Ms. Calculation

His fine-tuned senses kicked into full gear. “Hands where I can see them!” he yelled.

Carla laughed, her sound high and malicious. “You don’t get to order me around. I’ve known you since you were born. You loved my daughter. You knew Jimmy. Yet you did nothing...nothing to protect my Bianca. You let your family’s demons take her.”

There were any number of demons she could have been talking about when it came to his family, but in this moment it didn’t matter—all that mattered was what she was holding behind her back and what she planned on doing with it.

“Put your hands where I can see them.” He slowly reached down for the Taser on his utility belt.

The last thing he wanted to do was to tase Gwen’s mother. Things were already tense enough, but no matter what his feelings toward Gwen and her family were, his job and their safety came first.

“I don’t want to hurt you... I don’t...” Carla said as she moved toward him, her motions jerky as though her body and her mind were in disagreement. “But you and your family... You all keep ruining my life. You want to take everything from me.”

“We didn’t take anything from you.” He knew he shouldn’t argue with the grief-crazed woman, but he couldn’t hear her drag his family through the mud anymore. She needed to be pulled back to reality.

She dropped her hand to her side. In her grip was a snub-nosed revolver.

Either she was going to shoot him or herself—either way, he couldn’t allow her to keep that gun in her possession.

“Drop the gun, Carla,” he said.

She looked at him, and a tear slipped down her cheek. As the wind kicked up, he could smell the strong scent of whiskey wafting from her—even stronger than before.

She shook her head, the action slow and deliberate.

“Mother. No. Don’t do this,” Gwen said. “You can’t play at this. Not again. Wyatt is a deputy. He has every right to shoot you if you lift that gun. Drop. It. Now.”

Not again? Was Carla’s threat something she did on a regular basis?

He thought his family had the corner on putting the fun in dysfunctional.

Gwen stepped around the car and moved toward her mother.

“No,” he ordered, putting his arm out and trying to stop her without actually losing sight of the gun. “Stay back, Gwen.” He tried to hedge his tone between the hard edge of work and the softness of the feelings he still carried for her, but it came out much sharper than he intended.

Gwen looked at him like he had struck her.

He chastised himself, he’d screwed that all up, but now wasn’t the time to fully explain himself. “I don’t want her to hurt you.”

“She’s my mother,” she spat out. “She’s not dangerous. Really. You need to trust me.”

He felt the slice of her words as she cut away at his flaw—trust had never been his strong suit and she knew it. Why did she have to call him out at a time like this?

If something happened, if Carla pulled that trigger, he would have to answer to those above him. They would never understand if he went against procedure—even for a woman he used to know and her daughter, whom he wanted to get to know again.

“Your mother or not, Gwen, she can’t do this.” He raised his Taser. “This is the last time I ask, Carla,” he said, moving into range. “If you don’t put the gun down, I will be forced to tase you. Your choice.”

Carla lifted the gun.

“Wyatt, no!” Gwen yelled.

He pulled the trigger.

Carla hit the ground, convulsing as the electricity pulsed through her.

He ran to her side and kicked the gun from her hand before picking it up and opening the cylinder to look for rounds. The gun was empty.

Chapter Four

The next morning, Wyatt puttered around his trailer on the edge of the Dunrovin Ranch. Sleep had been elusive, and as he waited for the coffee to fill his cup, his mind wandered to Gwen and Carla. He shouldn’t have taken Carla down. Then again, what choice had she given him? He’d warned her—repeatedly. Did she think he was bluffing? That he wouldn’t pull the trigger?

If he was good at anything it was falling back onto his training—and he was a better officer for it, though it didn’t always make him a better person. There was a certain safety and comfort that came with being inflexible.

He couldn’t be like Gwen—she seemed to have her emotions and well-being dictated by the people in her life all the time. For as long as he had known her, she had been living her life in accordance with her mother’s ever-changing needs. In a way, he pitied her for her role as caregiver. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to be in a major relationship when they were younger—her life was already overtaken by the emotional needs of her mother. Were things any different now, or was she still emotionally unavailable?

