At one o’clock, Cy Tyburn and Brian Highsmith dazzled the crowd with feats of derring-do on horseback.
They rode at each other almost as if they were jousting; they were supposed to have ridden with reins between their teeth, guns blazing, but Sloan had outlawed the use of weapons.
Cy stood in his saddle and leaped for Brian. The two flew from their horses and staged a brawl right between the theater and the saloon. Jane watched the action anxiously, but they put on a good show and when it ended—with both of them “dead” on the street—they leaped to their feet and took a bow.
Jane applauded with the others.
After that, she slipped into Desert Diamonds and found Grant Winston, whom she hadn’t officially met. He seemed harried and harassed, but he was cordial to her, and he offered her a chance to look through the books in his office.
“Terrible thing about Caleb, but...not totally unexpected. Okay, well, his throat slit in the old mine—that was unexpected. This is Arizona, and a lot of people carry weapons. Me, I keep a shotgun behind the main checkout counter. He pissed me off so much I might have shot him if I actually carried a weapon. I’m sorry. I know I sound terrible. But you won’t find many people here who are crying over the man,” he told her. “Go into my office, Agent Everett. I told Sheriff Trent he was welcome back there anytime.” He suddenly frowned at her. “Wait. I thought you were an artist.”
“I am.”
“Oh.” He still seemed confused. “Well, make yourself at home. I can’t help you, I’m afraid. Busy, busy, busy. And, of course, you know—”
“I know that the items you’re letting me see are the real thing—collectible and priceless. I’ll be very careful with anything I touch,” Jane promised.
He nodded. “Cappuccino? Espresso?” he offered.
She shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks. And I wouldn’t risk spilling anything.”
That pleased him. She wondered if the offer had been a test.
He walked her past rows of pamphlets and souvenirs to his office. It was a large room with a plush swivel chair behind the desk, which held memo boxes on one corner, plus a computer and printer. Behind the desk and along both sidewalls were rows and rows of books carefully placed in glass-covered wooden shelves. “Behind the desk—that whole shelf is on Arizona history and Lily.”
When the door closed behind him, she turned to look at the shelves. She saw the original of the republished book she’d been reading by Brendan Fogerty.
Carefully, she removed it from the shelf and sat behind the desk. The book was in excellent shape for its age. She was surprised that the original had a dedication she hadn’t seen in the replica edition.
“To Sage, wherever in this world or the next she may be.”
Apparently Brendan Fogerty had thought it possible that Sage was dead.
But who had killed her? Not her husband. First, he’d been in the bar waiting for her when she’d gone to her room. And then, it was unlikely that he could have gotten away with burying her in a dressing room. Or had she been buried elsewhere first? Jane could only imagine that even in the Old West, the smell of a decomposing body would have alerted someone to Sage McCormick’s presence under the floor.
A man named Eamon McNulty had been owner, manager and artistic director of the theater back then. His actors had been more transient; only Sage had won so many hearts that she was hired to play role after role.
Jane kept flipping pages.
Most of what she read she’d already seen.
A “rancher” named Tod Green had been in town for several weeks before the deaths of Hardy and Munson and the disappearance of Sage, Red Marston and the stagecoach. Fogerty stated that he’d been suspicious of the rancher, since no one had known him until he started moving cattle. He’d checked with friends in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and other states, but the man had no background that he could discover. Fogerty openly voiced his dislike and suspicion of Green as far as the robbery went, while saying at the same time that he had no proof against him. Nor would he ever learn anything—because Tod Green had died in the streets just days after the stagecoach had disappeared. He’d been staying at the Gilded Lily and gotten into a huge dispute with Eamon McNulty; the two had taken it to the streets and Green had died in the dirt, shot to death by McNulty.
“So,” she murmured to herself, “if Fogerty was right, Tod Green took down the stagecoach, murdered everyone and hid the gold. Where?”
She turned another page. As she did, a fragile piece of old paper fell out. The ink was barely legible. “‘I will see that he is brought to justice. My word to you, old friend,’” Jane managed to make out. Her fingers trembled slightly. The writing was full of flourishes and very pretty—a woman’s hand, she thought.
Sage McCormick’s?
She pondered whether that could be the case when there was a tap on the door. Before she could answer, it opened. Heidi was there. “Agent Everett, I’ve found your friends!” she said happily.
