were busy planning Greta’s wedding. She wouldn’t just suddenly turn on her mother like that, despite any bizarre tales of hormonal bridezillas to the contrary.
Still, he knew how conscientious Susie was. She wouldn’t have just haphazardly conducted that DNA test, or allowed it to become contaminated.
Yet how could her findings be right?
Ryan felt a surge of anger flare up within his chest, anger where his heart was supposed to be.
Try as he might, he couldn’t come up with a way that both he and Susie could be right. One of them had to be wrong and he found the idea that it was him really upsetting. Not because he had any kind of a problem with his ego—he’d been wrong before, most notably when he’d deployed back overseas and cut Susie loose like that, as if she was some inconvenience instead of someone he had found himself caring for deeply—but because that would mean that there was something seriously bad going on with Greta.
He knew Greta. His sister wasn’t a criminal. And she didn’t harbor some dark side that none of them were aware of. That was just plain ridiculous.
Leaning over, Ryan switched on the radio. The car was instantly filled with the strains of music, instrumental music meant to promote and instill a sense of peace into what was usually a hectic day. He’d never needed it more than he did now.
If he couldn’t find evidence at the crime scene that could point him in another direction—the right direction—he was going to have to call his sister and question her about the events that had been transpiring here at the ranch. He wasn’t looking forward to that because, despite his attempts to keep to himself, he found that he was rather transparent when he was dealing with his family. And once he started questioning Greta about the strange events at the ranch and she realized what he was getting at, there would be a breach between them.
And most likely, between him and the rest of the family, as well. Greta was, after all, the baby of the family, as well as the only girl. Brothers tended to be protective of their little sisters.
Hell, he felt that way, too. But he was also a homicide detective and he had a job to do, a sworn duty to get to the bottom of things and to bring the guilty parties in as well as to protect the innocent ones.
“Damn it, Greta, I sure hope that you’re innocent—for both our sakes,” he murmured.
And then, because it wasn’t affecting him, he turned the music up louder, hoping to be in a better, calmer frame of mind by the time he got back to the Lucky C.
Hoping, but being realistic enough to know that hope alone didn’t change a damn thing no matter how much someone might want it to.
Ryan isn’t going to like this.
The thought echoed over and over again in Susie’s head as she looked down at the results from the latest DNA test. It was the third such test she’d authorized and this one she’d again done herself. She knew she was wasting her own time, not to mention the lab’s precious resources, just to make doubly sure—or triply sure as the case was—that the final results were the same as what had already been concluded the first and second times the test had been run.
There was no mistaking the findings. It was Greta Colton’s blood that had been found along the edges of the broken glass from the vandalized stable. It wasn’t just a vague familial match, which would have meant that the blood might have belonged to a family member, like Big J or one of Greta’s brothers. The match she was looking at was dead-on.
The blood belonged to Greta.
There wasn’t a single trace of anyone else’s blood on the jagged broken glass. No accomplice, no one else’s blood on the scene.
Only Greta’s.
Greta had been the one, for whatever reason, who had broken into the stables via the window instead of going in through the door, which as far as she knew, had been Greta’s normal custom.
What the hell was going on here?
Why would Greta be breaking into the stables through the window? It just didn’t make any sense.
Far from happy, Susie blew out a breath. Much as she really would have preferred coming up with a different conclusion, she had definitely nailed down the who. Now it was up to Ryan to find out the why.
Ryan definitely wasn’t going to be happy.
“That did not sound like a good sigh.”
Perched on a stool against the equipment-laden counter, Susie managed to swivel her stool around to face the doorway. She knew who she would be looking at before she was actually turned around. Nobody else’s voice undulated under her skin the way his had.
The way it still did.
Water under the bridge, remember? Water under the bridge. You’ve moved on. So keep moving, Susie told herself fiercely, albeit silently. Ryan no longer figured into her life, except professionally.
Doing her best to collect herself and look every inch the forensic expert that she was, Susie replied, “It wasn’t. And it definitely won’t be from your point of view.”
Ryan’s gut tightened. He knew what was coming and he braced himself—or tried to. “The DNA—”
Susie had never been one to prolong a verdict for the sake of dramatic effect. With distasteful news, it was best to get it out as quickly as possible and move on.
“—is still Greta’s,” she said, completing his sentence. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I had the test run a total of three times using three different samples from three different areas on the broken glass. I ran two of the tests and had someone else run another one.” To back herself up, Susie held up the three separate printouts that had resulted. “It came out the same each and every time. It’s Greta’s DNA. The blood found at the scene belongs to your sister.”
Ryan took the printouts from her and stared at the results on the top sheet. The findings on the two sheets beneath it were identical.
He felt as if someone had driven a knife into his stomach—and was still twisting it.
“There has to be an explanation,” he insisted, talking more to himself than to the woman perched on the stool.
“Ask her,” Susie suggested matter-of-factly. When Ryan looked down at her with confusion in his eyes, as if he had suddenly realized that he wasn’t alone in the room, she said, “If you really think that this doesn’t make sense, then ask her why she broke the stable window. Maybe she didn’t do it to get into the stables. Maybe there’s another plausible reason why the window was broken.” And why the stables were vandalized, she added silently.
“You don’t believe that,” he said, going by the expression on her face.
Susie shrugged away his observation. “What I believe—or don’t believe—isn’t the point here. I’m the forensic expert, you’re the detective. It’s up to you to take what I give you and arrange it into some sort of a complete picture that gives you the plausible answers you’re