He grabbed his coffee, slipped on his utility belt and moved toward the front door. Work waited. He needed to figure out exactly what happened to Bianca before things could get any more confusing with Gwen.

His phone pinged with an email. It was IT. He sipped the hot black coffee as he opened the message.

Fitz—

Took a look at the printout of the email you sent me. Looks like it was originally sent from a computer at the Mystery County Public Library from a one-use email account. Hope that helps. Let me know if you got any more questions.

Can’t wait for the ride-along. Next week?

—Max

That was one ride-along that wouldn’t really be worth it. Max was a great guy, but the information he’d sent was nearly useless. The only thing Wyatt could pull from it was that whoever had made the threat was probably a local.

The library was completely outdated; its desktop computers were still the same ones used during the advent of dial-up. No one went there to use the computers. The beasts were so slow that most people avoided them. Maybe he could run with that—the librarians might remember someone who had used them to send Bianca the threatening email. If everything went smoothly, he could get to the bottom of the email by the end of the day, Gwen could once again move to the back of his mind and things could return to his habitual, inflexible normal.

He opened the door.

Leaning against the fence was Gwen. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail as high and tight as her expression. She was looking out into the field, watching as two of his mother’s mares nibbled at the bits of grass sticking out of the snow.

“How long have you been out here?”

She turned slightly to face him, but she didn’t greet him with a smile. “Long enough to know that you slept in.”

He glanced down at his phone. It was 8:00 a.m. Most ranchers were up at five in order to get the daily chores taken care of. When he’d been working on the ranch in high school he’d followed that schedule, but now that he was on his own, he rarely forced himself to get out of bed that early. Yet Gwen undoubtedly still thought he was the kid he had once been—what would he have to do to prove that he’d changed?

“Long night,” he said, but the moment he said it, he wished he hadn’t brought it up. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about why and who had kept him awake—or the guilt he felt about his action with Carla. Nothing good would come of bringing up the events of yesterday.

Gwen lifted her chin, but thankfully didn’t say anything.

Maybe she didn’t want to talk about it either.

He was tempted to apologize, but he couldn’t say he was sorry for doing what had to be done, and he didn’t want to start a fight, so he just kept his mouth shut. He clicked the door shut behind him and made his way out to her. He leaned against the fence beside her.

She smelled like a fresh shower and the sweet fragrance of roses. It was the same shampoo she had been using since they were young, and the smell made him remember the nights they had spent making out in the bed of his truck. He’d loved those nights under the stars, flirting with the boundaries of their relationship. His fingers twitched as he recalled running them up the soft skin of her belly, his touch only to be trailed with his languishing, hungry kiss. He’d wanted to make love to her so badly.

He moved, readjusting his body, which was responding to his memories. That was all they were—memories. They were as the seasons, the heat of summer all too soon replaced by the chill of the fall.

She stepped away from him, reached down and scooped a bit of the snow together, balling it. She laughed as she pitched it at him. Most of it disintegrated in the air before a tiny bit splattered on his jacket.

“Hey, now, what was that?” he asked with a laugh. He reached down and made a snowball and gently lofted it toward her.

She ducked with a laugh and it breezed past her. “Missed me,” she teased, sticking her tongue out at him.

It reminded him of when they were younger, full of life and joy. It was as if they were innocent again, and it made him long for what they had once been.

She wiped the bits of snow off her hands. “I stopped by hoping you would show me where you found Bianca.” Her voice was tinged with sadness, and it made him wish she would just go back to throwing snowballs.

He glanced in the direction of the main house that, from where they were standing, was completely out of view thanks to a large stand of cottonwoods. The barns were behind the house, but he could have drawn them in complete detail from memory, down to the tiny carving in the hayloft of W+G 4Ever he’d cut into the soft wood when they were kids.

“There’s nothing there. It wasn’t much of a crime scene.”

“You didn’t think it was a murder either, remember?”

