbled with the keys until she found the one that would unlock Sam’s room. When the door was unlocked, she pushed it open.

Dillon stepped inside and she followed on his heels. The room was small, with just a twin bed against one wall and a chest of drawers on another. The closet door was open and the bathroom door was closed.

The sight of the pictures of his dead parents that Sam had hung on the wall made Cassie’s heart cringe. The room was neat and clean and there appeared to be nothing out of place.

She remained just inside the door as Dillon pulled out drawers and examined each one. He then went into the bathroom and reappeared only a moment later.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything here that will help me get to the bottom of things,” he said and then heaved a deep sigh. “He had his phone with him when he was killed. Hopefully it will yield some sort of clue.”

“He’s with his parents now,” Cassie said softly and then a sob escaped her.

Dillon turned to her, his gaze suddenly soft. “Go back to the house, Cassie.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got interviews to do here and I’ll check in with you later.”

For a moment she wanted to lean into him and bury her face into the crook of his neck. She wanted him to wrap her in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

However, before she could follow through on the impulse, he removed his hand from her shoulder and stepped back. “I’d appreciate it if you could start on that list of people who were here at the party last night.”

Cassie straightened her back and drew in a deep breath for strength. “I’ll get right on it,” she replied. “I’ll see you later.”

Heading back to the house, she wondered why Sam’s death had hit her so hard. She hadn’t known him that well. Certainly it was always a tragedy when a person was murdered, but that didn’t explain the utter devastation she felt.

An arctic chill swirled around inside her as she entered the house. She climbed the stairs and went down the hallway to her bedroom. What she really wanted to do was crawl back into bed.

Like a small child she wanted to fall into bed and pull the covers over her head and hide from all the evil she feared was coming her way. But she couldn’t go back to bed. Instead she reached up to the shelf in the closet and tugged on the edge of a purple fuzzy throw blanket she’d put there when she’d first arrived at the ranch.

It came down along with several shoe boxes, framed photos and a handful of her aunt’s clothes that Cassie had thrown on the shelf months ago.

“Damn, damn!” She rubbed her head where one of the picture frames had struck. She’d been telling herself she needed to clean out the closet shelf for months, but it wasn’t going to happen right now.

She threw everything back on the shelf and then wrapped the throw around her shoulders and headed back downstairs. Instead of going to the kitchen table to start the list for Dillon, she collapsed on the sofa and pulled the throw more closely around her as the sobs she’d been holding back all morning released from her.

She cried for Sam Kelly, who had only been twenty-nine years old, and she cried because she didn’t know what the future held. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was afraid.

* * *

The cowboy dining room was large. It not only held tables and chairs where the men ate their meals, but it also had an area with a television, sofa and several easy chairs where they relaxed on their time off in the evenings.

Dillon sat at one of the tables, waiting for another one of Cassie’s cowboys to come in and be interviewed. His men were processing the barn and he’d already spoken to Sawyer Quincy and Mac McBride. Neither man had been able to shed any light on Sam’s murder.

He didn’t expect any of the men to give him something concrete, but he was hoping that if one of them lied to him then he’d pick up on the subtle signs.

He picked up his pen and tapped the end of it on the table as his head filled with thoughts of Cassie. She’d appeared so achingly fragile. She’d had nothing but drama since she’d taken over the ranch. As if unearthing the seven skeletons wasn’t enough, her place had become a haven for people in trouble. Just last month a band of drug dealers had roared onto her land and shot up the place.