Jane quickly stood, closing the book.
Kelsey O’Brien and Logan Raintree entered the room behind Heidi.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jane said, stepping around to greet them both.
Of her Krewe, Jane knew Logan the best. They had often worked together in Texas when he’d been a Ranger and she’d been called in to do facial reconstructions. He was the perfect Texas Ranger, steady and strong, simply there to do what he was called upon to do. He always used reason and negotiation before brawn and bullets. He’d had a horrible time when his wife was murdered, but a couple of years had gone by and during the San Antonio case, when they’d all been brought together, he’d been paired with Kelsey O’Brien—a U.S. Marshal back then.
Kelsey had known that she wanted to be in law enforcement all her life. Despite the fact that she’d already been a Marshal, she’d had to go through the academy at Quantico to become part of the Krewe.
She’d been tougher than Jane from the get-go, but she’d taught her a great deal about inner strength; Jane thought she’d gained a great deal of her own confidence with Kelsey’s help. Jane was also proud of being a very good shot—if not quite as good as those in their Krewe who’d been practicing at the range much longer.
She was grateful to have them here. She’d never worked any case without at least another few members of her Krewe before. It had just been days, of course, since she’d left them, but it felt like a lifetime.
Then again, she’d only come here to do a facial reconstruction.
“Lily is pretty interesting,” Kelsey said. “I’ve never been anywhere quite like this. And may I say that you’ve, uh, managed to fit right in?”
Jane remembered that she was in period attire and grimaced. “Just being part of the theater crowd.” She turned to Heidi. “Thanks for finding Logan and Kelsey and bringing them here.”
“My pleasure.” Heidi smiled. “Well, back to the grind. We’re all doing double shifts today—so many people in town. I would’ve thought...well, that these events would’ve scared off more people. I mean, after I found that old corpse out by the Apache village...” She gave an elaborate shudder.
“I’m sure you’re safe with your trail rides, Heidi,” Logan told her.
“With another guide and parties of up to fifteen...yeah, I hope so,” Heidi said. “Anyway, I’ll see you around.”
They all said goodbye. “You’ve found something?” Logan asked Jane.
She confirmed that the door was closed and then showed them the note. “It’s not addressed to anyone, but I believe it might be from Sage—written to Trey Hardy.” She glanced at Kelsey. “I’ve tried to keep Logan up on what’s going on—”
Kelsey nodded. “He’s filled us in on what he knows.”
“I was honestly surprised that Sloan was okay with bringing you in. But as we’ve discussed, he doesn’t seem to entirely trust his own people. Logan suggested he’s afraid that one of his deputies might have—inadvertently or not—shared information. There’s also the possibility that someone in town instigated whatever it is going on, and I suppose it could be over the gold.”
“From what I understand, that shipment was about a hundred pounds of mined gold, but at about fifty dollars a gram...someone could consider it enough to kill for. But we’re talking about millions today. Trey Hardy was dead before the gold was stolen, so what would Sage have meant by this—if she was writing to Hardy?”
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “I just don’t. Trey Hardy might have suspected something about what was going to happen. And even though he wasn’t a killer, he might have been condemned to death once he stood before the circuit court. He was a gentleman outlaw, so he might’ve been ready to tell what he knew, to see that people weren’t killed.”
Logan remarked, “Maybe Hardy’s legend made too much of him being a good guy. Jesse James, for instance, comes out looking like Robin Hood, but if you were the one being robbed by him it probably wasn’t so great.”
Jane shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to think of Hardy as being a good guy.”
“Well, legends are based on real men and women, and none of us is all saint or sinner. I’ll leave you two to your reading. I’m going to go into the county station and see if they can give us anything from forensics. I’ll keep in touch.”
“Where should I start?” Kelsey asked Jane.
“I’ll keep going with this. Why don’t you go through the old newspaper clippings and see if there’s anything new you can discover.”
* * *
Valerie Mystro stood by the car staring at Sloan. She appeared completely bewildered. She batted her lashes and played the betrayed heroine to the hilt.
