The Hough ranch was massive. Barns, paddocks and stables far to the east of the property, while the main house sat on a hillock. A stone patch, surrounded by an attractive cacti garden, led the way to the house, which could have graced many a magazine cover.
Jane stood on the porch with Sloan as he rang the bell. He was glad she’d come along with him. He’d always hated having to tell someone that a loved one was dead—but he hated the idea that they’d hear it on the news or through another source even more.
She touched his hand. “It’s been hours since you found his body. Do you think they know already?”
“Liam Newsome came by to speak with the family,” Sloan said. “As much as you seem to think I don’t play well with others, I keep him up on what I’ve discovered—and he’s a detective. I haven’t even actually seen Liam yet. Johnny Bearclaw and I were waiting for him to arrive with someone from the medical examiner’s office when I called, but then you went missing. Johnny waited at the scene, while I drove to town. Newsome came out here right after.”
“Then why are we here now?”
“Liam couldn’t get an answer. They’ve called a couple of times. Apparently, Caleb took Jimmy’s cell and Zoe, Caleb’s wife, is notorious for never knowing where hers is. So, Newsome had an officer come out, but he still didn’t find anyone home.”
“It doesn’t seem that we’re finding anyone at home, either,” Jane said. “Maybe they’re out of town. Jimmy was in trouble, wasn’t he?”
Sloan frowned. “Sometimes Jimmy works for the stables.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Heidi answered breathlessly.
“Lily Stables.”
“Heidi, it’s Sloan—”
“Oh, yeah, your name’s on caller ID. What’s up?”
“Did Jimmy come into work today?”
“No, the little dweeb was a no-show, and he didn’t answer his phone all day, either. That’s why I can hardly breathe. I’m hauling hay all by myself for the hayride. Is something wrong—something else? Wow. I went by on my third trail ride today, and an area near the old mine shaft was cordoned off. A guy in a county uniform told me just to take the trail group on by. What else has happened? Oh, God!”
Heidi was going to get hysterical and he couldn’t afford to listen right then. “Thanks, Heidi,” he said, and hung up.
Watching him, Jane stepped gingerly into the garden to look inside the house. She pressed her nose to the picture window.
“Sloan,” she said.
“What?” he asked, joining her.
“I see a handbag and a shawl on the little table in the foyer. There are keys lying next to it.”
Sloan figured someone had to be out by the stables and barns. It was a massive ranch. But the house was also set apart from the work buildings.
He tried the front door; it was locked. It was a solid wood door—slamming his shoulder against it for the next ten years probably wouldn’t break it in. He hesitated a bare half second, then drew his gun and shot the lock. If Jane was surprised, she didn’t say so. They entered the house.
“I’ll take the upstairs,” she said.
Sloan walked through the dining room, the kitchen, Caleb Hough’s office and cigar room, the pantry. Nothing seemed to be out of order. Maybe his instincts had been wrong. Explaining why he’d shot through a lock to get onto private property—when he’d gone there to tell a woman that her husband had been murdered—wasn’t going to be easy.
“Hey, Sloan!” Jane called. “Up here.”
He ran up the stairs. She was in Jimmy Hough’s bedroom. It looked as if there’d been a scuffle. Pillows were on the ground and the sheets were halfway ripped off the bed.
“But where is Jimmy now?” Sloan asked rhetorically. He felt ill; Caleb Hough had been a blowhard, but no one deserved to die the way he had. Jimmy was a good kid with the potential of becoming a fine man.
Jane set an arm on his shoulder. “This doesn’t mean he’s lying dead somewhere. Maybe he’s been kidnapped.”
“But the father is dead, so why would someone hold Jimmy?” Sloan asked. He turned on his heel.
“Where now?” Jane asked.
“The garage.”
He ran down the stairs and back to the kitchen. A door opened out to the garage. It was locked, but it was a thin wooden door and, that one, he did slam his shoulder against. The door gave.
“Carbon monoxide,” Jane said.
He swore. There were three cars in the garage. While he could smell the gas, it had faded, and he couldn’t see anyone. He strode quickly to the Mercedes Benz at the far end of the garage while Jane started with the Acura SUV closest to the house. They reached the ’57 Chevy in the center together. He yanked open the passenger side while Jane opened the driver’s door.
There they were, Jimmy and his mother—both looking as if they were dead. Covered in sheets like children playing at being ghosts.
They ripped the sheets off the pair.
