“In my experience, I don’t think that any of them are—” his eyes shifted to Sully “—present company excepted.” Pausing, he wanted to get something clear up in his mind. “You’re a police detective, aren’t you?”
Instead of answering directly, Sully had his own question for the sheriff. “Miss Joan tell you that?”
“This is a small town, Detective,” Rick told him. “Gossip is one of these people’s main source of entertainment.”
Taking the answer in stride, Sully asked the sheriff, “And just what does local gossip have to say about Warren?”
“Not much, actually,” Rick admitted. “Some speculation of course, but nothing concrete.” And then he added, “Not like with Rawlings.”
“What about Rawlings?” The question came from Rae, who had slid to the edge of her seat, eager for any sort of an answer.
“Well, the man’s not exactly a candidate for sainthood,” Rick told her.
“Was he ever convicted of any felonies?” Sully asked.
“From what I gathered, Rawlings’s guilty of finding ways of bilking people out of their hard-earned money, but so far, there’s nothing on record that anyone could make stick. And he’s been clean since he got here,” the sheriff added. He saw the somewhat dubious look on Sully’s face. “This might be a small town, but we’re not simpletons. Some of us even know how to operate those newfangled boxy-looking things called a computer, or some such thing.”
“That wasn’t surprise you saw on my face, Sheriff,” Sully told him. “That was just admiration.”
Rick laughed. “I’m just having a little fun with you, Sully. Like I said, we don’t have much by way of diversion around here.”
“About my missing ranch hand,” Rae said, trying to get the sheriff back on track.
“Sorry,” Rick apologized, looking at her earnestly. “Do you have any reason to suspect that your wrangler might have met with some foul play?”
Rae looked at the sheriff, taken aback by the question. “I haven’t even thought of that.”
“Then why are you here?” Rick asked. He didn’t seem to understand what would have prompted her to report the man missing so quickly if she didn’t think something bad had happened to him. “Did he take something from the ranch before he disappeared?”
She flushed slightly, knowing her negative answer didn’t carry any weight. “Nothing’s missing that I can see. I didn’t take a full inventory, but then, there’s nothing much to inventory.”
“How do you know he’s gone?” Rick asked. “Maybe Warren just got lucky at the party and decided to spend the night with a new friend.” He looked at her, curious to see how this scenario went over with Rae. “Things like that have been known to happen.”
“His things are gone,” Sully told the sheriff, answering for Rae. “His clothes and whatever he kept in that knapsack he had under his bunk.”
Rae turned to look at him. “You knew about the knapsack?” she asked, surprised. “I thought you didn’t go into the bunkhouse.”
“I never said that,” he pointed out. Sully was aware that both sets of eyes were now looking at him. “I always like to take in my surroundings when I’m in a new place,” he explained.
Armed with this new information, Rick turned toward Sully. “Any idea what Warren had in that knapsack?” he asked.
But Sully had to shake his head. “I didn’t look inside.”
More than mild surprise registered on the sheriff’s face. “You weren’t curious?”
“Sure,” Sully admitted, “but a man’s entitled to his privacy. I figured the knapsack probably just contained an extra change of clothes, maybe some memento to remind him of where he came from.”
Rick nodded. “Most likely,” he agreed. Sighing, he reviewed what had just been said. “Well, unless you’re willing to fill out a statement saying that Warren robbed you or there’s any evidence of foul play, there’s really nothing I can do. A person can just take off if they find the situation doesn’t suit them for one reason or another. There’s no law against that.” He flashed Rae a contrite smile. “Sorry.”
Rae suppressed a sigh. “That’s all right,” she said. She got up out of her chair. “I’m probably just overreacting.”
Taking his cue from her, Sully rose to his feet, as well.
“Let me know if Warren suddenly comes wandering back,” Rick told her.
“Will do,” Rae promised as she left the office. Crossing the floor to reach the outer door, she nodded at the deputies she passed. There were two of them in the office. The senior deputy, Joe Lone Wolf, was out patrolling the town.
“Problem?” Deputy Gabe Rodriguez asked her as she walked by.
“Apparently not,” Rae answered. She just kept on walking until she was out of the sheriff’s office.
“You don’t feel better, do you?” Sully guessed once they were outside.
She knew that saying no wasn’t enough in this case. “I guess what I’m feeling is betrayed,” she admitted. “Not by the sheriff,” she was quick to add to prevent a misunderstanding. “By Warren. I was nice to that man—I looked the other way when he made mistakes and waited until he found his way. And then he just takes off, just like that!”
“Being nice to someone should be its own reward,” Sully told her. “Think about it. You weren’t nice to Warren because you expected something in return. You were nice to him because you felt he’d been knocked around by life and maybe if he was treated like a human being, he’d realize that everyone isn’t just out for themselves. That there are decent people around.”
She spared him a frown as they went back to her truck. “They teach philosophy at that police department of yours?” she asked as she got back behind the wheel.