“I don’t understand why you’re here, Sloan, why you’d be waiting for someone who simply wanted to be friendly and bring a basket of goodies to the hospital. Everything that’s happened is terrible, but your fixation on the theater is ridiculous! Yes, I went to the hospital. Jimmy Hough was a nice kid, although Caleb was obnoxious to everyone—insulting Alice and me when he wasn’t trying to pick us up or bribe us to have sex. I thought I was doing something good!”
“Valerie, this is one of the two busiest days of the year for the theater—but you had time to drive out to the hospital?” Sloan demanded.
“I felt bad! Caleb was murdered—and those two almost died, as well. Give me a little credit here, will you? Sloan, you think it all has to do with the theater because of the skull. Don’t forget, I’m the one who found the skull and was nearly scared out of ten years by it!”
“Why didn’t you stay at the hospital?” Sloan asked.
“The guard frightened me! I was just going to drop off the basket, ask Jimmy and his mom how they were doing and rush back before anyone knew I was gone. But the way he barked at me and asked what I was doing—well, I just turned around and left.”
“Let me see the basket.”
“You got a search warrant?”
“You don’t want to let me see the basket?”
“Sure, you can see the basket—if you ask nicely. I watch TV. I know I could make you get a search warrant!”
He rolled his eyes. “All right, all right!”
She leaned into the driver’s window to lift the basket off the passenger seat. It was a little straw basket with a bow and a card that said “Feel Better Soon.” She handed it to Sloan; he went through the contents and found cookies and candy.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he felt a little foolish as he handed it back. “Valerie, I’m sorry. But it looks suspicious for you to leave when you’re supposed to be playing your role for the town, and more suspicious when you run out because a guard wants to know who you are and what you’re doing when you’re visiting people who barely escaped attempted murder.”
“Sloan, I was just trying to be friendly, like I said. And,” she added, “even though he was a total prick—and probably because it looked good—Caleb Hough donated to the Theater Restoration Fund. I wanted to make sure his wife continued to do so.”
Sloan was silent for a minute.
“Sloan, please—can I get back to town before they notice I’m gone?”
He walked away from the car. “Okay. But do me a favor. Be a friend by not going anywhere near the Hough family right now, okay?”
“You’re being paranoid, and you need to be out there finding out who really did this, not persecuting good citizens!” Valerie said angrily.
“Trust me, I’m trying,” he said as he turned away.
* * *
“I’m learning about gold mining. It wasn’t found on the surface or in the streams here. It was an accidental discovery when they were expecting to find silver. But once they came across the gold vein, they created a processing station right by the mine, and they used fire and chemicals to melt the gold and mold it into bars. While the gold was being processed, it was protected by Pinkerton guards,” Kelsey told Jane.
Jane looked up at her and smiled. “I’d wondered about that. I mean, I know it wasn’t going to be like a pirate cache of gold coins.”
“No, but they were pretty sophisticated. So, the gold would have been formed into bars before shipping and it would’ve been relatively small in bulk, and thus easy to carry on a stagecoach. There were guards the whole time it was loaded. And there were actually two armed guards on board, and the driver was armed, as well. I sincerely doubt that one person could have been responsible. And then the dead men had to be buried, the stagecoach dismantled and made to ‘disappear’ and the gold hidden somewhere. It was a pretty complex operation.”
“One they must have been planning for a long time,” Jane agreed. “Two guards and an armed driver. So, maybe a party of three?”
“And someone in the know,” Kelsey said. “Only someone working for the mine, someone involved in its administration, would be aware of exactly when the gold was due to leave the mine.”
Jane glanced down at her book. “Well, this is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It could have been almost anyone living in the area at the time except...” She paused. “The administrators at the mine would have known—but local enforcement must have known, too.”
“Yes, I imagine they would alert the sheriff’s office.”
“Okay,” Jane said, thinking it out as she spoke, still and staring down at the pages in front of her. “We know that Hardy was shot before the stagecoach was attacked. What if Hardy suspected something concerning the sheriff and the deputy—something he’d picked up in jail because he could hear them when they talked? So Aaron Munson was afraid Hardy would blow the whistle on them before they got the gold. He went in and shot Hardy—never imagining that the townspeople would react so violently.”
“That’s possible. But it would mean Munson was dead when the stagecoach was robbed—and disappeared from the face of the earth.”