Zoe Hough was in the driver’s seat and her son was in the passenger seat.
Sloan felt for Jimmy’s pulse. He found a flicker of life in the vein at the boy’s neck. Glancing at Jane, he was relieved when she nodded.
“Weak—but she has a pulse.”
Sloan pulled out his phone and called in an emergency.
“I’ll open the doors, get air,” Jane said. She rushed to the garage doors and, even as they slid up, Sloan saw cop cars coming down the drive. One was from his office and two were from county.
No one could have answered an emergency call that fast, but he was glad they were there.
Declan McCarthy, his managing night deputy, was the first to reach him. “Sloan—wow, you’re here. What the hell happened now? I heard about Caleb Hough, and that, so far, we hadn’t found his wife and son,” Declan told him.
“We need an ambulance. It’s on the way,” Sloan said. “How did you get here so quickly?”
“The house alarm went off. The security company called county, and county called me,” Declan explained.
“Let’s get them out of the garage,” Sloan said.
The two officers from county didn’t pull their guns, recognizing the situation before they reached the door. Jane had Zoe Hough halfway out of the car; the county men assisted her. Declan helped Sloan maneuver Jimmy out from the other side. They got them into the driveway. There was no real grass on the lawn anywhere, but Declan got a blanket from the back of his patrol car and Jimmy and Zoe were placed on it. “Mrs. Hough is breathing,” he said. “Jimmy, he’s got a pulse, faint...but I’m not feeling his breath.”
Sloan fell to his knees by Jimmy’s side, and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, breathing into his lungs. Declan went into emergency mode with him, counting, pressing on the boy’s chest.
Jimmy choked, then he started breathing on his own. Sloan felt the tension ease from his body. The kid was going to live. He didn’t know how long he and his mother had inhaled poisonous gas; he didn’t know how Jimmy would be when he woke up, what brain damage he might have sustained. But he would live.
The ambulance arrived, and the emergency medical technicians took over.
One of the officers from county introduced himself as Sergeant Johnson. “I was here earlier today,” he said. “Never occurred to me to break in. Thank God you decided to do it, Sheriff. I’ll let Newsome know.” He shook his head. “It’s a real miracle those two are still breathing.”
“I’m not the reason for the miracle,” Sloan said. “One of those two got the car turned off. They saved themselves, really.”
“Yeah, but if they’d spent the night in there, they might not have come back from it,” Johnson told him. “You want to cover this scene, Sheriff?”
“Officer McCarthy will stay here, representing the town,” Sloan said. “I know this kid. I’d like to ride with him.”
“I’ll hang in with the mother,” Jane said.
As the emergency med techs began work, Sloan noted that three men were coming from the stables. They were obviously ranch employees—they wore boots, jeans and cotton shirts that showed signs of sand and mud. The Hough ranch was one of the few places in the area that had a stream and a steady water supply; Hough had paid a great deal of money for the water rights so his place would be a viable location to raise beefalo in the middle of a desert.
A burly fellow came forward, his ranch hat in his hand. There was deep concern wrinkled into his face. “I am Inego Garcia, one of the managers,” he introduced himself. “What has happened here?”
“These two were apparently attacked,” Sloan said. “Sometime earlier today. Did you see anyone here, anyone who could have done this?”
Sloan was sure the man was sincere when he shook his head. “We’ve been working, moving the herd. We’ve had a dry spell and needed to get the animals to the second pasture. Mr. Hough—he doesn’t like us around the house. He says the house is his home and the ranch is where we work. Mrs. Hough, now, she’s a nice lady. She doesn’t mind dirt and mud. She sometimes brings us cupcakes or cookies. She is a fine lady. Is she—”
“She’s alive right now,” Sloan told him.
“And Jimmy—the boy?” Inego asked, tears glistening in his eyes.
“Alive, too,” Jane said, gently touching his arm.
“Have you been able to reach Mr. Hough? I have tried to get him several times during the day. I can keep trying if you like.”
Sloan took a breath before answering him. “Mr. Hough is dead, Inego. I’m sorry to tell you this. We’ve been trying to get hold of the family all day to tell them, and now, of course, we know why we couldn’t. Inego, we’ll need your help. We need to know who might have had an argument with Mr. Hough. We have to find out who did this—who killed him and tried to kill his family.”
Inego Garcia worried the ball cap he’d removed and held between his hands. He glanced at his fellow workers. “Well, Sheriff, he had a major argument with you. Said you were going to ruin his son’s life—and turn the boy against him.”
