“So far, the phones are working, but I’d still appreciate the help,” she said.
He shared Hope’s concern about Mrs. Black.
Amanda shook her head. “I haven’t seen her, either. Maybe Mr. Black knows where she’s gone.”
Opening the basement door, she shouted down the stairs. “Mr. Black? Trip? Everything still okay down there?”
There was no answer, only an echoing clatter, as if someone had dropped a tool on the concrete floor. It was completely dark, too, but with the utility room at the basement’s far end, it wasn’t surprising to Dylan that he and Amanda couldn’t see Trip’s or Mr. Black’s flashlights.
“Mrs. Black?” he called, his deeper voice echoing. “Are you still down there?”
Again, there was no response.
“I’d better go check on them,” Amanda told him, her golden-brown eyes worried.
“Let me get this,” Dylan told her. “If Lowden’s up to something—”
He cut himself off, wondering if he’d said too much. Trip might be a worthless sponge of a stepbrother, but he was still Amanda Colton’s family in a sense. And until—unless—it was proved otherwise, Dylan was a mere employee.
“It’s okay to say it to me,” she assured him. “I’ve been wondering about Trip and his sister a lot lately. So be careful down there, will you? And if there’s anything you need, just call out, and I’ll come help.”
He shook his head, wishing he hadn’t locked up Hope’s gun in his room, but unwilling to take the time to go upstairs to retrieve it. “Don’t even think about it. If you hear me yell, you call some of the hands and send them down here. Or Levi or whoever you can round up.”
“Whichever man, you mean,” she clarified.
Dylan didn’t deny it, for if things came down to a hand-to-hand fight, he wouldn’t want to see her hurt. “I’ll let you know what I find,” he promised before stepping through the doorway and starting down the stairs.
The smoke was thicker here for certain, the striated bands hazing in the flashlight’s beam and causing him to cough. But it grew easier to breathe and see as he descended, assuring him that the worst of it had risen to the level of the basement ceiling.
Still, beyond the bright tunnel carved by his light, the darkness was complete and the cavernous basement far too quiet. He took a few steps forward, into the laundry area on his way to where the utility room lay, beyond several rows of shelving used for storage.
He swept his beam across the tools of Mrs. Black’s trade: the gleaming surfaces of high-end commercial washers and dryers, a clothespress and an ironing board that pulled down from the wall.
He almost passed the iron itself, lying on its side on the floor behind a clothes bin. Without touching it, he looked more carefully, his gut twisting when he saw the wine-dark drip near its sharp tip.
Was that blood? The thought jolted through his body, leaving a sick chill in its wake.
“Mrs. Black?” he called, keeping his voice low enough so it wouldn’t carry. “Mrs. Black, are you here?”
His body tensing, he counted down the pounding beats of his heart until he heard— Was that the scrape of movement just behind him?
He spun toward the sound, raking the flashlight’s beam across the staircase, but there was no one there, and he heard a male voice from the direction of the utility room.
It sounded upset, maybe angry, though he couldn’t make out the words. But the speaker had a loud voice, which made him think of Mr. Black, who tended to overcompensate for his poor hearing.
Telling himself he’d only imagined the scraping noise before, Dylan moved with the quiet confidence he’d mastered trying to keep spooked cattle from stampeding. Schooling his breaths, he stepped around the seething knot of his emotions and found the calm, still center he relied upon, the heart of who he was.
Taut with tension, Mr. Black’s voice reached out to him with icy fingers. “It’s been tampered with, Mr. Lowden. See here. Someone’s taken off the deadman panel—that’s a safety panel to keep folks from electrocuting themselves—and set it over here. Then he used magnets to put this metal bar across the inside of the outer cover.”
Sabotage. Dylan’s calm shimmered and then dissolved like the mirage it was. Had whoever tampered with the power killed the sole potential witness? But as urgent as it was for them to locate Mr. Black’s wife, Dylan hesitated when Trip began to speak.
