Rugged Defender

by B. J Daniels

  “Patsy Carter,” Justin said with a curse. “What was Drew thinking? Blaine is a huge guy and one a man wouldn’t want to mess with. Anyway, Drew and Patsy? That dog don’t hunt. She broke up with him because he was cheating on her.”

  “It doesn’t seem to me that the person who beat up your brother would be the same one who ended up shooting him.”

  Justin agreed. “If it had been Blaine and his intent was to kill Drew, he could have. But my brother had to know he was in danger. Why else did he have his gun out?”

  Chloe shook her head. She was beautiful in the firelight. His heart beat a little faster just looking at her. “So who? The coroner’s report mentioned the scratches on him. That sounds like a woman.”

  He thought of Nici. He wouldn’t have put it past her to have literally torn into his brother that night. But for the time being, he didn’t want to bring up her name. All his instincts told him that Nici would be a wildcat when she was mad, but she was no killer.

  “My money is on Pete Ferris,” he said. “The guy has a hell of a temper as I recall. I witnessed an argument he had with Drew a few days before my brother’s death.”

  “Emily swears there was nothing physical between her and Drew,” she said.

  Justin thought about how angry Pete had been. “Do you believe her?”

  “They were definitely involved emotionally. Whether she realizes it or not, she was in love with him, probably still is. I’m sure that’s why her husband is so angry still. Sometimes the emotional connection is more intimate than even the physical.”

  He knew that to be true. He’d never forgotten Chloe after one kiss. While there’d been other women over the years who he’d had sex with, he couldn’t even call up one of their faces at the moment.

  “Truthfully, I have no idea where to begin to find my brother’s killer—if we’re right and he was murdered.”

  “What do you remember from back then?”

  He shrugged. “Drew and I didn’t travel in the same circles. I was busy much of the time doing the chores on the ranch that my brother didn’t want to do and staying clear of my father.”

  “But you must have suspected or heard about things your brother was involved in. Did you know he gambled?”

  He nodded. “There were rumors. I suspected he was in deep financially. He got involved in shady things and often had to go to our father for money. I know he owed someone money in the days before he died. Our father had cut him off financially and he was really furious over it. I could tell he was in trouble, but then again, he was often in trouble.”

  “But this time are we talking about someone who would kill him if he didn’t pay?”

  “I can’t imagine we have loan sharks in Whitehorse,” he said, but realized he knew little of the kind of people his brother had associated with. “You know, this might be a good time to go out to the ranch. Before I left, my father had boarded up Drew’s cabin, leaving it just as it was the night he died. I haven’t been in it since then. Maybe there’s something that the sheriff missed because she didn’t know Drew like I did.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Justin seemed lost in his own thoughts on the drive out to the ranch. Chloe leaned back in the seat and watched the winter landscape blur past. At each ranch or farmhouse that they passed she would see Christmas decorations. One barn had a huge star that could be seen for miles. Another had a silhouette of the manger scene cut out of metal.

  When he turned down the road to the Calhoun Cattle Company, she realized she’d never been out here before. She and Justin hadn’t gotten that far in their...budding relationship. Now she realized that Justin would probably have never brought her home to meet his father and brother. She’d had no idea the extent of the animosity between the brothers. She knew that Drew had been the favorite and that had no doubt pitted the brothers against each other. Also that Justin felt devalued by his father. So much so that Bert Calhoun could believe that his youngest son was a murderer.

  Justin drove on past the main house down a narrow snowy path that ended in front of a small cabin. She couldn’t help but look back, seeing the tracks in the snow. He followed her gaze.

  “It won’t make any difference. Once I remove the boards on the door to my brother’s cabin and go inside, he’ll know. He boarded it up himself, saying it was never to be opened again. Anyway, he won’t be getting out of the hospital for a while. Maybe we’ll know something more before then.”

  Chloe hoped that was true, otherwise his relationship with his father would be even more strained. After getting out, Justin reached into the back of his pickup’s toolbox and pulled out a crowbar. His handsome face was drawn in a look of determination. After this, there was no going back and they both knew it.

  Earlier, the day had been clear, the winter sun not exactly warm but no way as cold as now. With the sun down, the temperature had dropped leaving the sky cloudy and gray. There was a dismal feeling to the evening that made Chloe even more nervous. She knew Justin wasn’t looking forward to going back into this cabin. This is where he found his brother dying.

  It made it all the more tense because they might get caught by one of the ranch employees or worse, the ranch manager, Thane Zimmerman. Annabelle had already warned her about him. Big, nasty, spends a lot of time in town at the bars where he gets into fights.

  What if they got caught here? She shivered, hugging herself against the cold and worry, as she watched Justin go to work. Nails had been pounded into the walls next to the door to hold the large sheet of plywood blocking the entrance. As Justin began prying the plywood up, the nails screamed in protest.

  Chloe kept looking in the direction of the main house and the other cabins. A cold breeze moved restlessly through the fallen snow, the landscape looking all the more bleak. Nearby, several horses trotted over to the fence to watch, their breaths coming out in clouds of frosty white.