Sloan felt the county men look his way.
Yes, he had really disliked Caleb Hough. And now, he’d been the one to find him in the mine shaft—and he and Jane had found the family in the garage. He imagined he wasn’t looking so good.
“Anyone else?” Sloan asked.
Again, the workers glanced at one another.
Inego coughed. “Well...everyone,” he said.
“Everyone?”
Another of the men stepped up. “I’m Lee Cho,” he told Sloan. “I was in the barn the other day when he came in swearing about the man who owned Desert Diamonds. Grant Winston. He said that Winston was—” He paused, clearing his throat as he fixed his gaze on Jane.
“Please, repeat what he said. I’m a federal agent, Mr. Cho. I’ve heard some pretty nasty language in my time,” Jane said.
“Mr. Hough was saying that Mr. Winston was a grade-A, motherfucking stupid asshole who had no appreciation for the fact that without his ranch, Lily was a godforsaken dust pool,” Lee Cho said, staring at the ground as he spoke.
The third man cleared his throat, as well. “He hated the theater, too. The Gilded Lily. He was ranting and raving about Henri Coque being a womanizing—” he paused, but continued quickly “—a womanizing small-peckered fuck-face,” he said. “I don’t know what his fight was with Mr. Coque. He never said. Mr. Hough didn’t mind ranting in front of us, but he didn’t consider us his friends. We kept our mouths shut.”
Sloan felt a tap on his shoulder. It was one of the emergency med techs. “We’re ready to roll, Sheriff.”
Sloan turned to Declan and the county officers. “You’ll get statements from these men?”
He received solemn nods in reply.
“And we’ll get the crime-scene folks out here, too,” Johnson said. “This is the busiest they’ve been in a hell of a long time!”
“You ready to go?” Sloan asked Jane.
“Ready,” she said.
Only one of them could ride in the ambulance, and Jane felt it should be him. “I’ll drive behind in your patrol car,” she said.
“No, you get in there,” he insisted. “You were diagnosed with a concussion a little while ago. I’ll drive the car. Stay with them for me.”
She didn’t argue. As he followed, he realized she was just about the perfect agent. She was a listener, not butting in when others were questioning people, responding when she needed to respond and keeping quiet when something more might be learned.
She was a talented artist, too. He had the feeling that she worked well with her Krewe, handling the street work and the action, as well as the office work.
She’d never leave her job.
But what about him?
He hadn’t known how much Lily, his home, meant to him until someone had brought murder to it.
Not something to think about now, he told himself.
But he felt numb, like someone other than himself. So much had happened in Lily, and so fast. Lily, Arizona—where all the violence had been in the past.
Until they’d found Sage McCormick’s skull.
* * *
In the hospital, Jane dozed off, exhaustion taking its toll while they sat waiting. She woke with a start when Sloan nudged her; she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.
“I’m going in. They said I could go in,” he muttered. He sounded weary. Beyond weary.
She nodded. “I’ll be here.”
He smiled briefly and joined the doctor, who was allowing him to see the patients. She started when her phone rang. Logan. She winced; she should have reported in already. Glancing at her watch, she realized it was almost 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast.
“News services have picked up reports about a second murder in Lily,” he told her.
She reported in on the day, glossing over her own experience in the basement of the theater. When she’d explained it all, she paused.
Sloan seemed fine working with the county police. She didn’t know what his concern seemed to be when it came to his own people—other than that they were all from Lily.
“Sloan thinks that everything’s connected. And I believe it’s more than possible. He also doesn’t seem to trust his own people....”
“Sloan is probably right about a connection. And if Lily is the source of all these crimes, he might just figure that his own people are too close to too many of the players,” Logan said.
It wasn’t her place, but she decided she should make the suggestion, anyway. “Maybe you and Kelsey could head out here.”
“I’ll talk to Sloan,” Logan said. “See if he’ll issue an invitation.”
“Jay Berman crossed state lines to get murdered here,” Jane pointed out.
“We’ll see.” He must have been sitting at the computer. “We can catch an 8:00 a.m. direct flight that’ll get us out there at about eleven tomorrow. Do you think the facial reconstruction started all this?” he asked.