“But not Fogerty!” Jane said. “His book points at a man named Tod Green, a man claiming to be a rancher, who was in town at the time. A guy called Eamon McNulty was the director at the theater. McNulty and Green got into a huge argument and they had a duel in the street. Green died.”
“What happened to McNulty?” Kelsey asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t found another reference to him, other than the fight.”
“Okay, say the sheriff, his deputy and McNulty were in on it together. They set this Tod Green guy up to take the fall. Munson was lynched before the robbery, so he was no longer a player. But Hardy suspected what was going on and he told Sage McCormick about it. Sage disappears. We’re virtually certain she was murdered because her body was found in the theater.”
“Then there’s Red Marston, who disappeared the same night as Sage,” Jane said. “He might have been part of the conspiracy. People thought Sage ran off with Red Marston, but if Fogerty was involved, the rumor makes sense—Fogerty is the one who implied that Sage had gone off with Red. So, let’s say Red was part of this, and he did care for Sage. Maybe he didn’t want her killed, and because he wouldn’t take part in the murder, he had to go, too.” Jane wrinkled her nose. “This is getting really complicated.”
“No kidding.” Kelsey frowned. “But if Fogerty and McNulty came out of it alive, why didn’t they take the gold and get out of town when it all blew over?”
“I don’t know. That is a dilemma. And I doubt Fogerty admitted anything in a book he wrote himself,” Jane said.
“No. I wonder about Eamon McNulty, though.” Kelsey pulled out her phone. “I’ll look for him on Google.”
Jane waited, watching her.
“‘Eamon McNulty, renowned actor, director, theater manager,’” Kelsey read. “‘Born April 2, 1833, in New York City, New York, died June 4, 1873, Lily, Arizona, of a suspected aneurysm.’” Kelsey looked up at Jane. “It goes on to talk about his start as a poor Irish kid working in the bawdy houses of Five Points, getting a leg up in legitimate theater, staging some of the hits of the day. After critical success and financial failure, he accepted a request to manage the infamous Gilded Lily, in Lily, Arizona, where he brought in artists like Sage McCormick and Daniel Easton, known for their brilliance on the stage.”
“What if McNulty was the one who stashed the gold—maybe lying about where it was or keeping it a secret. And then he up and dies of natural causes!” Jane said. “That would mean Fogerty had to spend the rest of his life looking for the gold. But since he didn’t find it—and he’d gotten rid of all witnesses—he wrote a book!”
“Why would he do that? Although he wasn’t a half-bad writer.”
“I guess he wanted his version of Lily’s history to be the one future generations accepted as truth,” Kelsey said. “But how does that affect what’s happening now?”
“Someone else knows what we know. And they’re determined to find the gold.”
“If that’s the case, they must have some idea of where it might be. Hidden in the old shaft of the silver mine where Caleb Hough was killed?” Kelsey suggested.
“Maybe. But I still don’t understand why Sage McCormick’s skull was found on a wig stand, and why the body of an old-timer was dug up to point the way to Jay Berman’s corpse,” Jane said. “Unless, of course...”
“Unless it’s a warning to all the players to stay with the program,” Kelsey said.
“And Jay Berman somehow became a liability, just as Caleb Hough did. Whoever killed them thinks Jimmy and his mom knew what was going on, that Caleb let something slip,” Jane said. “Someone’s pulling the strings here. We know that at least two people, one of them a woman, are involved, because two people put Jimmy and Zoe Hough in the car in the garage and left them to die. Jennie was attacked in the basement. I was, too. Someone attempted to kill either Cy Tyburn or Brian Highsmith around the same time as Jennie was hurt. And the skull was found in the theater. Two things—the theater has to be implicated in some way...or someone’s going to a lot of effort to suggest it is. And, second, I think we’re looking at something similar to what happened all those years ago. There are partners in this, and a few of them are warning the others—or killing those they’re afraid might be on to something.”
“And the ghosts aren’t talking?” Kelsey asked.
“Sage...leaves messages. I’ve yet to meet Trey Hardy, but I’m hoping to make his acquaintance this evening.”
* * *
Sloan had just gotten Bullet back to the stables and was dismounting when Logan called him. He was glad to hear his old crime-fighting partner’s voice, glad he was in town.
“I’m at the morgue,” Logan told him. “With Liam Newsome. He’s brought me up to speed. We’re expecting some lab reports any minute.”