  The plywood came off in a loud pop before it dropped to the ground. Justin tossed the crowbar back into his pickup’s toolbox, then moved the piece of plywood aside before he reached for the doorknob.

  She saw him hesitate and realized how hard this must be on him. He probably hadn’t been back here since that night when he heard the gunshots and came running. That he was about to relive it all again broke her heart. She put a hand on his shoulder for a moment, unable to imagine how horrible it had been to find his brother like that. Even if they hadn’t gotten along.

  Justin reached back and squeezed her hand before he turned the knob and the door swung open. With the cabin being closed up five years ago, Chloe had no idea what it would be like inside after all that time.

  To her surprise, the scents that rushed out reminded her only of old musty things. Justin turned on a light and stood in the doorway for a moment before he stepped inside. She followed. He had stopped in the center of the room. He was staring at the chair where according to the coroner’s report his brother had been sitting when he’d found him. There was a stain on the chair and the floor, both now faded and no longer resembling blood. But both of them knew anyway.

  * * *

  THE CABIN WAS icy cold. Justin had been terrified to open that door, afraid he would see his brother sitting there fumbling with the gun. Instead, as he turned on the light all he saw was the old cabin where his brother did the things he didn’t want their father to know about. This was where he brought his women. This is where he drank to excess. This is where he occasionally brought his friend CJ so the two of them could watch football games, drink and get loud.

  What struck him most was how little his brother had accumulated when it came to creature comforts. If he wanted those, he could just go over to the main house and yet Drew had spent most of his time here except for meals.

  The cabin held only the essentials: a bed, a dresser, a couple of chairs and a television. There was a small closet and bathroom. The cabin had allowed Drew to com
e and go without their father knowing. With a back road off the ranch, anyone visiting Drew could park just over the hill and no one would be the wiser that they’d been on the ranch.

  Is that what his killer had done that night?

  There were a half dozen empty beer bottles next to the bed and a bottle of whiskey with the cap lying on the wood floor. It was hard to tell how much Drew had consumed of it since it would have evaporated over the years and now just had a dark stain at the bottom. It was the other dark stains on the chair and the floor in front of it that he tried not to look at.

  He shifted his gaze to the dresser and then stepped to the bathroom. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chloe move to the closet and begin going through the clothes there. As she searched pockets, he opened the medicine cabinet. There was a razor, shaving cream and ibuprofen. Other than a toilet, there was a small shower. He pulled back the shower curtain. Nothing of interest.

  His brother’s life hadn’t been here on the ranch. Drew had spent as little time as possible out here even though their father had wanted him to be the one to take over someday. If anything, Drew felt put-upon whenever the ranch was brought up at one of their meals. His brother would keep his head down, shoveling in his food and then getting up and saying he had something he had to do and leave.

  He’s just sowing his oats, their father used to say when Drew would drive off the ranch in a cloud of dust. One of these days, he’ll be ready to take the reins.

  Justin stepped out of the bathroom, hating the memories that flooded him, threatening to drown him. “Find anything?”

  She shook her head as she stood in the middle of the room frowning. “Was the door open that night?”

  He nodded and glanced toward the door, now standing open. He could see beyond it. It was darker outside than when they’d entered the cabin—but not nearly as dark as it had been that night. No moon. One of those summer nights that the air was hot and close. Not like this cold winter evening.

  “You heard shots. Two close together?”

  Justin shook his head. “One and then a few moments before the next one.”

  “You ran from the house?”

  “From the horse barn.”

  “You could tell where the shots were coming from?”

  He frowned. Why hadn’t he run toward the house or one of the other cabins? In his mind’s eye he saw the scene as he’d stepped from the barn. He’d seen Nici leaving, heard her vehicle, as he ran toward his brother’s cabin, knowing that was where she’d come from.

  “I guess I just knew that’s where the shots had come from,” he said, hating that he was still keeping Nici out of this. Earlier in the day, he had walked past Drew’s cabin. The dust hadn’t completely settled around his brother’s pickup. He remembered hearing the tick of the engine as it cooled. Had Drew been alone? Or was Nici already in there with him?

  Or was someone else?

  * * *

  CHLOE SAW THE pained look on Justin’s face as he remembered—possibly more than he’d even told the sheriff.

  “I ran by his pickup and came around the corner of the cabin. The door was open. Drew was in that chair.”

  “Facing the open door.”

  “He was trying to hang on to the gun. His hands were covered with blood. There was blood everywhere.” His voice broke.

  “He was trying to fire the gun again?”

  He nodded. “At least that’s what I thought. I rushed to him thinking he’d shot himself and was trying to finish the job. I took the gun away from him.”

  “Did he say anything? Try to speak?”

  Justin was staring at the empty chair. “He...he opened his mouth, but nothing came out but a stream of blood. Then his gaze went to the door. I’m not sure what he expected to see, but he looked terrified.”

  “How long before your father came in?”

  He shook his head. “I was trying to get my phone out to call 911 but I had the gun in one hand and the blood was so slippery... After that...” He looked up at her. “It all happened so fast. I just remember being panicked and confused. I didn’t understand what had happened—just that it was very bad.”

