Renee had come or gone. But at, oh, three, four in the morning... Sure.”
He sent Cronin with Ben to check out the garage itself. The structure was detached from the original farmhouse where Daniel Barnard’s mother still lived. Through a small dusty window, Ben could see the blue sedan. The lock on the side door was one of those push-button models, not a dead bolt. Anyone good with a paperclip could have gotten in. The main door, the cowboy told him, had an automatic opener.
“So Mrs. Barnard can drive straight on in, like in the winter. Daniel installed it himself.”
“How long have you worked here?” Ben asked idly.
“Only about a year.” Jim Cronin’s face was boyish, despite the beginnings of lines at the corners of his hazel eyes. “I like to move around. See the country.”
Not so different from the ski bums who operated lifts up at Juanita Butte, or the temporary crews that fought fires in the dry woods every summer.
“Barnard good to work for?” Ben asked.
“The best,” the man said simply. “Cutting horses bred and taught their tricks here are in the top ten every year. I’d like to train horses, not just ride ‘em and muck up after ’em. This is the place to learn.”
The two men walked back to the barn where Ben had left his car. Ben thanked Jim Cronin for his time and watched him disappear into the barn. Well down the aisle, Lee LaRoche appeared briefly, looking Ben’s way. When his gaze met Ben’s, he tipped his hat and faded back into the shadowy interior of the huge barn. Had he been watching for Ben? Making sure Cronin went right back to work?
Ben paused before getting behind the wheel of his car. He liked to take in his surroundings, soak them up as he did the sun’s midday warmth in winter. It never paid to be hasty, he’d found; he learned things on a subliminal level if he allowed time.
Giving him curious glances and civil nods, a man and a woman rode by. The horses ambled, heads down, sweat darkening shoulders and flanks. Tiny puffs of dust bloomed beneath their hooves. Reins lay slack against the dark shiny necks.
Car door open, Ben watched them go, the horses both possessing the powerful, chunky hindquarters of the quarter horse breed, the two riders swaying easily in the Western saddles. Two barns away, a mare and foal were being loaded into a fancy-looking trailer. The foal didn’t want to go, and kept shying away at the last minute, skinny legs flying. The men doing the loading were patient, giving the skittish colt time to settle down. In the arena, a different horse was being worked now. A gray-haired man with a skinny butt sat on the fence watching, heels hooked over a rail.
Busy place, this. An unlikely choice to burglarize. No, someone had wanted to send a message: I can get at you anywhere.
More than the blood or the stolen pickup truck, the license plates lifted from Shirley Barnard’s car were what worried Ben. The message was not a comforting one.
And he had to believe, it wouldn’t be the last.
Ben slid in behind the wheel and slammed his car door. Time to be getting up to Daniel Barnard’s place, before Abby started to worry about his absence.
In your dreams, he jeered, and started the car.
THE LAST TO SIT DOWN, Abby scooted her chair forward and braced herself for an in-depth analysis of the arson fire set in the pickup truck.
In his paternalistic mode, Daniel Barnard looked around the table with an air of quiet satisfaction. The troops were gathered. Even Will, Meg’s sixteen-year-old son, had been allowed to stay. Only Emily, Meg’s three-year-old adopted daughter wasn’t at the table; Meg had settled her in the living room where she was out of earshot but in sight, happily occupied with a pile of blocks and half a dozen puzzles.
Meg had even wanted to invite Jack Murray, her former lover and Will’s father. “This concerns Will,” she’d said. “Which means it concerns Jack.”
Abby had gently discouraged her sister. There were things Meg didn’t know. Jack was just as uncomfortable with Abby as she was around him.
Both did their best to encounter each other as seldom as possible.
Now, Daniel’s survey of the family complete, Abby’s brother-in-law nodded toward Shea. “Good of you to come, Ben.”
The detective inclined his head. “Abby suggested it.”
Beside him, Abby said nothing. She wasn’t about to admit that she hadn’t invited him as the investigating officer, that in fact this was a trial run for a real date. That she was trying to decide whether her original assessment of Ben Shea was accurate.
Could she have a good time with the guy? Or would he be getting serious before he broke off the first kiss?
Really, it would be too bad if she had to tell him to get lost before that kiss. Darned if he didn’t look even better out of uniform than he did in. Faded jeans hugged long, powerful muscles in his thighs. A sage-green T-shirt got just as familiar with the planes of his chest and solid biceps. Nice neck, too, Abby thought, sneaking a glance. Tanned, smooth, strong without being bullish. Assertive jaw, sexy mouth, icy clear eyes, and cheekbones prominent enough to cast shadows on his clean-shaven cheeks.
Kissing him would be fine. Better than fine, she suspected. Maybe too fine, which was her biggest fear. Only once had she come close to falling in love, and what a mistake that had been! Jack Murray had been using her. She’d been barely out of high school, but she had spent years seething at the knowledge that she’d been a Meg substitute.
No, once was enough. Giving a man the upper hand—that was scary stuff. She didn’t need it.
“Abby?”
She started, to find that her entire family—and Ben—were staring at her.
“What?” she said.
Daniel lifted his brows in that way he had. “Why don’t you get this rolling? Tell us what you found.”
“And make it snappy.” Renee chimed in. “The turkey breast is coming out of the oven in fifteen minutes, whether we’re done talking or not.”
“Well, I don’t know what you think this will accomplish, but here goes.” Succinctly, Abby described the pickup, the lack of fingerprints, the blood and the short-lived fire.
“Maybe this guy was just dumb,” suggested Scott McNeil, Meg’s big auburn-haired husband. General manager of the ski area, he knew the great American public. “Believe me, dumb is not uncommon.”
“But why would he set a fire to burn up upholstery soaked with deer blood?” Meg asked, lines of worry puckering her forehead. She sat with her hands splayed on her belly, swollen with a baby due in a few weeks.
Daniel leaned forward. “Maybe because he took it out of season. He was afraid somebody would see the deer if he slung it in the bed of the pickup.”
“He could have just put a tarp over it,” Renee said. “Plastic garbage sacks. Anyway, the truck was stolen. He was abandoning it. Why bother with the fire?”
Forestalling