“So this was definitely done on purpose?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, sir. I’m sure of it. By somebody who knows what he’s about, too. See that broomstick by your feet there? I’d bet anything he used it to push the outer cover shut.”
“Why a broomstick?”
“Wooden handle won’t conduct electricity and fry you half as easy. You see, sir, soon as he shoved it closed, there would’ve been an awful lot of arcing and sparking—see those darker burned spots? The whole thing’s melted down.”
“You can get the power back on, can’t you?” Trip sounded whiny and petulant, as if all of this had been done to inconvenience him. “You’ve got a spare one of those whatchamacallits somewhere, don’t you?”
“A whole electric panel, with all the wiring to replace what’s burned up?” The maintenance man sounded incredulous. “No, sir, and even if I did, I’m not licensed to install it. But I’ll have Miss Amanda put in a call to the electricians we have on retainer and the police, of course.”
Trip made a scoffing sound. “Oh, right. Like those idiots are batting a thousand lately solving crimes around here.”
Dylan wanted to drag the pampered fool out by the scruff of his neck and rearrange his pretty-boy face, but he kept his peace, willing Trip to say something to explain his presence here—or, better yet, incriminate himself. And wishing that Trevor Garth, the head of ranch security, hadn’t picked this week to try to reconnect with the supposedly reformed father who’d abandoned him years earlier. The former foreman, Dylan’s good friend Gray Stark, had left, too, after asking Dylan to keep an eye on things here on the ranch.
“Those electricians need to get out here right away,” Trip continued. “We’ll need heat and light, and there’s the football on tonight.”
As much as Dylan despised the freeloader, he had to admit that Trip sounded, true to form, more self-absorbed than malicious. Besides, there was no way he had the smarts to sabotage the electrical panel without turning himself into a smoldering heap of ash.
Pleasant as that thought was, Dylan didn’t linger on it, announcing his presence by calling, “Mr. Black? Mr. Lowden? Miss Amanda sent me downstairs to make sure there’s no fire.”
Mr. Black poked his graying head out of the cramped utility room. “What smoldering there was is out now,” he reported, hefting a small extinguisher to show Dylan. “But we’ll be without power for a day or two—and that’s if we can get the electricians out here on the double.”
“They’ll get it fixed tonight if they mean to keep our business,” Trip grumbled.
“Oh, no, sir,” Mr. Black said, the gaps from several missing teeth looking even starker in the near darkness. “That’s impossible. There’ll have to be a special panel this size brought in out of Cheyenne, or maybe even Denver. And we’ll need a complete inspection before we can risk switching it back on.”
“I’m afraid we have a bigger problem,” Dylan said. “I can’t find Mrs. Black.”
Mr. Black stiffened. “Bernice isn’t outside with the others?”
“I didn’t see her anywhere,” Dylan said. “Could she have gone home to your cabin?”
“Not without me, no. I have our truck’s keys right here in my pocket.”
“She might’ve walked,” Trip speculated.
“No, sir.” Mr. Black walked out of the utility room, shaking his head emphatically. “Not my Bernice, not after dark, in this cold, and never once in all these years without a word to me.”
“We’ll find her, sir,” Dylan swore, though in light of the previous murders of ranch employees, he couldn
’t promise that Mrs. Black would still be breathing.
Especially not when he kept picturing that dark red drop, gleaming on the sharp steel tip of the iron. And he couldn’t help but wonder what damage that humble instrument might have done if used to strike a human skull.
Chapter 5
Hope was standing slightly apart from those huddling around the bonfire, so immersed in her own grief and worry that she paid no attention to the approaching footsteps. Until she recognized the hiss of Misty’s voice behind her.
“Must be nice to be all cozy wearing that warm jacket. You earn it on your knees, Hope? Could that be why you were in such a hurry to get to the stable earlier?”
Hope whirled around to face her, wanting to scream at her to shut her filthy mouth. She swallowed back her angry words, reminding herself that Misty’s disgusting suggestion had nothing to do with the kiss she’d shared with Dylan in the stable. A kiss she would swear he’d needed as desperately as she had. “He was only being kind. And unlike you, he listened when I told him Mrs. Black might still be downstairs.”