“Where are Kelsey and Jane?” Sloan asked.
“Reading at Desert Diamonds.”
“They should be safe enough there,” Sloan murmured.
As he spoke, Heidi came up to him. “I’ll take Bullet, Sloan, unless you still need him.”
He gave Heidi a quick smile, handing her the reins. He realized Logan was silent at the other end.
“Logan?”
“Yeah, I’m here. They’re both good at what they do,” he said.
“But I found Jane with a concussion down in the basement of the theater. We’re lucky our killer didn’t finish her off. Or Jennie.”
“You’re going to need to have faith in Jane. This is what she does. Trust in her training,” Logan said. “You, me—anyone out there—can be taken by surprise, especially when we’re not on alert.”
That was true; he’d seen massive sharpshooter cops brought down by junkies because they weren’t prepared to be attacked, because they were trying to help.
“I know you’re right,” Sloan said. “I’ll stop in and see what they’re doing and then head over to join you,” Sloan said.
“You’ve got men in town, right?”
“Both my day guys, and the county has men in.”
“Yeah, Newsome told me. See you when you get here.”
Sloan walked over to Desert Diamonds. Seated on a fake boulder in front of the theater, Brian Highsmith was regaling the crowd with the story of Lily, proudly boasting that the Gilded Lily was older than Tombstone’s Birdcage.
Alice Horton was beside him, dressed in full vamp attire, handing out fliers.
Sloan walked on, to the store. There were long lines at the pizzeria and the coffee bar. People were shopping, spending money—everything was going as it should.
He passed Grant Winston, who was at one of the counters, cheerfully instructing a cashier to return a man’s money; the man had purchased the same book twice. Grant saw him and smiled, then motioned toward his office. Sloan nodded.
He entered the office. Jane was standing with a tall, pretty woman whose reddish blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. They were going through a book slowly, page by page.
She looked up at Sloan. “Well?” she asked. “Who was it?”
“Valerie Mystro.”
“Valerie? What reason did she give?”
“She likes Jimmy and Zoe Hough. She brought cookies and candy. And Caleb Hough donated to the theater. Apparently, she wants to make sure his wife likes theater, too.”
“You believed her?”
He shrugged. “We’ll see what else happens. What about you?”
“Oh!” she said with excitement. “We think we’ve got it!”
“You know who killed Jay Berman and Caleb Hough?” he asked cautiously.
“No,” she said, her smile fading. “But I think we’ve figured out the past. Brendan Fogerty wasn’t such a good guy—and he fooled the world with his book. He was in on the stagecoach robbery with his deputy, Aaron Munson, and the theater manager, Eamon McNulty. But Hardy heard them talking—and that’s why Munson shot him in his cell. He hadn’t expected the mob to go crazy and lynch him. Oh, and I forgot about Red Marston. I guess he was in on it, too. Sage must have found out from him or her friend, Trey Hardy. We think she was killed because she was trying to find a way out of town so she could tell the truth. She couldn’t go to the law in Lily, because the law was involved. Marston cared about her and wanted to protect her, which meant Fogerty and McNulty had to kill him, too.”
“Why didn’t they get out with the gold?” Sloan asked.
“Because McNulty dropped dead of an aneurysm—and he’d either been the one to stash the gold or he’d moved it, not trusting his partners!” Kelsey said. She flushed, offering him her hand. “Hi, Sheriff, I’m sorry. We haven’t met. Kelsey O’Brien.”
“Good to meet you,” Sloan said. She had clear eyes, a steady handshake and a lovely manner. He hid a smile; he’d expected no less from the woman who had finally lifted Logan Raintree from his pain. “And glad to have you here. Logan is at county, getting lab reports from Newsome. I’m going to drive over and see what he has.”
Jane nodded. “I’m going to suck up to Grant Winston and beg him to let me borrow this book for the night. Then I’ll acquaint Kelsey with the theater, and be Sage again for a while until we hear back from you.”
“Keep an eye on each other,” Sloan said.
“Of course. We’ve been doing that for a long time,” Kelsey said.
He nodded and left them.
On the street, Henri was giving a history lesson on the theater with each of his cast members popping up to illustrate a different character. People thronged around them. Others stood just outside the saloon, some of the men with plastic cups of beer raised high as they leaned against the sidewalk support posts, like old-time cowboys.