Ouch. He thought about arguing with her about what exactly he was and wasn’t allowed to do with his investigations, and what he’d been presented with on scene, but he bit his tongue. Apparently she was still in the anger stage of her grief. Next came depression, at least for most people, but knowing Gwen as well as he did, he doubted that she would let him see her like that again.

He rubbed his fingers together as he recalled brushing her tears from her cheeks when she’d collapsed on the floor. It probably wasn’t normal for him to feel this way, but he appreciated that moment of weakness when he’d told her about Bianca’s death. For once, he’d gotten a real reaction—a response not muted by her strength or her desire to veil the truth. Getting to have the real her was another thing he missed about their dating.

It was a rare thing in this world to know the essence of a person—especially in a small town where everyone feared the jaw-jacking of the neighbors. Any little thing could be a full-blown phone-tree emergency. It was like living in a game of telephone. What may have started out as something innocent enough would be a prison-worthy offense in under twenty-four hours—and that fear kept everything muted, even emotions.

It was maybe the thing he hated the most about living in a small town.

He pushed off the fence and walked toward his patrol unit. Gwen had parked her father’s old beat-up Ford in front of his one-car garage.

She followed close behind him. “Are you going to take me over there? Or do I just need to go and figure it out?”

Yep, definitely still in the anger phase.

“In the car,” he said, answering her with the same level of shortness.

It wasn’t really a distance worth driving, but he immersed himself in the silence between them—letting it remind him of exactly all the reasons he should cap any of his nostalgic feelings for the girl he’d once known. The Gwen beside him, while she had many of the old habits he had once loved her for, was not the same.

He would give almost anything to see that smile he’d fallen in love with, the one he’d caught a glimpse of when she pitched the snowball at him. He’d always remember that girl.

He parked in front of the stables. A little girl was standing by the front door; her hands were red from the cold but she still had her thumb planted in her mouth. He smiled as he got out of the car and gave an acknowledging nod to his former sister-in-law Alli Fitzgerald’s daughter. He’d never really cared for Alli—especially after she had cheated on Waylon—but he’d always had a soft spot for her daughter and was glad that she had chosen to raise her child on the ranch.

The little munchkin, Winnie, had curly brown hair and a smile complete with all of her baby teeth in their gapped and crooked glory. And when she smiled at him, everyone on the entire ranch knew that he was mush. Whatever the girl wanted...it was hers.

He walked around to open the door for Gwen.

“How’s it goin’, Win?” he asked, sending the little girl a playful grin.

The two-year-old bounded over to him, throwing her arms around his knees. “Wy-ant!” she cried, saying his name with two distinct syllables. “You bring candy?”

He reached into the breast pocket of his uniform where he always carried fun-sized banana taffies for Winnie. “Oh, no,” he teased. “I’m all out!”

Her plump cheeks fell and her smile disappeared as she looked up at him. “Wy-ant... Don’t tease da poor girl,” she said it with all seriousness, but he couldn’t help but laugh as her high-pitched voice mimicked her mother’s words.

“Oh, well, if you say so.” He pulled the candy from his pocket and handed it to Winnie, who took it and ran toward the barn and out of the vicinity of anywhere her mother might see her gobble the treat.

Winnie turned back as she moved to slip through the barn door. “Thank you, Wy-ant.”

Gwen stood next to him. “Looks like you have a fan.”

He looked at her and smiled. “She is something special,” he said, wanting to add that the girl wasn’t the only special one in his life, but he stopped.

Gwen looked at him and moved to speak, but stopped and then walked to the barn where Winnie had disappeared. “Where did it happen?”

He motioned forward, opened the door for her and followed her inside. The lights were on, illuminating the darkened stalls. It was quiet since the horses had already been fed and turned out for the day. The place smelled like hay and horses, a smell that always reminded him of home.

“We found her in the back pen, just there,” he said, motioning to the stall.

Gwen stood still, staring in the direction he had pointed. Aside from it being the place where they’d found Bianca’s body, it was like every other barn—stacks of hay, the tack room, stalls and a door leading to the pasture. Yet Gwen was holding her arm around her body like this was the first time they’d ever been inside, even though there was evidence in the hayloft to the contrary.

