don’t know that yet. It’s still under investigation. Messy,” she added. “Very, very messy, and it may involve some important people before it’s over. But it shouldn’t cause any problems for you three,” she added. “The murderer doesn’t have anything to fear from you.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to go. I came down to confer with a friend, and I’m late. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see Clark. What does he do?”
“He works with me on the ranch,” Boone said. He was adding up her attitude and her indifference to their wealth and her sadness. “Someday,” he said, “maybe we need to talk.”
She smiled at him with quiet eyes. “There’s nothing more to be said. We can’t change the past. I made mistakes that I can’t ever correct or atone for. Now, I just get on with my job and try to help where I can. Take care. It was very good to see the two of you, even under the circumstances.” She looked at him for a moment more, so much pain in her eyes and in her face that it made him feel guilty.
Finally, she turned and walked down the steps toward the car. Boone watched her, scowling, his hands in his pockets. She got into the car, spoke to a shorter person in the passenger seat, started the engine and slowly drove away.
WINNIE CAME BACK down after the car was gone. Her eyes were wet, her face red with bad temper despite Keely’s comforting upstairs. “She’s gone, then. Good riddance!”
Boone was pensive. “I wish you’d told me what Dad did to you.”
She managed a wan smile. “I wanted to. But I was afraid of what he might do. He really hated me. He said that I was the image of my mother, but he was going to make sure that I never wanted to follow in her footsteps.”
“He kept you in church every time it was open,” he replied quietly.
“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “And threatened every boy who came here to see me. I ended up with a non-existent social life.” She sighed. “I suppose I’m very repressed.”
“You’re also very nice,” Boone said. He put his arms around her and hugged her fondly. “You know, despite the misery of our childhoods, we’ve done pretty well, haven’t we?”
“You certainly have,” she said, wiping away the tears. She smiled. “I love Keely. She’s not only my best friend, now she’s my sister-in-law.”
He was somber. “You saved her life after the rattlesnake bit her,” he said quietly. “She would have died, and I would have been responsible.” His face hardened. “I can’t imagine why I believed such lies about her.”
“I’m sure your ex-girlfriend’s detective was convincing,” she said. “You shouldn’t look back. Keely loves you. She never stopped, not even when she thought you hated her.”
He smiled. “I was a hard case.”
“Well, we’re all victims of our childhood, I suppose. Dad was tough on you, too.”
“He couldn’t beat me down,” he recalled. “He got furious at me, but he respected me.”
“That was probably what saved you from the treatment I got.” She sighed. “It was twelve years ago when she left. I was ten. Ten years old.”
“I was technically an adult,” he recalled. “Clark was in junior high.” He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why she left Dad for our uncle. He was a shallow man, no real character and no work ethic. It’s no surprise to me that he was dealing drugs. He always did look for the easy way to get money. Dad bailed him out of jail more than once for stealing.”
“Yes.” She looked at the heirlooms lying on the coffee table. “It’s surprising that our mother brought those back. She could have sold them for a lot of money.”
“Quite a lot of money,” Boone said. He frowned, recalling what she’d said about their uncle’s possible connection to people suspected in the local murder. He looked at Winnie, but he didn’t say anything about it. She was too shaken already. It could wait. “I wonder who she had with her in the car?” he added suddenly.
She turned. “A boyfriend, maybe,” she said curtly. “I could tell he was male from upstairs. But he looked pretty short.”
“Not our business,” Boone said. He picked up a brooch with a tiny painting of a beautiful little Spanish girl, in her middle to late teens by the look of her, dressed all in black with a mantilla. Her red lipstick and a red rose in her hair under the black lace mantilla were the only bright things in the miniature. Her hair was long, black and shiny. She had a tiny, strange little smile on her lips. Mysterious. He smiled, just looking at it. “I wonder who she was?” he mused aloud.
“Turn it over. Maybe there’s initials or something,” she suggested, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
He did. He frowned. “It’s labeled with a piece of tape. Señorita Rosa Carrera y Sinclair.” He whistled. “This was our great-grandmother, when she was first married! I should have known, but the portrait of her upstairs was painted when she was older.”
Winnie looked at it, took it from his hands and studied the lovely face. “She was very beautiful.” She laughed. “And she fought bulls with a mantilla! She must have been brave.”
“If what I remember hearing from Dad about our great-grandfather is accurate, she had to be brave.”
“Truly.” She put the brooch down and looked at the other treasures. “So many rubies,” she mused. “She must have loved them.”
“You should pick out some of those to wear,” he suggested.
She laughed. “And where would I wear expensive jewelry like this?” she chided. “I work for Jacobs County dispatch. Wouldn’t the girls have a hoot seeing me decked out in these? Shirley would fall out of her chair laughing.”
“You should get out more,” he said somberly.
She gave him a long, sad look. “I’ll never get out, now. Kilraven is leaving after Christmas,” she said. Her face fell. “I gave him the raven painting at the party. He glared at me as if I’d committed murder under his nose and stormed out without even speaking to me.” She flushed. “Nothing that ever happened to me hurt so much.”
“I thought the presents were anonymous.”
“They were. I don’t know how he knew it was me. I’ve never told him that I paint.”
“He’s a strange bird,” Boone commented. “He has feelings. Sort of like you do,” he added with a grin. “Sending backup when you thought he was going to a routine domestic fight with no weapons involved.”
She nodded. “He was furious about that, too. But it saved his life.”
“You really ought to see Cash Grier’s wife, Tippy. She has those intuitions, too.”
“She knows things,” Winnie replied. “Whatever sort of mental gift this is, I don’t have her accuracy. I just feel uncomfortable before something bad pops up. Like today,” she said quietly. “I felt sick all day. Now I know why.”
“You do look like her.” He was going to add that their mother used to have