“You might be new,” said Misty, hugging her own arms for warmth, “but you’re not stupid. I’ll give you that. You found out he could be coming into money, didn’t you? Heir to heaven only knows how many millions.”
Hope snorted and waved her off. “If he is, he’s welcome to them.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t care. That you wouldn’t want to be rich as a Colton.”
“Then don’t pretend you’d be interested in Dylan if he turns out to have the wrong DNA to suit you.”
Misty’s blue eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell Mrs. Perkins what you’re up to! I’m her favorite, you know. I know how to make a room gleam and never sneak off to do heaven knows what when I’m supposed to be inside working.”
Hope wondered, would Mathilda see through Misty’s jealousy or believe her? After all, the head housekeeper had been instantly suspicious when she had spied the blue-and-white bandanna in Hope’s hand. But surely Mathilda would know Hope was far from the type to be dazzled by the prospect of money and status.
Or would the housekeeper believe she was desperate to find another wealthy man? Desperate enough to pursue Dylan for his potential windfall rather than settle for a life filled with hard work, an ugly uniform and a bedroom smaller than her old shoe closet?
“Tell her whatever you like,” Hope said, refusing to be reduced to squabbling with this grasping little idiot. “I’ll be busy praying that everyone gets out of that house safely.”
And praying, too, that this fire was only minor—and a mere coincidence. Praying that it didn’t mean her ex’s capos, as he called his lieutenants, had somehow managed to track her here and torch the Colton mansion, too.
* * *
Ignoring Trip, Dylan spoke to Mr. Black directly. “Your wife has to be down here somewhere. Surely, someone would have seen her if she’d have been forced upstairs or carried.”
“Let me go up and tell Amanda,” Trip suggested. “She can send some servants down here to give you a hand looking.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Dylan said firmly. “I’ll tell Amanda and come right back. You can stay with Mr. Black and help him look.”
“Just who do you think you’re talking to?” Trip demanded.
“Someone who’s probably never seen the inside of this basement before he came down here this evening. Why is that?”
“You’re forgetting your place, wrangler. I don’t have to explain myself to the employees.”
Dylan shrugged. “Fine, then you can talk to the police about it. And your stepfather, too, because I’m absolutely certain everyone will be wondering why you’d dirty your hands down here.”
“If you must know, I was looking for something I’d had brought down and put in storage.”
“What?” Dylan challenged. “What was so important you wouldn’t send a servant for it, Mister Lowden?”
Trip glared at Dylan’s impertinence before snapping his fingers.
“I know what’s gotten into you. I’ve heard these insane rumors.” Trip’s lip curled back in a sneer. “The very idea that some stupid hand who spends most of his day stinking of manure could be an honest-to-God Colton. We laugh about it in the family wings, how you’re wasting precious hours dreaming of dollar signs when you’re bound to spend your whole life mucking stalls and—”
“None of that. Not now, sir!” Mr. Black burst out, clearly beside himself to interrupt even a shirttail relation of the Coltons. “You’ve got to help me find my Bernice! She could be hurt, or even...”
But it was Dylan’s curled fist Trip was staring at when he abruptly said, “Of course I want to help. Where do we start, Mr. Black?”
Dylan took a deep breath, willing his pounding heart to slow. Mr. Black was right; finding his wife quickly was a lot more important than getting sucked into Trip’s bull.
“I’ve searched the laundry area already,” Dylan told them. “And I’m sorry to tell you that I found an iron, with what might be a little blood on it.”
“But no sign of my wife?” Mr. Black asked, sounding as if he might break down any moment.
Dylan shook his head. “You might start there, though, then check out the storage area. There are a lot of places where someone could—” He cut himself off before finishing what he’d been about to say: where someone could hide a body.
“Stick together,” Dylan reminded them, “in case whoever did this is still down here. And don’t touch anything, especially that iron. There may be fingerprints.”