“No,” he answered, getting into the truck’s cab on the passenger side. “That’s the sort of thing you develop when you’re a Cavanaugh.”
She started up the truck but left it in Park for a moment as she looked at him. “I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you or envy you.”
“Whatever makes you feel comfortable,” Sully advised her.
Rae was surprised at his answer. After a beat, she told him, “I’ll give it some thought.”
* * *
Almost a week went by, and there was still no sign of Warren returning.
“I guess he decided that ranch work wasn’t for him,” Sully speculated, raising his voice so that Rawlings could hear him above the wind and the rain.
The latter looked angry about having to work hard and bit off a retort.
The shift in the weather had been totally unexpected, darkening the skies several hours before nightfall.
When the rain hit hard, the horses were all still out in the corral. Sully and Rawlings hurried to try to bring the animals in out of the rain as quickly as possible. Several of the horses in the corral were yearlings and hadn’t been tamed yet. They were particularly skittish in this storm. When Sully tried to bring them into the stable, one of the horses bolted and took off.
Seeing the other ranch hand just stand there, letting loose with a string of colorful curses, Sully had no choice but to take after the fleeing horse before it was either lost or wound up getting badly hurt through some mishap.
The truck was back near the ranch house. Thinking quickly, Sully picked up the rope that was looped over on the corral’s gate and secured it over his shoulder. He grabbed closest horse by the mane, swung onto the stallion bareback and took off after the yearling that already had a head start on him.
Riding hard and grateful for those summers Seamus had indulged his fantasy and taken him riding, Sully finally managed to corner the frightened yearling near a grove of trees.
Sliding off his horse, Sully approached the other animal slowly, talking to it in a calm, low cadence. As he talked, his eyes never leaving the yearling, he removed the rope he’d sl
ung over his shoulder and formed a lasso. He intended to slip it over the yearling’s head and use it to eventually lead the frightened animal back to the stable behind his own horse.
“It’s okay, boy. I know you’re scared. There’s all this noise all over the place and this wet stuff coming down, making you sopping wet. But I promise none of that will hurt you. I won’t hurt you,” he said, inching closer. “You need to come back with me to that nice, warm, dry stall of yours. There’s this big bag of feed waiting just for you. Doesn’t that sound nice, boy? All you can eat?
“Now all you’ve got to do is let me put this little lasso around your neck so that I can lead you back to your stall. Nothing hard about that, right, boy?”
But when he finally reached the runaway, the frightened yearling reared on his hind legs, his front hooves pawing the air and then coming down hard on the ground.
The ground where they were was even more unlevel than in most spots. The yearling almost tripped and fell. He looked really frightened again. Whinnying, he almost fell a second time.
Righting himself again, the yearling took off, heading away from the ranch house and the stable.
Sully was just about to get back up on his mount and take off after the runaway for a second time when he inadvertently look down on the ground.
Blinking, he looked down again, convinced that he had to be imagining things. Between the inclement weather and the progressively darkening sky, he felt that his eyes were playing tricks on him and it was easy to see what wasn’t there.
Except that this time it was.
Sully leaned in for a closer look and was about to get down on the ground when he heard the sound of approaching hoofbeats. Whirling around, he didn’t know what to expect. On his guard, he automatically reached for his weapon—a weapon he hadn’t had on him since he’d come out to Forever.
Feeling only the unsatisfactory touch of material, he cursed. “Damn it!”
“Is that meant for me?” Rae asked, reaching him and dismounting.
Sully exhaled then took in a deep breath, bracing himself. He hadn’t wanted her to see this until he had a chance to talk to her.
“I didn’t know you were out here,” he told Rae, which was true.
“Clearly,” Rae answered. “Which way did the yearling go?” she asked, ready to swing back into her saddle and give chase.
He knew she wouldn’t forgive him if he didn’t tell her about his discovery now that she was right here, standing practically on top of it.
Starting slowly, he felt his way around the subject. “Before you take after the yearling, I think you should know that my horse came really close to falling and possibly breaking his leg.”
Rae looked at him skeptically. “Now who’s exaggerating?”
“Not me.”
Sully said the words with such conviction, Rae held off riding after the runaway horse. She could see that he was circling around a subject, trying to tell her something.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” When he said nothing, she had to ask, “What’s going on, Sully?”
Moving his mount aside, Sully crouched down near the area where the horse had almost slipped. The rain was falling even harder now, turning the ground into mud. Digging in it promised to be even messier now than it originally had.
Even so, he began to dig with his hands.
The soil had recently been disturbed and, from what he could see, replaced. It wasn’t nearly as hard as the ground where he had replaced those posts for the fence had been.
Rae stared at him. “What are you doing?” she asked. Her horse was getting antsy, moving from side to side. It was obvious that her mare wanted to gallop off.
“I’m digging,” Sully answered, raising his voice.
“I can see that,” she answered. He really did try her patience, she thought. Nothing was every straightforward with Sully. “Why? What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But this soil was recently disturbed, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason for that.”
