then all the money he had on him.”
“My father was,” Margot paused and took a deep breath, “is an alcoholic. He quit drinking around the time he met my mother and had been sober ever since. After she died, he went to the bottle for comfort. It was as if he had nothing more to live for since she was gone.”
“He had you,” Brad said quietly.
“I guess he didn’t see it that way.” Margot tried to force a smile to her lips but it wouldn’t slip into place.
“On that particular day, most of the town was drunk.” Russ jotted down some notes, glanced back up at Margot. “What about gambling? Was that an issue for him, too?”
She thought for a moment. “I can’t say for certain. During my childhood, he never gambled. I remember my parents had friends who were always asking them to go to the casinos in Kalispell with them, but they’d never go.”
Russ asked for their names and added their contact information to his growing notes. “I’ll check with them to see if a gambling addiction was ever mentioned.”
Margot shifted her gaze to Brad. “You said he ran out of money. What happened then?”
“The pot was large. Everyone seemed to think they held the winning hand, so it kept growing.” Brad shifted from one foot to the other. “Then it was just me and Boyd. He grew frantic when it was time for him to ante up. He had no more money and he didn’t want to drop out. He put up the deed to the ranch so he could stay in. Insisted upon it.”
Margot raised a skeptical brow. “Insisted?”
“Yes,” Brad said flatly. “You know how bullheaded your dad can be. I tried to talk him out of it, but let’s just say his, ah, response made it clear I was to mind my own.”
It rang true. Margot had been on the receiving end of her father’s sharp tongue. When he was in one of his black moods, you couldn’t tell him a darn thing.
She took a breath and exhaled. “So he lost the hand—” she added, more to neatly tie up the incident with a bow than because she had any doubt of the outcome “—and the ranch.”
“The punch at the wedding was spiked,” Russ interjected.
Clearly annoyed, Brad pinned the detective with his gaze. “I’ve admitted—numerous times—that while I may have had a few glasses, I wasn’t drunk. What I’ve told you is accurate.”
Margot’s gaze turned speculative.
“I had a full house,” Brad explained. “He had three queens. Normally a winning hand. Just not this time.”
“You didn’t have to take it.” Even she could hear the recrimination in her tone. “The ranch, I mean.”
“You think I wanted to take it? You know your dad. He shoved the deed in my face the next day.” Brad lifted his hands, let them drop. “Then he was gone. No one has seen him since.”
“One-way ticket to New York City,” Russ confirmed.
“He was out of money.” Margot’s head swam. None of this made any sense. “Yet he had enough to buy himself a train ticket all the way across the country?”
Brad shrugged. “Apparently.”
“We’re thinking someone bought him that ticket.” Russ cast a pointed glance at Brad.
“I didn’t buy it,” Brad answered with a cold stare of his own. “I made that very clear.”
“Who would do something like that?” Margot’s voice rose then broke. “Who would put a drunken old man on a train to New York City, a place where he doesn’t have any friends or family? Where someone could hurt him or—”
She closed her eyes briefly and fought for control.
“We initially assumed he’d gone to see his sister—”
“Until you found out she lived in New Jersey, not New York, and has been dead almost two years.”
“That’s right.” Russ looked surprised but his tone remained carefully controlled. “How did you know—?”
“I told her,” Brad said. “And I also mentioned how we’ve been trying to track her down ever since Boyd disappeared.”
“I’m sorry about that. I should have stayed in closer contact.”
“Why didn’t you?” Russ asked bluntly, his shrewd hazel eyes fixed on her.
Margot resisted the urge to squirm under that penetrating gaze. Instead she squared her shoulders. “We argued the last time I called.”
Russ’s gaze narrowed on her face. He lifted his pencil over his notepad. “What about?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Margot saw Brad pull out the chair and take a seat on her right. He wrapped both hands around his mug and leaned back.
“About everything.” Margot gave a humorless laugh. “I told him I won second place in Cortez. He reminded me that ‘second place is the first loser.’ I could tell by how he was slurring his words he’d been drinking. I confronted him.”
“What happened then?” Russ leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, his intense eyes never leaving her face.
“He told me if I was going to be on his ass every time we spoke, not to bother calling again.” She blinked away the tears that flooded her eyes. “He’d had a hard time of it since my mother died. He told me numerous times how hard it was to be here without her. I thought if I gave him some space...”
“There was no way for you to know he’d take off.” When Brad reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze, Margot didn’t know which of them was more surprised. He quickly pulled back.
“Then I got injured.” Margot relayed the events of that day. “I ended up in the hospital. I called him but he didn’t answer and there was no voice mail. He refused to set it up. I must have tried to reach him at least fifty times. I was angry. I was hurt.”
“Were you worried?” Russ asked.
“I would have been, if we hadn’t had that blowup.” Margot blew out a breath and closed her eyes. Once she had her rioting emotions suppressed, she lifted her chin and fixed her gaze on Russ. “When the doctors told me I was out for the season, I stayed with a friend in Cheyenne for a bit but she had a small apartment and a roommate. I was in the way. I decided to come home. I planned to heal my hard head and hopefully mend fences with my father.”
Vivian nudged her hand with her nose and Margot patted the dog’s head, grateful for the show of support.
“When I got here, my dad was gone.” She gestured with one hand toward Brad. “He was here, acting as if he owned the place.”
“Well, I’m afraid he does own the Leap of Faith.” Russ cast a censuring glance in Brad’s direction.
Emotions rose hot and hard, nearly suffocating Margot