He finished with a hard look into Trip’s face. “I’ll be back before you can miss me.”
With that, he hurried upstairs and quickly apprised Amanda of the situation. “You can let everyone come back inside, but be sure to send down four or five good people—people we can trust not to lose their heads—with flashlights or electric lanterns to help us search. Might want to make a couple of ’em strong men, just in case.”
“I’m coming, too,” Amanda told him, splashes of color staining her cheeks.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re needed up here to make sure the police are called and everyone stays calm. And one more thing. I want you to send Hope straight to her room. Just a while ago, she learned her father’s been killed—”
“What?” Amanda clapped her hand to her mouth before recovering enough to drop her voice to a whisper. “Was it her ex-husband? Did he find some way to—”
“No one knows for certain, but she’s convinced he was behind it. As upset as she is, people might get suspicious and start asking questions.”
“Thank you, Dylan. I’ll take care of her. You just concentrate on finding Mrs. Black—and keep a close eye on Trip, too, while you’re down there.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not turning my back on him for a second,” he said, already wondering, as he started downstairs, if Trip could have been faking his ignorance about electrical parts. For all Dylan knew, the mastermind or another of her lackeys may have given him a recent crash course.
Halfway down the stairs, Dylan heard a shout of alarm close by.
“Bernice! Bernice, sweetheart!” Mr. Black cried.
Dylan hurried downstairs and turned to look behind the steps, where Mr. Black had shoved aside some plastic storage bins to kneel beside his wife. She lay on her side, with her knees drawn toward her thick waist. Her long, iron-gray hair had come loose from its ponytail, and her arm was covering her face, as if the beam from Trip’s flashlight hurt her eyes.
“She’s conscious?” Dylan asked.
“Bernice,” Mr. Black said, “can you speak to me? Say something.”
A low moan was her only answer.
“Don’t move her,” Dylan said. “I’ll get help.”
Running back to the staircase, he shouted for Amanda. “We’ll need Dr. Colton down here. Mrs. Black’s been hurt.”
Amanda wasn’t at her post, but she had stationed Mathilda Perkins there in her stead. Working with he
r usual efficiency, the head housekeeper quickly found Levi Colton and relayed the message.
Within minutes Levi came hurrying downstairs, his medical bag in hand. A lean young man with a serious expression, he’d only recently returned to the ranch to help treat Jethro—reluctantly, Dylan thought, since the old man had previously ignored his illegitimate son.
For just a moment, Dylan mentally compared the two of them. Levi lacked the tan and the brawn Dylan had earned working outdoors with livestock, but he looked to be about the same height as Dylan’s own six-two. And despite the doctor’s lighter hair and the hazel eyes, there was something familiar in the way those eyes were shaped, or maybe it was the jawline.
Could it really be possible Levi was a half brother, as closely related as Amanda, Gabby and Catherine Colton? Or was Dylan deluding himself, imagining a family where he had none, a connection with those who were sure to see him as some kind of pretender to the throne?
No, no... He shoved aside the unsettling thoughts, reminding himself this was no time to let his doubts—or Trip Lowden’s cruel words—get under his skin.
As Levi reached the bottom of the staircase, he asked, “Where is she?”
“Right over here.” Dylan led him to the spot, saying, “Looks like she was hit on the back of the head, with an iron, I think.”
“Excuse me,” Levi said to Mr. Black, who was on his knees and holding his wife’s hand.
“She’s in terrible pain,” the older man said, still blocking Levi’s way. “Please, Doc, can you help her?”
Levi touched his arm. “I promise I’ll do all I can. Now, why don’t you run upstairs and see if there’s any way Agnes can brew us all up some fresh coffee? This could be a long night.”
“I—I’ll see what I can do about getting a backup generator on line for the kitchen.”
Dylan understood at once that Levi was getting the distraught man out of his way, but Mr. Black looked grateful to be given something useful to do, something that, even in a small way, would aid his wife’s recovery.
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