“No.” She thought for a minute. “I think it started before the skull showed up on the wig rack. Something major has to be going on. Two men don’t die out in the desert—one shot, one with his throat slit—because of some minor disagreement. Men who shouldn’t even have known each other. And now we have three people hospitalized—Jennie in a coma from head trauma, and Hough’s son and wife with carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“And a skull and two corpses removed from their graves,” Logan said. “Sloan and I were friends. I’m sure he’ll be fine with us going out there.”
“He’s in with the wife and son of the murder victim now,” Jane told him.
“Have him give me a call,” Logan said.
“You should call him,” Jane began, but Logan didn’t reply. She heard a dial tone and realized he’d already hung up.
* * *
Jimmy Hough was conscious but drowsy. He looked at Sloan through glazed eyes when Sloan came and sat by his bed.
“My dad is dead,” he muttered.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Sloan said.
Jimmy’s jaw tightened. “He was such a jerk. He was a bully. He beat me up with a spoon when I was a kid. He stopped doing that, though. Once he figured I could be a football star. Then he started telling me that...that I should seize the world. I’d have everything, money, women, anything I wanted. The bigger a jerk I became, the better he liked me.” He paused and tears welled up in his eyes. “I know he was a jerk, but he was my dad.”
“Yes, he was your dad and you should mourn him, Jimmy,” Sloan said quietly. He waited a minute and then leaned forward. “Jimmy, who attacked you and your mom?”
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know. We were getting ready to leave. I was going to help Heidi out at the stables. And my mom...she loves all the Silverfest activities. Dad’s never gone with her and she gets to...she gets to kind of be herself. She watches all the stuff the actors do, she shops at all the vendors’ booths...she has a beer at the saloon. She doesn’t drink—that’s her big thing. A beer at the saloon during Silverfest.” Tears welled in his eyes again.
Sloan put a hand on Jimmy’s and squeezed it. “Can you tell me what happened today? If I can find the people who attacked you, I can find the people who killed your dad.”
Jimmy shut his eyes. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anything at all. Mom had just called me from downstairs, telling me she was ready. I was opening the door to leave and when I did a sheet came down over my head. I fought. I fought like crazy. But whoever it was...” He stopped for a minute. “There were two of them. There had to be. Because when they dragged me downstairs to the garage, my mom was already there. I kept trying to struggle but they knocked me on the head with something, and the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and I smelled the exhaust fumes and the car was running. It was horrible.... I couldn’t make myself move. I knew we were dying and I couldn’t move. I wasn’t tied up, but...I don’t know. Somehow I managed to reach over and turn the car off...and then I passed out again.”
“Jimmy, did the person speak?” Sloan asked.
“He grunted a few times,” Jimmy said. There was a touch of pride in his voice when he added, “I got him in the ribs. He seemed to be about my size...but he was strong. Really strong. I’m in good shape, Sheriff. But this guy had it all over me.” He paused again. “The other one, though...”
“What is it, Jimmy?”
“The other one was a woman, I think.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because my mother’s a fighter, too. And I think she hurt the woman, because I heard her say something to the guy when they were leaving. Sounded like, ‘Bitch hurt me. I’m not in on crap like this anymore.’”
Sloan stood and set his card on the table next to Jimmy.
“If you remember anything else, call me, Jimmy.”
Jimmy nodded. “My mom’s going to make it, isn’t she?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. You saved her life. You saved both your lives when you managed to switch off the ignition.”
At the door, Sloan found himself called back one more time.
“Sheriff?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not a bad guy. My dad thought you were a puffed-up dick who’d spent too much time in Houston to be an Arizona lawman. But I never believed him. You were right to say I had to be locked up. And I’m lucky that you didn’t kill my record. I learned from that.”
“You’re going to be fine, Jimmy. You’re going to be just fine,” Sloan assured him.
He left Jimmy and the nurse directed him down the hall to Zoe Hough’s room. She hadn’t come around yet, the nurse said, but she was breathing easily and all her vital signs were good.
Sloan stepped in, anyway. Zoe Hough was a pretty, blonde woman. Her hair was always impeccable, her nails always manicured; she worked out every day in her home gym and often visited the spa in the old town. Caleb Hough would have expected his wife to be perfectly put together at all times.
As he stood there, her eyes opened. She blinked, and he knew it was taking her a minute to realize where she was.
“Sloan?” she said. His name, her single word, was a raspy whisper.
“Let me get you some water,” he said, pouring her a cup from the plastic dispenser. “Take it easy. You’ve been out of it. They’re feeding you fluids through that IV, but your mouth must be dry.” He helped her take a sip of the water. She lay back, gasping, eyes fluttering closed. Then they opened again. Her eyes were blue, usually a pretty color; tonight, they had a dullness about them.