The drive took him about forty-five minutes. As he neared his destination, he received a call from Logan telling him they’d meet at the morgue. He arrived at a lab and offices that made his little place look like a ma-and-pa operation. But he was grateful that he had the county for backup; it was impossible to have the manpower and technical and forensic support in a town as small as Lily.
A receptionist met him and instructed him to follow a hallway. In an outer room, a man who introduced himself as Dr. Madsen’s assistant gave him a paper lab suit and mask, and he entered the room.
“Sheriff Trent, just in time,” Madsen said.
“Glad to hear that, Doctor,” Sloan said, nodding to Logan and Newsome.
“I was explaining to Agent Raintree and Detective Newsome that because of the way the throat was sliced, I believe the killer was right-handed and that the knife used was about six inches long and two inches wide.”
“Something like a Bowie knife?” Logan asked.
“Yes, something like that. I’d also say the killer came up behind his back, grabbed him around the chest and attacked immediately—he didn’t have time to fight back.” He shook his head. “There are no defensive wounds on the man anywhere. It must’ve been a lightning-bolt attack.”
“By someone Caleb didn’t think would kill him,” Logan said.
“Probably. If I understand the circumstances correctly, whoever was in the mine shaft with him had to be known to him. You don’t just walk into a place like that. You crawl in through an area the size of a two-by-four boulder. Is that about right?”
“That’s right,” Sloan agreed.
“Can you say anything more about the blade?” Newsome asked.
“It was very sharp. And jagged.”
“What about any trace evidence on him?” Logan asked.
“Just the sand and dirt you’d expect from the mine shaft,” Madsen said.
“What about our other dead man? Jay Berman?” Logan asked.
“He was kneeling. There were powder burns, so he was shot point-blank,” Madsen said. “The bullet fragmented and the lab’s still piecing it together. You found no shell casings, right?”
“Right,” Newsome glanced at Logan. “My people went over the tepee with a fine-tooth comb.”
“Why would a man kneel down to be executed? Why wouldn’t he fight?” Madsen wondered.
“Maybe he believed he’d be let up—that he was just being taught a lesson or...well, people go on hoping while they’re still breathing,” Logan said.
“One more thing. Both of our victims ate not more than two hours before they were killed,” Dr. Madsen said. “Mr. Berman had nachos and beer. Mr. Hough dined on steak, potatoes, spinach and wine. Oh, and Mr. Berman was suffering from liver disease, while Mr. Hough had an artery that was almost completely blocked. I suspect he would’ve suffered a massive heart attack within a week. His killer really needn’t have bothered.”
They left the morgue soon after and spoke on the sidewalk.
“You feel my men are doing well by you in Lily?” Newsome asked Sloan.
“Yes. Other than the murders and the attempted murders, we’ve had remarkably little trouble during Silverfest,” Sloan said. “Thanks, Liam—I needed your help.”
Newsome nodded, looking at Logan. “Are the feds taking over?”
“No. We’re just here to lend assistance,” Logan said.
Newsome smiled. “I’m not resentful, Agent Raintree. If you decide you can better manage the investigation, feel free. This one has me grasping at threads, and I’m sure Sheriff Trent feels the same way. We’ve got nothing on Berman. We can’t get anything other than that he was down here on vacation. He didn’t have a home phone, and we couldn’t find any connection to anyone in Arizona on his cell. What he became involved in—I don’t know.”
“I don’t know anything, either,” Sloan said. “But the angle we’re working is that someone’s after old gold.”
Newsome frowned. “Old gold? You mean from the stagecoach that disappeared over a hundred years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Interesting,” Newsome said. “By the way, the skull of that old corpse you found in the desert has been brought to your station. Maybe your artist can work with it. If you find out it was one of the old stage robbers, maybe you are on to something.” He sighed. “Except that no one knew who they were.”
“I suspect Red Marston might have been in on it,” Sloan said. “If it proves to be him, we just might be on the right track.”
Newsome removed his glasses and studied Sloan. “So...that would mean one of the citizens of your fair town is involved. What tourist would have the connections and the know-how to research what happened in the past?”
