had to get out. He couldn’t let himself get sucked back into this world. Not when it was clear that Gwen could barely tolerate him. He couldn’t carry her through this like he used to carry her through the nights her mother had left her alone when Gwen was younger. He couldn’t save her—he’d already tried.
He rushed outside to the barn. Horses he could understand. Women, on the other hand... Women were an entirely different issue.
One of the barn cats sauntered over to him as he made his way inside. It wrapped itself around his legs, rubbing against him. He picked it up and scratched under its chin as it purred and kneaded the front of his shirt. As he stood there stroking the long gray hair of the cat, he glanced up at the hayloft. They had spent so many hours up there, just him and Gwen. They had been able to talk for hours; it had always seemed like they would never run out of things to discuss. They’d had this wonderful bond with each other that, no matter how many women he’d dated since, he was never able to re-create. Maybe it was the one thing he missed most about her—their deep bond, so strong that he could feel it even when no words were spoken.
Putting the cat down, he moved over to the bales of hay. He pulled off flakes and dropped them into the stalls for each of the horses. Though it was cold, in an effort to keep the hay from digging into his uniform, he stripped off his uniform shirt and his ballistics vest, leaving only his tank top. It felt good, the chill of the winter air, the scratching of the hay against his arms and the smell of horses on his skin.
He wasn’t involved with the business of his family’s ranch enough anymore to really help in the everyday comings and goings, and sometimes, when he caught a whiff of fresh hay or the heady fragrance of sweet oats, he missed being more available.
There was a thin cough, and he turned around. Gwen stood in the barn’s doorway, looking at him in a way that made him wonder if it was attraction or revulsion. He moved to grab his shirt and vest, but she stopped him with a wave of the hand.
“It’s fine. Just be comfortable. There’s not going to be anyone up at the cabin who’s going to care if you’re wearing your uniform. At least not since...” She trailed off, as though she couldn’t bring herself to talk about Bianca.
He grabbed his shirt and slipped it over his tank top anyway. It felt strange to be standing in front of her even semi undressed. In all their time together, they hadn’t taken things to a deeply physical level.
He stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was still the same girl he had known before, or if she had given up on her quest to wait until marriage. He’d always appreciated, or at least respected, the effort it took to restrict oneself from pleasures of the flesh, but it wasn’t a dogma that he had been able to follow.
She looked disappointed when he put on the shirt—or was she relieved? It would have been so much easier if he could just read minds.
The drive to the cabin was short, but the entire time he had been glancing over at her, wondering what she was thinking and trying to hold back from asking her the million questions running through his mind. Most were stupid, insipid... Whether or not she liked her job at the ranch, what it was like to still be living with her mother or, for that matter, why she was still choosing to live with Carla. No matter if Gwen stayed or went, her mother would continue her self-destructive behavior. It was only a matter of time...
He pulled to a stop in front of the cabin that Gwen had directed them to. There was a small chicken coop outside it, and there was a bevy of hens clucking inside, waiting to be fed.
Gwen nearly jumped out of the patrol unit and ran to the chickens. She grabbed the bucket out of the galvanized can beside the coop and poured the cracked corn into the trough. The hens came running in a flurry of feathers and clucks.
He stood and watched her, taking in the sight of her body flexing as she moved around the coop. She seemed nervous, but he could have her all wrong. Most people he could read at a glance. The ability to tell whether someone was lying, hiding something or telling the truth came with the job. Yet he didn’t have the same innate gift when it came to Gwen. She was his enigma.
“I’m going to go inside. Feel free to take your time out here, okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. That’s fine. I’ll be out here if you need me.” She didn’t bother to look back at him, fully consumed with opening the henhouse to collect this morning’s eggs. This late in the year, without a light in the henhouse, they both knew that there wouldn’t be many, if any, eggs, but he didn’t say anything.
He walked to the front of the cabin. Its walls were made of the aged, gray logs like those from the pioneering days when the town had been founded. The wooden door sat crooked in the frame, listing like Bianca’s drunk mother. For a moment, he wondered if Bianca had left it like that on purpose as a reminder of what she had to move past in order to live her own life.
He pushed the door open. His breath caught in his throat. Papers were strewn around the room, every drawer was open and the couch cushions had been thrown from their places, one precariously close to the woodstove. Either Bianca was the kind who never cleaned, or someone had turned the place over.
In an effort to avoid causing Gwen any more emotional trauma, he walked inside and closed the door. He pulled out his camera and clicked a few pictures. It was odd how, in just a few short hours, his assignment had led him from thinking this was a natural death to a possible suicide to now something much more sinister.
He couldn’t say if Bianca’s death was a murder. Nothing about Bianca’s body or presentation at the scene had pointed toward a struggle or malevolent act, but his instincts told him to push the investigation deeper.
Unfortunately, he was leaving in a few days for a prisoner transfer in Alaska. If he followed his instincts, he could be wrapped up in this investigation for weeks—and he had been wrong before. Just a year ago, he’d wasted time investigating a case similar to this. Maybe it had been his bravado, or his need to follow every lead, but he’d spent two weeks tracking down every thread just to find out from the medical examiner that their victim had died of a methadone overdose. The guy had been seeking euphoria—and all he’d found was the grave.
Wyatt walked through the cabin, careful not to disturb things in case he needed to call in his team of investigators—and what a team it was, two of the least-trained CSI guys anyone had ever met. In fact, he wasn’t sure if Lyle and Steve had ever gone to college, or if their certification had come from some online university where they never had to actually set foot on a crime scene to graduate.
There was a squeak from behind him. Gwen stood there, her hands over her mouth as she stared at the mess of papers, clothes and overturned chairs.
“Do you know who would have done this?” he asked, staring at her.
Her eyes were wide and she dropped her balled fists to her sides. She glanced at him and shook her head.
He’d been wrong about Gwen. He’d thought he couldn’t read her. Yet when she looked at him, he could see she was lying.
They’d gone through everything. Or at least it felt like it. Gwen closed her sister’s dresser drawer with a thump.
“Anything?” Wyatt asked, motioning toward the drawer that had been filled with her sister’s bras.
From an objective point of view, it struck her as a bit funny and maybe
