Cowboy of Interest

“We have no intention of getting any closer,” Nick replied. “But we heard Chief Bowie is out here and we’d like to talk to him.”

“I’ll go see if he’s available.” Juan turned on his heels and walked back to the tent and disappeared inside.

A moment later, Dillon appeared and headed in their direction, his features appearing haggard and his uniform dusted with the rusty color of the Oklahoma dirt.

“I can’t do anything with the skeletal remains until our expert gets here,” he said as if somebody had asked him a question. “But we’ve been digging around the area where Wendy was found to make sure we haven’t missed anything related to her murder.”

“And have you found anything?” Adrienne asked, eager to hear something positive.

His tired eyes held frustration as he shook his head. “Not yet. So Juan said you two needed to speak to me.”

Adrienne remained silent as Nick told Dillon about the conversation they’d shared with Daisy over breakfast.

“Zeke Osmond, Greg Albertson and Perry Wright,” Dillon repeated. “I’ll add them to the list. Right now I’ve got a couple of my men interviewing all the men who work here at the ranch.”

Adrienne sensed the tension that filled Nick, making him stand a little taller. “None of those men are capable of murder, and nobody has questioned me yet,” he said.

“We’re taking this slow,” Dillon said. “Trust me, Nick, you will be thoroughly questioned, but we only figured out yesterday, thanks to Adrienne, that the crime probably began in the motel room.”

“I saw your men there this morning. Were they able to come up with anything?” Adrienne asked.

Dillon frowned. “No. In fact, they couldn’t pull a single fingerprint from any place in the room.”

“So whoever packed her things also took the time to completely wipe down the room,” Nick said.

“It would appear so,” Dillon replied.

Had Wendy been tied up on the bed while the killer had packed her things and cleaned the room? Or had she already been dead and buried and the killer had come back to her room alone in the dead of night to tie up loose ends?

Adrienne’s knees weakened, and she stumbled against Nick’s side as horrendous visions played and replayed in her mind. His arm immediately went around her shoulder, anchoring her to his strong body. She knew she should step away, but she lingered for just a moment, feeding off his strength, oddly comforted by his warmth.

She quickly locked her knees, banished the horrific visions from her brain and stepped away from Nick, appalled that she’d found any modicum of comfort in his nearness.

“If that’s all you want with me, then I need to get back to work,” Dillon said. “Nick, I’ll have that interview with you sometime later this afternoon. Adrienne, I’ll try to keep you up to date with anything we learn.”

Adrienne and Nick headed back toward their vehicles, but before they reached them, a pretty, petite blonde stepped out of the house and onto the back porch.

“Nick, why don’t you two come in for something cold to drink,” she said.

“Who is that?” Adrienne asked softly.

“Cassie Peterson, my boss,” he replied. He waved to her. “We might as well go inside. You can meet her and the others who live here.”

Nick introduced Adrienne to Cassie, who greeted her warmly, her blue eyes filled with the compassion Adrienne had come to expect from the people in Bitterroot who knew about her sister.

Cassie led them through a small formal parlor area and into a great room where a lovely dark-haired woman and a young boy sat on the sofa thumbing through a catalog. The woman stood and the boy ran to Nick.

“Hi, Cowboy Nick. Whatcha doing?” He looked at Adrienne. “Hi, I’m Sammy and that’s my mom, Nicolette, and we just bought a house with Cowboy Lucas, who is going to be my new dad as soon as they get married.”

“Sammy.” His mother smiled apologetically and moved closer to Nick and Adrienne. “I apologize for my little chatterbox.”

“No apology necessary,” Adrienne replied and then introduced herself.

Nicolette took her hand and squeezed it tightly. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Unfortunately, Cassie and I arrived in town after your sister had gone missing, so we never got an opportunity to meet her. I’ve heard she was a wonderful young woman.” She released Adrienne’s hand and motioned both her and Nick to the sofa. “Sammy, why don’t you take the catalog and go upstairs to your room. You can use a crayon and mark what you like.”

Adrienne was disappointed that they hadn’t known her sister, but before she could scarcely blink an eye, she was on the sofa next to Nick with a glass of iced tea in her hand.

It didn’t take long for Cassie to explain that the ranch had belonged to her aunt Cass, who had died almost two months ago in a tornado. Cass had left the ranch to Cassie, who had left her art and clothing boutique in New York City and had brought her best friend and her son with her to check out her inheritance.

“It was when the men were pulling down an old shed that had been damaged in the tornado that we discovered the bodies,” Cassie said, her blue eyes darkening.

“On that note, I’d like to ask you for some time off,” Nick said. “You know I’m a person of interest in Wendy’s murder, and Adrienne and I are doing a little investigation of our own in an attempt to find the real killer.”

“You can take as much time off as you need,” Cassie replied easily. “I know your fellow cowboys will fill in for you.”

“And you know that you have our one hundred percent support,” Nicolette added as she looked at Nick. “More than once over the past two months I left my son’s safety in your hands. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t trust what kind of man you are, and you aren’t a killer.”

The obvious respect and support the two women showed Nick only managed to confuse Adrienne more. Was he so good that he had managed to fool everyone around him? Or was he really innocent and didn’t warrant her suspicions at all?

By the time they left the house, it was well past noon.