  “What did your father do?”

  “That part is a blur. He came rushing in and saw me holding the gun and thought I’d shot Drew. He ran to my brother and tried to stop the bleeding while screaming at me to call for help. That’s all I remember.”

  “What about the gun? You said you were holding it when your father came in?”

  “I finally walked over and set it down on the table so I could make the call. I just remember shaking so hard—and the blood... My father was crying, telling Drew to hold on, that help was coming, but I could see that my brother was gone. Then the ambulance came and the sheriff, they took us outside. The coroner came. I was standing out by that tree out there when they wheeled Drew out in the body bag. My father was hysterical by then.” He took a breath and stepped outside the cabin as if he couldn’t breathe.

  Chloe looked around the cabin again. The light was gone in the winter sky, darkness dropping like a blanket over them even though it wasn’t quite five in the afternoon. She could see Justin standing outside in the cold and dark. He appeared to be fighting to breathe.

  Wanting to give him a few minutes alone, she moved around the cabin. It felt even colder in here than outside. She had little desire to spend any more time inside. But she could tell Justin needed to be alone. She finally sat down on the corner of the bed and wondered what Drew had been thinking, sitting in that nearby chair staring out past the open doorway.

  She glanced in that direction, wondering what he saw, what he was afraid of seeing. As she started to rise, she saw something glitter against the baseboard between the wall and the chest of drawers. She pushed off the bed and walked over, losing sight of whatever it was. She was also losing interest, wanting to leave before one of the ranch hands caught them there.

  Chloe told herself it probably wasn’t anything. Maybe the silver tab from a beer can or a piece of trash. But as she peered around the edge of the bureau, she saw what looked like a small silver star. It was tarnished and looked old, but the chain attached to it still glittered as she pulled it out from the crack between the old wood flooring and the baseboard.

  Her curiosity piqued now, she had to get down on her hands and knees to reach back into the crack between the wall and the bureau to pry it out.

  “Chloe?” Justin said from the door.

  She held up the bracelet she’d found as she got to her feet. She’d assumed they wouldn’t find anything since the sheriff had no doubt searched the cabin. She’d read in the report that they’d fingerprinted the entire cabin, including the beer cans and whiskey bottle, but had only found Drew’s prints.

  If someone else had been in the cabin that night, they hadn’t had anything to drink.

  Once ruled an accidental death, there would be no reason to do more than a cursory search. Otherwise, they would have found this bracelet.

  “Ever see it before?” she asked as she held it up.

  * * *

  JUSTIN TOOK THE delicate silver bracelet from her. A tiny star hung from the chain along with a miniature silver horseshoe and a heart. He held it up to the light. “The heart is inscribed.” His eyes widened as he read first the name on the front, then the one on the back. He swore as his gaze met Chloe’s.

  “It’s the bracelet Drew gave Patsy Carter,” he said. “She was his high school girlfriend.” Frowning, he said, “What was it doing here? Drew didn’t move into this cabin until after he flunked out of college. Even if Patsy had given it back to him when she broke up with him... What would it be doing here?”

  “Your brother was allegedly trying to get Patsy back. Maybe he’d tried to give it to her again. Or maybe she’d kept it after they broke up.”

  Justin groaned and shook his head. “Either wa
y, if her husband found it... But it doesn’t explain how it ended up in this cabin.”

  “We’re going to have to talk to Patsy and Blaine. I understand he’s a big cowboy who doesn’t take kindly to anyone coming after his wife,” Chloe said.

  Justin nodded, dreading this. “Let’s get out of here.” He turned off the cabin light and closed the door. If he had his way, he’d burn this cabin to the ground. He definitely didn’t think it helped his father by keeping it as some kind of shrine to Drew. Nor did he see any way to right the wrongs his brother had done.

  All he could hope for was to get some closure for his father. For himself. But digging into the muck that had been his brother’s life made him sick to his stomach. Drew had left a trail of hate behind him along with a lot of hurt people. Knocking on doors and asking those people if they hated Drew bad enough to kill him was the last thing he wanted to be doing any time, let alone over the holidays.

  Worse, now Chloe was right in the middle of this whether he liked it or not. He glanced over at her as they climbed back into his truck. After starting the engine, he let it run for a moment to allow the heater to warm up the cab. He knew he was stalling. He’d had about all he could take of this for one day.

  “It’s late. I’m thinking we should put this off until tomorrow,” he said. “I need to go by the hospital and check on my father.”

  “I probably should check in with my sisters. They’re talking about a double wedding on New Year’s Day.”

  “A double wedding, huh?”

  “I guess I’m giving them away,” she said with a laugh. But he could tell it wasn’t easy being the oldest while her two younger sisters were getting married.

  “You ever think about getting married?”

  She shot him a look. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “It just seems that you’ve been more interested in a career, that’s all.”

  Chloe looked away. “I was. I still love what I do, but yes, I’ve thought about marriage, kids, a house,” she laughed. “I miss baking.”