Her gaze moved to the ladder that led up to the hayloft, and for a moment, he swore he saw a smile flicker over her lips. Was she thinking about the last time they had stepped up those rungs as well?

He walked around her, hoping she was envisioning all the possibilities of giving him one more shot in the hayloft. Moving to the stall, he looked to the spot where they had found Bianca. For a moment, he could see her there again. At the time, there had been talk about calling her family in, but he was glad now, looking back, that they hadn’t. Some things couldn’t be unseen. It would be hard enough for Gwen to see Bianca in the casket—the last thing she needed was to see her sister sitting in the middle of the horse stall surrounded by dirty hay, water buckets and the hooves of a hurt and scared mare.

The horse was gone and the stall had been recently cleaned so well that he could smell the strong, suspicious scent of bleach. That was unlike his mother or the staff—normally they never used bleach out here. Some things weren’t going to get completely clean no matter how much scrubbing they did, and a horse stall was one of them.

“What happened to the horse—is she okay?” Gwen asked.

The wood of the door was rounded and smoothed by the years of horses chewing it, but as he took his hand away it still scraped at his skin.

“My mother had another vet come in and take a look at her. Luckily, the horse’s leg wasn’t broken, just a sprain.”

“I’m glad the horse is going to be okay.” She said it like it carried some measure of comfort that only one of the beings in this stall had lost its life. “Bianca would have liked to have known the horse was okay, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure she’s watching down.” As he spoke, he knew it was a platitude.

Gwen glanced over at him and put her hand on top of his. “Thanks. I know you don’t mean it, but thanks.”

Seriously, it was like she could read his mind sometimes and it scared the bejeezus out of him. As it was, however, with her warm hand on his, he would take whatever he could get. It was better than having her angry.

He took her hand in his. “I do mean it. Sort of.”

“You don’t believe in that stuff, remember?”

He shrugged. “What I believe doesn’t matter. What matters is that your sister was a good person. If there is any justice in this world, her soul will rest in peace, maybe where she can watch down on you and help keep you from finding yourself in too much trouble.” He smiled, trying to lighten the mood. He hated talk of death.

“If there was any justice in this world, Wyatt, she wouldn’t have been killed. And I wouldn’t be standing in the middle of the crime scene.”

“Actually,” a woman said, her voice cutting through the tension, “you aren’t really standing in the middle of the crime scene. Bianca died inside the stall.”

He turned to see Alli standing there, Winnie in hand, staring at them. Gwen pulled her fingers from his, and as much as he loved Winnie, he silently wished they hadn’t been interrupted.

“Heya, Alli. You’re right, but this is still part of the scene,” he said. “Come here, Winnie-girl.”

Winnie let go of her mother’s hand and scampered over, and he picked her up. She was heavy in his arms in a way that made him wish, for half a second, that he had a child of his own.

Gwen looked over at him and smiled, but the action was short-lived.

“You know, Wyatt, you don’t have to give Winnie a treat every time you see her,” Alli grumbled. “She’s getting spoiled. Soon she’s going to be a brat if you keep it up.”

He lifted Winnie so he could look up into her face. He turned her from right to left as though he was inspecting her. “Yep. Nope. Don’t see a brat here. Just see a few bats in the cave.”

Winnie giggled, the sound was infectious and he caught himself laughing with her.

“What, don’t you ever pick those boogies?” he teased.

Winnie reached up and stuck her finger in her nose. She lifted her finger for him to see. “Look, I get them boogies!” she answered excitedly.

“You’re just like your brother,” Alli said, her tone heavy with dislike. She reached over and grabbed Winnie and set her back on the ground. “Go wash your hands, girl.”

Winnie gave him a backward wave as she escaped the confines of the barn and the castigation of her mother.

“The gardens looked good this year,” he said, trying to make small talk with Alli.

She shrugged. “I’ll do better next year. It was just too dry a summer.”