“By the way, who is Perry Wright?” she asked before they got into their vehicles.

“He’s a shy, quiet young guy who works in medical billing at the hospital. I don’t know him very well. He lives in an apartment in town and pretty much keeps to himself.”

She nodded. She’d find out more about these men in the next couple of days. “What now?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I think the best thing for me to do right now is hang around here and wait for Dillon to contact me about that interview.”

“Then, I think I’ll just wander around town a bit and ask some questions,” she replied.

“I’d rather you not do that alone,” he said. “For the most part, Bitterroot is filled with good people, but there are also some rough characters. Besides, you’re a stranger, and folks around here can be pretty closemouthed with outsiders.”

“Are you afraid for my safety or about something I might learn about you?” she asked.

His sensual lips thinned to a grim line before he replied, “I thought we were partners working together on this.”

“Is that what you are? My partner, or are you managing me, making sure I only talk to people who believe you’re innocent?”

“Wendy told me you could be impossible,” he said, his eyes flashing with obvious annoyance. “Go talk to whoever you want to, and far be it for me to worry about your safety.”

He didn’t give her an opportunity to reply. He got into his Jeep, started the engine and headed to a large structure in the distance.

Adrienne got into her car with the sting of his words in her heart. Of course Wendy had told him she was impossible. Adrienne could only wonder what other negative things her sister had said about her. She’d been tough on Wendy, but at the time she’d felt she had to be. Now she lived with the regret of second-guessing every decision she’d made during Wendy’s growing years.

She pulled away from the Holiday Ranch and headed back toward town. She consciously willed away thoughts of her sister’s hurtful words and instead focused on what she intended to do when she got back to Bitterroot.

If Nick thought she was just going to return to her motel room and cool her heels for the rest of the day, then he was sadly mistaken.

She had a gun in her purse and knew how to keep out of dangerous situations. Somebody in town knew something about Wendy that would lead to the identification of her killer, and she intended to ferret out that information, with or without Nick’s presence.

With this plan in mind, she found a parking space smack-dab in the center of Main Street and decided she would begin at one end of town and work her way to the other. There were plenty of stores that Wendy would have frequented, and people in those stores who would have interacted with her.

She not only wanted to find out what she could about Wendy’s interactions in town, but she also wanted to dig up what she could about the three men Daisy had mentioned. And if she happened to learn more about Nick, she’d consider that a bonus.

She figured she’d work the streets and stores until it grew dark and then she’d head back to her motel room for dinner and to work a couple of hours on her personal business until bedtime.

It didn’t take her long to realize that, unlike Nick’s comment about outsiders and closed mouths, some of the people in Bitterroot liked to talk...a lot.

The first person she spoke to was the owner of the small grocery store that served the town. Sharon Watson was an older woman with salt-and-pepper hair who spent much of her time as not only the owner but also the head cashier.

“I was always riding your sister when she’d come in here for groceries,” Sharon said. “She’d buy frozen burritos and cheap pizzas, chips and dip and all kinds of cookies. I told her she needed to be buying some fruits and vegetables, maybe cook herself a roast or some juicy pork chops, but she just laughed at me and said she liked her junk food diet.”

Adrienne’s heart squeezed tight. Yes, that sounded like Wendy. Getting her to eat a healthy meal had always been a challenge.

By the time she left the store, she knew the eating habits of half the inhabitants of Bitterroot. She’d also learned that Sharon thought Zeke Osmond was a punk, that Greg Albertson was Zeke’s tagalong and that Perry Wright was a sweet, soft-spoken man who had helped Sharon with her insurance claims when she’d had her gallbladder out the year before.

She had no intention of interacting with any of the three men by herself, and she had a feeling her “partnership” with Nick was finished. He’d been angry with her when they’d parted ways earlier. She’d have to depend on Chief Bowie to do his job when it came to those men.

It was almost eight o’clock when she finally returned to her motel room. She parked in front of her unit but remained in the car for several long minutes, discouragement weighing heavily on her shoulders.

She’d managed to talk to people in only four different places of business and hadn’t learned any more than she’d initially gotten from Sharon at the grocery store.

She’d found most of the men she tried to talk to closemouthed about the case and the three men she’d asked about. The women were chattier, but had no real information to offer her.

Remembering that moment of leaning against Nick, of feeling his strong arm around her, she realized that was what she’d like at the moment—a strong arm around her and somebody comforting her.

She straightened and drew a deep, fortifying breath. She hadn’t needed a strong shoulder to lean on when she’d been ten years old and their father had walked out on them, never to be heard from again. She hadn’t needed anyone when she was eighteen and her mother had died, leaving an eleven-year-old Wendy to raise.

She’d never needed anyone, and she didn’t now. All she wanted was dinner, a little work at her computer and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was another day, and she would continue to walk the streets and talk to strangers in an effort to gain answers to who had murdered her sister and why.

Finally, she dug the motel room key from her purse and got out of her car. She was just about to unlock her door when she noticed a folded piece of paper shoved in a crack between the door and the doorjamb.

She grabbed the paper, unlocked her door and went inside. She immediately turned on lights to ward off the darkness of deep twilight that had fallen. Then she set her purse on the table and opened the paper.

Printed in bold, black letters with a felt-tipped marker were the words, “BE CAREFUL WHO YOU TRUST.”

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