Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch (13 page)

Had he been in on this? He sounded as if he’d only remembered her birthday when he’d seen the cake in her hands though.

“Hello, Clay.” Clay was what was called lanky. He was tall and thin, his bones seeming too large for his body. His hair was shorter than Dana had ever seen it, a buzz cut, and he wore chinos and a T-shirt. He wasn’t so much handsome as he was beautiful.

She saw Jordan give him a disgusted look. He’d always thought Clay weak.

Stacy had taken down plates from their mother’s good china. Dana watched her stop for a moment as if admiring the pattern. Or maybe she was just speculating on how much the china might be worth on the market.

Their mother should have been here, Dana thought as she watched everyone take a seat around the large table. Jordan pulled out a chair and sat at the spot their mother used to sit. Obviously he now considered himself the head of the family.

Clay sat where he always had, near the other end of the table. Stacy put plates and forks on the table, then took the cake Dana realized she was still holding.

As Dana slumped into her chair, Stacy carefully cut the cake. Dana noticed that her sister’s hands were trembling. She served everyone a piece, then started to ask, “Should we sing—”

“No,” Dana interrupted. “The cake is more than enough.”

Stacy looked disheartened but sat and picked up her fork. “I hope it tastes all right. I don’t do much baking.”

Jordan snorted at the understatement.

Dana studied her older brother as she took a bite of the cake. What would Jordan have done if Stacy hadn’t arrived when she had?

“It’s good,” Dana said, touched by her sister’s kind gesture even though she didn’t want to be.

Jordan downed his and shoved his plate and fork aside. “Could we please get this settled now?”

Stacy looked angrily at their brother. “You are such
a jerk,” she snapped, and got up to take everyone’s dishes to the sink.

“Leave the dishes. I’ll do them,” Dana said, getting up from the table. The kitchen felt too small for this discussion, the smell of chocolate cake too strong. “Let’s go in the living room.”

They all filed into the adjacent room. Clay sat in the corner, Stacy teetered on the edge of the fireplace hearth, Jordan went straight to the bar and poured himself a drink.

“Dana, you’re killing us,” Jordan said after gulping down half a glass of her bourbon. “All these attorney fees to fight you. You know we’re going to win eventually. So why put us through this?”

Dana looked around the room at each of her siblings. “I can’t believe any of you are related to me or Mother. If she knew what you were doing—”

“Don’t bring her into this,” Jordan snapped. “If she wanted you alone to have the ranch then she should have made the proper arrangements.”

“She tried to and you know it,” Dana said, fighting not to lose her temper. “I know Mother talked to each of you before she drafted her new will and explained how you would be paid over the long term.”

“Produce the document,” Jordan demanded.

“You know I can’t.”

He made an angry swipe through the air. “Then stop fighting us. You can’t win and you know it. Dragging your feet has only made things worse. Now we have a dead body on the ranch.”

“The body’s been there for seventeen years,” Dana said. “It would have turned up sooner or later.”

“Not if Warren had filled in the well like he was supposed to,” Jordan snapped.

Dana narrowed her gaze at him. “You told him to fill in the well?”

Jordan glared at her. “I told him to get the ranch ready to sell. Filling in the well was his idea. How did I know he was going to find human bones in it?”

How indeed?

“We just need to stop fighting among ourselves,” Clay said from the corner.

Jordan rolled his eyes. “No, what we need is to get this ranch on the market and hope to hell this investigation is over as quickly as possible. In the meantime, Dana, you could stop being so antagonistic toward the marshal.”

Dana felt all the air rush from her lungs as if he’d hit her. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that I—”

“Your attitude is making us all look guilty,” Jordan said.

“And you think if I’m nice to Hud, it will make you look any less guilty?” she snapped.

“Please, can’t we all just quit arguing?” Stacy said, sounding close to tears.

“After the ranch sells, I’m leaving,” Clay said out of the blue, making everyone turn to look at him. He seemed embarrassed by the attention. “I have a chance to buy a small theater in Los Angeles.”

“You’d leave Montana?” Dana asked, and realized she didn’t know her younger brother at all.

Clay gave her a lopsided smile. “You’re the one who loves Montana, Dana. I would have left years ago if I could have. And now, with everyone in town talking about our family as if we’re murderers…Did you know that a deputy made me stop on the way here to have my fingerprints taken?”

“Stop whining, Clay, I got a call from the deputy too,” Jordan said, and looked at Stacy. She nodded that she had, too.

“What do you expect?” Dana said, tired of her siblings acting so put-upon. “A woman’s body was found in our well. We all knew her. She broke up Mom and Dad’s marriage. And, Jordan—”

“Maybe Mom killed her and threw her down the well,” Jordan interrupted.

The room went deathly quiet.

“Don’t give me that look, Dana,” he said. “You know Mom was capable of about anything she set her mind to.”

“I’ve heard enough of this,” Dana said, and headed for the kitchen.

“Well, that’s a surprise,” Jordan said to her retreating back. “We knew we couldn’t count on you to be reasonable.”

Seething with anger, she turned to face him. “I have another month here before the court rules on whether the ranch has to be sold to humor the three of you and I’m taking it. If you don’t like it, too bad. I’m fighting to save the ranch my mother loved. All the three of you want is money—any way you can get it. Even by de
stroying something that has been in our family for generations.”

Jordan started to argue but she cut him off. “And as for the murder investigation, you’re all on your own. Frankly, I think you’re all capable of murder.”

Clay and Stacy both denied that they had anything to hide. Jordan just glared at her and said, “You’re making a very big mistake, Dana. I hope you don’t live to regret it.”

She turned and stalked off into the kitchen. Going to the sink, she grabbed the cool porcelain edge and gripped it, Jordan’s threat ringing in her ears.