He’d tried to work in the gardens one year, as his family sold their vegetables and fruits at the local farmer’s market every Saturday in the warm months, but he’d found in a single month that he had a brown thumb rather than a green one. Though, admittedly, he had been working there with their old gardener, Bernard, who’d had even less of an amicable nature than Alli. Not all professional gardeners he’d met were light on personality, but it seemed like the last couple his mother had employed were no Bob Hopes.

Then again, his mother hadn’t really hired Alli so much as been forced to bring her into the fold when Waylon had eloped with her. Now Wyatt’s brother had been gone for almost three years, but here they were stuck with the only part of him that he’d left behind.

Alli hadn’t always been rough to be around, but the day Waylon left everything likable about Alli had gone with him.

“How were the tomatoes this year?” Gwen asked, in what he assumed was some kind of olive branch.

“Not as good as I woulda liked, but I did pretty good at the market. The people in Kalispell ate them up. Get it?” She laughed at her own pun.

Gwen gave a light, polite laugh.

“That’s great.” He tried not to sound too dismissive, but with everything going on he wanted to get moving instead of getting stuck making small talk with the woman who betrayed his brother. “Do you know who cleaned up the stall? I’d like to talk to them.” He dipped his chin in the direction of the bleach jug that sat in the corner near the front door.

She looked in the direction and frowned. “I dunno. People have been coming and going ever since your crew came through and took the body out.” She turned to Gwen. “I’m sorry for your loss. It’s always hard losing someone you love.”

Gwen nodded in acknowledgment. “By chance, did anyone see a bag around here?” She stuck out her hands in measurement. “It was black, about yea big?”

“I didn’t see nothing. I ain’t been around here too much. Just saw your car out front and Winnie was munching on the candy. Put two and two together and thought I’d come say hi.” She shrugged. “If you’re looking for something specific, you might want to ask your mom, Wyatt. She’s been poking around in here.”

It didn’t surprise him that his mom would have been spending her time in here after everything had gone down—of all the folks at Dunrovin, she’d taken Bianca’s death the hardest. She had a soft spot for the vet.

“I’ll chat with her,” he said, all too aware that in the next conversation he had with his family he would have to tell them what direction the investigation had headed.

The news wouldn’t come without blowback. And that was to say nothing about what the death would do to the tourism that kept the ranch afloat. If anyone caught wind that this was a possible murder case, it would undoubtedly hurt his parents’ bottom line.

“Do you know where they dumped the hay from the stall?” Gwen asked, pulling him from thoughts of his family.

“Oh, yeah,” Alli said, her sullen frown returning. “They always take that out to the gardens. It’s high in nitrogen so I’m always making it into compost for the beds. Why?”

Gwen gave him a look, a look that told him that no matter how crappy he thought some of his investigations had been, they were going to be heading to entirely new levels.

“No, Gwen.” He shook his head. “The team already went through the stall before. They didn’t find anything. There’s no point going through...anything.”

“If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, Wyatt, that’s fine,” she said, but her tone told him there would be worse things than horse manure to deal with if he didn’t play along. “But this wasn’t their sister. I need to do everything in my power to figure out what exactly happened to Bianca. You loved her once too. I know. We both owe her to try our damnedest to solve her murder.”

Alli visibly twitched. “Murder?”

No. He hadn’t been ready for the rest of the world to learn what they had started to uncover.

He shook his head violently...almost too hard to be convincing. “No, not murder. Bianca wasn’t murdered.”

Alli raised an eyebrow. “Then what happened to her?”

He took Gwen by the hand and led her toward the back door of the barn and the gardens. “I don’t know yet, Alli...but that’s what we’re hoping to find out.” Even if it meant getting his hands dirty.

They grabbed a couple of pitchforks from the wall of tools and made their way from the barn.

“Good luck,” Alli called from behind them.

He couldn’t blame her for not joining them. Right now, he wished he was anywhere—even the prisoner transfer in Alaska—rather than here and having to do what needed to be done.

As they approached the mound of compost, Gwen pulled a bandanna out of her pocket and tied it over her face in what Wyatt assumed was an effort to save herself from breathing in the scent of manure for the next hour.