She reminded herself that he was, after all, a city kid and as such, unfamiliar with the creatures that made their home out here.
“Look, this place is full of all sorts of wild animals,” she told him. “Animals dig. Some of them bury their kill to keep other animals from eating whatever they brought down until they can get back to it. That’s probably all this is,” she said, waving her hand at the area he was digging up. “You’re wasting your time, Cavanaugh.”
Sully assumed she was lamenting the time he was losing by doing this.
“I’ll work to make it up,” he promised as he went on digging. “You can probably catch up to that yearling. It looked spooked enough to run around in circles.”
She knew he was probably right and that she should go after the runaway. But something kept her right where she was.
Rethinking her position, Rae got down on her knees beside Sully, sinking her hands into the wet soil as she dug alongside him.
Looking at the soaking-wet soil, she asked, “This was fresh, wasn’t it?”
The ground had been disturbed, but so far, he hadn’t found anything, and he was starting to wonder if maybe he was wrong in thinking what he’d been thinking. “It certainly looked that way.”
“This looks like it’s a large mound. Too big for an animal to have buried whatever’s here on its own,” she commented, keeping her head down and trying to keep the rain from getting into her eyes.
Sully shook his head, agreeing with her. “I don’t think an animal buried this. At least, not your usual kind of animal.”
And that was when he uncovered it. Brushing the mud back with his grimy hands, Sully unearthed what he hadn’t bargained for.
John Warren.
Chapter 11
Sully heard the really sharp intake of breath behind him. Turning to look at Rae, he saw absolutely stunned horror on her face. He expected the woman to scream once what she was looking at registered.
But Rae just bit down on her lip. Bit down so hard that for a second, he felt sure that she was going to draw blood.
Grabbing her by her shoulders, Sully pulled her up to her feet. He held Rae pressed against him in an effort to block her line of vision.
“Don’t look,” he ordered.
But instead of hiding her face in his shoulder, she turned her head, looking at the lifeless body more than half submerged in mud.
“Too late,” she whispered. Sully could feel her shaking against him. Even so, Rae put her hands up against his chest, intent on pushing him back. “I’m a big girl,” she insisted almost defensively.
“That doesn’t mean you need to look at something grotesque and horrible,” Sully argued, still attempting to shield her from having to look at the dead man.
Rae took in a shaky breath, attempting to get herself under control. “I’ve already seen him. I can’t pretend to unsee him.”
Reluctantly, Sully released his hold on her shoulders. But he remained close enough to grab her in case Rae experienced a delayed reaction and passed out.
“Well, at least we know why he didn’t come back.” Sully could tell she was still struggling not to allow shock to overwhelm her. Even in the rain, her face looked exceptionally ashen. Rae swallowed to keep her voice calm. “What do you think happened?”
“I didn’t see his truck around here.” Sully took a calculated guess. “Maybe he was out here for some reason and got lost.”
“Why would he even be out here in the first place?” Rae shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
He agreed, but now wasn’t the time to examine theories.
“We can try to figure this out later,” he told her. Glancing back at the part of the wrangler that was exposed, he said, “Right now, I’m going to dig all of him up and get the sheriff to take
over.” Since he didn’t have a shovel or anything else to use, Sully began to dig in the mud with his hands. “Technically, this is his jurisdiction.”
She wasn’t so ready to just hand the investigation off and keep out of the way. “Warren was working on the ranch, and that makes it my jurisdiction.”
Rae said it with such feeling, he stopped digging for a second.
“What are you saying?”
“I owe it to Warren to find out what happened to him—and why,” she added.
He studied her expression for a moment. She was serious. “It could have just been a simple matter of getting lost.”
Rae frowned. “You don’t believe that, either, do you?”
By using the word either he assumed that she was including herself. But he wasn’t about to fan any flames just yet. She needed to calm down a little first.
“I work with facts,” he told her. “The fact is that we know the man is dead, but we don’t know anything else about this.”
“Yet,” she emphasized.
He knew that meant she intended to find out. He wasn’t about to let her do that alone.
“Yet,” Sully agreed. “Look, why don’t you see if you can reach the sheriff and get him out here while I go on digging Warren out? The storm might interfere with your reception, but it’s worth a shot trying to get through.”
Rae nodded and moved to the side. Sully continued digging as fast as he could even though the mud and the rain weren’t making it easy for him.
When he had exposed the upper third of the dead man’s body, Sully sank his hands deeper into the mud until he was able to encircle his arms around Warren. Bracing himself, he yanked the rest of the man’s body out of the mud. Dragging Warren’s body over several more feet, he didn’t stop until he managed to get it under the partial cover of a large tree.
Spent, Sully collapsed onto the soggy ground. His heart was pounding, and he concentrated on catching his breath. After a minute, he became more aware of his surroundings. He saw Rae closing her phone and slipping it back into the pocket of her jacket.
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