H
UD GOT THE CALL
from the crime lab just as he was starting to leave his office.

“We’ve found some latent prints on both the box of chocolates and the doll,” Dr. Cross said. “I decided to do the tests myself since it tied in with your ongoing case. Interesting case.”

“Did you come up with a match?” Hud asked.

“No prints on file that matched any of the prints on the doll or the package. We found multiple prints on the doll, all different. As for the gift, only one set.”

Hud felt his heart rate quicken. “My deputy is bringing you up some fingerprints to compare those to. What about the chocolates themselves?”

“No prints on them. Also no sign of a drug or poison. As far as I can tell, they were nothing but chocolate.”

Relieved, Hud sighed. “Thanks for doing this so
quickly.” He hung up. There was one set of prints he hadn’t asked Liza to get for him. Lanny Rankin’s.

Hud planned to get those himself tonight.

He picked up the phone and started calling the local bars on a hunch. The bartender at the second one Hud called said that Lanny was there.

“Try to keep him there. I’m buying,” Hud said. “I’ll be right down.”

D
ANA WASN’T SURPRISED
to hear tentative footfalls behind her and smell her sister’s expensive perfume. Standing at the sink with her back to her sister, she closed her eyes, waiting for the next onslaught. Obviously, Jordan and Clay had sent Stacy in to convince her to change her mind.

“Dana,” her sister said quietly. “I have to tell you something.”

Dana kept her back turned to her sister. She’d planned on asking her sister point-blank what had happened that night five years ago with Hud. But quite frankly, she just wasn’t up to the answer tonight.

“You can’t just keep ignoring me. I’m your sister.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dana said, finally giving up and turning to look at her.

Tears welled in Stacy’s eyes, but she bit her lip to stem them, no doubt realizing that tears would only anger Dana more. Likewise another apology.

“I have to tell you the truth,” Stacy said.

“Don’t,” Dana said. “I told you, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. I know they sent you in here to try to get me to change my mind.”

“I didn’t come in here to talk about the ranch,” she said, and sounded surprised that Dana would think that. “I need to tell you about Hud.”

Dana felt her face flush. “I’d rather talk about selling the ranch.” She started to step past Stacy, but her sister touched her arm and whispered, “I lied.”

Dana froze, her gaze leaping to Stacy’s face.

Her sister nodded slowly, the tears in her eyes spilling over. “I didn’t sleep with him,” she whispered, and looked behind her as if afraid their brothers might be listening.

“What is this? Some ploy to get me to sell the ranch?” Dana couldn’t believe how low her sister would stoop.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the ranch.” Stacy shook her head, tears now spilling down her cheeks. “I have to tell you the truth, no matter what happens to me. I didn’t want to do it.”

Dana felt her pulse jump. “What are you talking about?” she asked, remembering what Hud had said about Stacy not acting alone that night.

Stacy gripped her arm. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Dana said, keeping her voice down. “What happened that night?”

Stacy looked scared as she let go of Dana and glanced over her shoulder again.

“Don’t move,” Dana ordered, and walked to the doorway to the living room. “Leave,” she said to Jordan and Clay. Clay got up at once but Jordan didn’t move.

“We’re not finished here,” Jordan said angrily. “And I’m not leaving until this is settled. One way or the other.”

“Stacy and I need to talk,” Dana said, letting him believe she had to iron things out with her sister before she would give in on selling the ranch.

Clay was already heading for the door as Jordan reluctantly rose. Clay opened the front door then stopped. Dana saw why. Their father’s pickup had just pulled into the yard.

“I’ll be outside talking to Dad,” Jordan said, and practically shoved Clay out the door.

What was their father doing here? Dana wondered as she hurried back to the kitchen. No doubt her siblings had commandeered his help to convince her to sell the ranch. Bastards.

Stacy had sat at the table, her head in her hands. Dana closed the kitchen door as she heard her brothers and their father talking out on the porch. It almost sounded as if Jordan and Angus were arguing.

What was that about? she wondered. She’d find out soon enough, she feared. But right now she wanted some answers out of her sister.

Stacy looked up when Dana closed the kitchen door. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t start that again. Just tell me.” Dana didn’t sit. She stood, her arms folded across her chest to keep her hands from shaking, to keep from strangling Stacy. “Tell me
everything
and whatever you do, don’t lie to me.”

Stacy started to cry. “I’m telling you I didn’t sleep with Hud, isn’t that enough?”

“No. I need to know how he got there. Did he pick you up at the bar? Or did you pick him up?”

Stacy was crying harder. “I picked him up.”

“How?” Hud swore he’d had only one drink. But she recalled hearing from people at the bar that night that he’d been falling-down drunk when he’d left with Stacy.

“I drugged him.”

Dana stared at her sister in disbelief. “You drugged him!”

“I had to do it!” she cried. “Then before the drug could completely knock him out, I got him outside and into my car.”

Dana could hear raised voices now coming from the living room. The three had brought their argument in out of the cold. But the fact barely registered. Stacy had admitted that she’d drugged Hud and taken him out to her car.

“I was to take him to my place,” Stacy said, the words tumbling out with the tears. “I thought that was all I had to do. I didn’t want to do it. I swear. But if I didn’t…” She began to sob. Angus and Jordan were yelling at each other in the living room, the words incomprehensible.

“What did you do?” Dana demanded, moving to stand over her.

“I didn’t know part of the plan was to make it look like we’d slept together until when you got there the next morning,” Stacy cried. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Dana remembered the look of shock on Hud’s and Stacy’s faces when they’d seen her that morning. She’d thought it was from being caught. But now she recalled it was bewilderment, as well.