“Yep,” Sloan said. “That’s why I figure I’ve got a local involved. Has to be. Jimmy and Zoe Hough were attacked by people who obviously knew the house, knew the distance from the stables and barns and knew the family. They were familiar with the garage. So, that’s why I’m really grateful for county help.”
Newsome frowned. “You think one of your own deputies—”
“No,” Sloan broke in. “Or, at least, I couldn’t begin to point a finger at any one of them. And it could be a question of talking to the wrong person, of being careless. But don’t—”
“Trust anyone,” Newsome finished. “That’s kind of a given in law enforcement sometimes, isn’t it? Sad, but true,” he said. “Oh, we got DNA off your bottle. The bottle from the mine shaft. But there aren’t any matches in the system.”
“But if we know who to get DNA from, we could have a match, right?”
“Of course. However, that only proves a particular person was in the mine shaft at some time. I don’t think you can prove murder with it.”
“Hell, Liam, I just need a solid suspect!” Sloan told him.
“If you can get me DNA—the right DNA—I can get you a suspect.”
They parted ways. When Newsome was gone, Sloan turned to Logan.
They’d been excellent coworkers from the start. While Logan carried all the traits of his Native American ancestry and Sloan didn’t, they still shared something of that past. They’d also quickly realized that they both worked on instinct.
And heard voices.
Sloan smiled slowly. “Good to see you, old friend,” he said. “I wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Yeah, well. I’m not here to take over. I’m here for support. What’s your plan?”
“How do you feel about stealing a few glasses, cups, mugs, tissues—whatever we can find?” he asked.
“Sure. Where are we going?”
“The Gilded Lily.”
“Great. I’ve gotten accustomed to living back east. I’m feeling mighty parched. I could go for a beer,” Logan said.
“Me, too,” Sloan seconded.
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
* * *
Jane headed out to the street with Kelsey following. She’d barely reached the sidewalk when she heard Brian Highsmith call out with a deep Western twang, “There she is! There’s my girl now!”
Brian jumped down from the “boulder” that had been set up for performances and came striding toward her. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he said, taking her hand, “I give you the esteemed, the one and only, indeed, the adored Sage McCormick! I was madly in love with the lady—I adored her from afar, of course, because she was already married! But while I might have been a bad man in the eyes of some, a low-down no-account drifter of a horse thief and an outlaw, I did indeed adore her. Now, once upon a time,” he said drily, winking as he looked down at Jane, “people thought Sage had given in to me and that we’d run away together. But alas!”
He played to the crowd, raising his hand. “But what?” he asked.
“Alas!” the crowd cried.
“Alas, we have recently discovered the bones of the beautiful Sage McCormick right in the Gilded Lily. We now know the actress was killed and that she didn’t run off with Red. But that was then—and thanks to the wonders of Silverfest and these costumes, here we are again! Together at long last!”
He bent down as if he was going to kiss her. Jane quickly stepped forward, addressing the crowd. “Yes, together again, but just as friends! Sage cared about Marston. He, like Trey Hardy, was one of those outlaws who still had a sense of morality. Trey Hardy was never a killer. Sage believed that Red Marston would happily steal your horse, but he wouldn’t kill you for it. Sage was in love with her husband and she loved her child, but I don’t think she realized when she married him that her first love would always be the theater. Ah, the theater! Please make sure you have your reservations for the Gilded Lily this evening, and if they sell out, do come by tomorrow!”
“Well done, Agent Everett. You are a woman of many surprises,” Brian said.
“Yes, well...I wouldn’t have put on the costume if I hadn’t been willing to play the part. And I wouldn’t have a badge if I wasn’t willing to enforce the law,” she added sweetly.
She started to turn to Kelsey but as she did, she caught sight of someone standing alone in the street, right in front of the Old Jail.
For a minute, she thought that Sloan had returned.
But it wasn’t Sloan; this man’s hair was longer and his jawline was stubbled. He looked at her and beckoned, then walked into the Old Jail.
For a moment she stood there, puzzled, but suspecting she knew who it was.
“Jane?” Kelsey asked.
She turned again, distracted. “Um, let’s go see my room. I’m at the Old Jail for tonight, the Trey Hardy cell.”
They hurried toward the Old Jail.
She was right. She’d seen Hardy.
He slipped through the closed door, disappearing as she wedged her way through the crowd to reach it.