“Jimmy?” she asked anxiously, trying to rise.
“Jimmy’s recovering. He’s right down the hall,” Sloan told her. “He’s a good kid, Zoe. He got the car turned off. Saved your lives.”
“What about Caleb?” she asked.
He took a deep breath, wondering how much she could handle at the moment. Despite what Jimmy had said about her being a fighter, she’d always seemed to be such a fragile woman.
“Caleb was killed in the old mine shaft off the trail today,” Sloan said.
She didn’t act shocked. Nor did tears spring to her eyes. She stared at the ceiling, and then her gaze slid to meet his. “You’re going to think I’m horrible, Sloan. I just feel...numb. I was so in love when I married him. He was big, he was confident.... He seemed to rule the world. Then my life slowly became endless days of fear. Fear that he wouldn’t like dinner, fear the house wouldn’t be clean enough, fear he wouldn’t like the clothes I’d bought for Jimmy. Later on, I just wanted Jimmy to grow up so I could leave, you know? And then I was praying I’d have the nerve to get out of there.”
“So what happened, Zoe? What was he involved in?”
She flashed him a rueful smile. “Do you think he would ever have told me what was going on with his business or anything else?” she asked. “I was there to cook, clean, have babies and keep my mouth shut. I didn’t do so well on the babies—we only had the one. But Jimmy was such a great kid...and then I saw what Caleb was doing to him.”
“Jimmy will grow up to be a good man, Zoe.”
“Now that his father is dead.” She suddenly appeared to be furious. “Whatever he got himself into this time, he nearly killed Jimmy and me, too. What kind of father does that?”
“I’m sure Caleb didn’t know you’d be at risk. He loved his son, Zoe, even if he misdirected that love sometimes. Caleb’s killer probably thinks you knew something about what was going on.”
“Sloan, they could try for us again.”
“I’m going to have an officer watch over you two while you’re here,” he said.
“And then what?” Zoe asked.
“Then I’ll have an officer watch over you when you’re out,” he said. “I promise, Zoe. I’ll see to you and Jimmy.”
He bade her good-night. He was the only one in the hospital by then. Newsome still had people at the Hough house, and he had people in town.
He called the county detective and told him he needed an officer at the hospital.
“You really think whoever’s doing this would risk trying to kill the Hough family in the hospital?” Newsome asked.
“I think we’d be irresponsible if we don’t keep guard over them.”
“Yeah,” Newsome said wearily. “We’re getting stretched pretty thin here, but this kind of thing requires the county to be in on it. I’ve got men on overtime as it is, but you’re right. I’ll get someone over there.”
“Do we have any news yet?” Sloan asked him. “From forensics?”
“About the basement at the theater? They’ll be going through what they lifted from that place for weeks. We haven’t gotten a damned thing from the mine shaft, and I had those men try everything. It’s blocked by solid rock about fifteen feet from where you found Caleb Hough’s body. They sifted for anything they could find, but the place was clean. What he was doing in there when he was murdered is a total mystery to me.”
“What about the old corpse in the desert?”
“The medical examiner’s office cleaned down to the bone. No identity yet. Ms. Everett could give us a likeness of the man, although I imagine he was dug up as a scare tactic. I wish we had more, Sloan, but we just don’t.”
“Maybe finding out who the dead man is will be important,” Sloan said. “Anyway, I’ll wait until you can get someone down here.”
He went to tell Zoe that an officer was on the way, but she was sleeping again.
He returned to the waiting room.
He figured Jane might have fallen asleep on one of the chairs. She hadn’t. She was sitting very straight, looking beautiful and composed as always. He smiled when he saw her. “Ready?”
“Yes. By the way, I checked in with Logan. He asked for you to call him.” She was looking at him strangely—almost as if she expected him to tear into her for some reason.
“He’s still awake?”
She nodded.
He called as they left the hospital.
“Jane’s kept me up on events in your town. Seems it hasn’t been easy for her to get the work done.”
“She’s done it already, for all intents and purposes. We know who the skull belonged to.” Sloan went silent for a minute. Logan, he thought, was going to ask for Jane to come back. He winced inwardly. She was only on loan. He’d been a fool to get used to her being there, on both a personal and professional level.
“But, yeah, it’s kind of rough here right now,” he said.
“I wondered if you could use some help. I have some of the team working at a historic hotel in the capital now, but I can bring Kelsey, and the two of us can come out. Are you willing to let us give you a hand?” Logan asked.
Sloan looked at Jane and then he understood. She’d been afraid that she’d stepped over the line by bringing in more federal help.
He smiled slowly, shaking his head.
“I’d be delighted, Logan. I was just talking to the lead detective at the county force. We’re stretched thin, so if you can get here by tomorrow, that would be great.”
Logan said he’d make it by eleven.
Still grinning—almost stupidly, but he was dead exhausted—he told Jane, “I don’t know who said what and I don’t care. We can use the help. Come on, let’s get some sleep.”
He was surprised that at his house he suddenly felt awkward. Their day had included the hospital for Jane and another dead body, and two attempts at murder. And they were no closer to solving the mystery.
Cougar appeared as soon as they entered the house, demanding attention. As he’d already discovered, Jane was an animal lover. She crouched down to play with the cat.
Johnny had left food, a pot of goulash, in the refrigerator. They sat down to eat, but neither was very hungry. When they’d finished, he said, “You can sleep in my grandfather’s room. There’s actually a bell on the bedside table in case you need anything.”
“Why?”
“Pardon?”
“Why would I sleep away from you?” she asked. She offered him a rueful grin. “I thought the sleeping-together part went really well.”
He stood and came over to her, kneeling down and taking her hands. “I thought it went more than well,” he said. “It’s just—”
“If you need to be alone, that’s okay. I understand. But don’t do it for me. The doctor said to take it easy. He didn’t say that I had to stop any kind of physical activity. Although, frankly, I wouldn’t mind a long hot shower first.”
He rose. “You know where it is. Although you did have a concussion. You could fall in the shower or...I can wait to have mine until you’re finished.”
“Or we can just shower together,” she suggested.
In a matter of minutes, she’d undressed. Her thigh holster and gun were placed in the bedside table in his room; he brought his into the bathroom. After today, he wanted it within arm’s reach—no matter what. Jane didn’t question the gun on the towel rack. She stepped into the shower, turned on the water and they both took a minute to luxuriate in the hot steam before finding the soap.
The day seemed to evaporate with the steam and with her touch. Her fingers moved dexterously over his body while he returned the sensual ministrations. Soap bubbles slid down her breasts and they were slick to the touch. It was incredibly erotic.
And yet, he realized, she only had to smile to arouse him.
Her fingers ran down his back and curled around his growing sex, and he knew it was time to leave the water.
“We need to get out,” he said thickly.
“I’m not going to fall,” she told him.
“I am!”
Jane turned off the water. They got out of the shower and picked up towels, drying each other, pausing for deep, wet kisses that increased his desire to the breaking point. They started to leave the bathroom; he went back for his gun.
He laid it on the bedside table, then pulled her to him and they fell on the bed together. Their bodies were silky clean, caressed by the cool sheets. She straddled him, damp hair trailing over his shoulders and chest as she stroked him and delivered more wet kisses to his naked flesh. He took her in his arms, fascinated again by the scent and feel of her, his lips straying along her arms, her thighs, her sex. She rose against him and he felt her warmth envelop him. Her eyes were on his as she moved slowly and then with a sensual rhythm that sent his libido soaring. They switched positions so that he stared into her eyes as he moved over her. Far too soon, he felt the urgency of his climax overtake him. Then he felt her shudder in his arms and they lay together, trembling, seeking breath and still entwined.
In the same position, he slept.
But in his dreams he saw Longman again, up high on a plateau. Jane was talking to him, and he could see the dark cloud, evil rising around them.
And heading for Jane.
He awoke with a start. She still slept peacefully at his side.
He rose carefully, dressed and took out a notepad. He had all the pieces, he thought. He just had to put them together.
He started writing down a timeline, including everything that had happened, everything he knew.
Then he went to get the books he’d bought at Desert Diamonds to read through them.
Caleb Hough hadn’t been a nice guy. He’d argued with just about everyone. Including Grant Winston.
And he’d gotten the history books from Grant Winston’s Desert Diamonds. Jay Berman had the same books.
There had to be something in the books. Something to do with the infamous gold heist?
Two people—one a man, one a woman—had attacked Zoe and Jimmy Hough.
A stranger, Jay Berman, had been killed, and so had a local, Caleb Hough.
Just how many people were involved in what was going on?