“So you’re dead set against marriage. Interesting. Is it because of your job?”
She took one hand from the wheel and held it out, palm up. “Not really. And don’t get me wrong. I like men just fine and I’m not anti-marriage. It’s a perfect choice for some people, but it’s not for me. I’ve already had my family, and while I adore every member of the Neal clan and I’d go out on the skinniest limb for any one of my brothers or sisters, I’m just not prepared to go that route again. I raised babies when I was still very young, I changed diapers, took temperatures, dried eyes and monitored curfew to help my mother out. Now I’m done with that. I like living alone and being free to make my own choices. And I intend to go on doing just that. I’m a lifer now, a loner. So don’t get panicky, Hannon. The women in the station may bat their eyes at you and run to get you coffee if you purr at them, but you’re safe from me.”
He chuckled. “You may find this hard to believe, but in spite of being a Kincaid, I don’t expect anyone, under any circumstances, to fetch coffee for me. And as for being safe from you, well…” He held out both hands. “Somehow I just wasn’t all that worried that you were going to crawl across the gearshift and onto my lap.”
David was surprised and entranced by the slight blush on her cheeks. She was tough, but not that tough. She didn’t want to get married, and it sounded as if she had good reasons. He had some good reasons of his own, the chief one being that he’d been a loner way too much of his life to be real good at maintaining a relationship for very long, not to mention all the bad relationships he’d watched his friends get embroiled in. But marriage, a wife, kids, had a certain dream like fantasy appeal to him. He wished he had the ability to make a go of it. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Besides, right now, there were more important things to consider.
“You think we’ve dropped enough barriers to enable you to trust me with a few of the details of the case now?” he asked.
Gretchen felt the low hum of David’s voice go through her like a touch that could seduce every secret out of her. But of course, they were working together on this case. It was time to give her assistant some assistance.
“You know that a resort casino is in the plans, and that part of it is going to be built on Kincaid land?”
He nodded. “The land belongs to distant relatives. It’s destined to be inherited by Gabriel Reilly Baxter, Garrett Kincaid’s youngest grandson.”
“Yes, the Kincaid portion, about fifteen acres, will house a hotel and spa, and the other half of the development being built on thirty acres of the Laughing Horse Reservation will consist of the casino as well as some honeymoon cottages up in the mountains. It’s a joint venture, one that makes sense, I suppose. The Cheyenne provide land that can be used for a casino and the private investors chip in the funding. Lyle Brooks has rounded up some silent investors to finance the project, and Lyle’s in charge of much of the operation. You’re friends with him?”
David frowned. “Why do you say that?”
She shook her head, strands of her hair catching on her lips. She carelessly freed it and gave him a look. “Lyle’s another distant relative, isn’t he? Another Kincaid, a grandson of Garrett Kincaid’s, and a member of the country club set I’m sure you belong to.” She wanted to apologize for what had to sound like an accusation, but she had to place all her cards on the table.
“You could have mentioned those things to Rafe yesterday.”
“Rafe knows what I know. It’s obviously not a problem for him.”
“And for you?”
She studied him, a small frown between her eyes. “It’s just something that needed mentioning.”
“No need to apologize,” he said, even though she hadn’t done that. “You’re right. It needed mentioning. I suppose that’s why Rafe put you in charge. You don’t avoid the tough questions even though it would be easier to do so.”
“No, I don’t, but I do try to be fair.” It was the best she could do. He needed to know that she would still be cautious, but that she would trust him as far as she could, given the circumstances.
“I’m beginning to see that, and I agree that you need to know more of my background. The fact is that Lyle and I don’t share martinis at the country club. We come from two different sides of the family and until very recently, long after I moved away, Lyle’s side lived completely in western Montana. I don’t really know the man.”
Gretchen gave him a nod. He supposed that meant that she trusted him a little bit anyway. Or maybe it merely meant that she didn’t see any point in arguing about what she couldn’t change.
He stared at her, trying to decipher that almost unreadable expression she worked so hard at maintaining.
“All right,” he said. “So Lyle is heavily involved in the resort/casino deal and then a skeleton shows up when they begin to dig the hotel site. I’ve heard that much and also that there was a bullet lodged in the rib bone. The bones belong to Raven Hunter, a Native American who went missing from the reservation thirty years ago.”
“A man who had made Jeremiah Kincaid angry by falling in love with Jeremiah’s sister, Blanche,” she added.
“You didn’t add the obvious—that Blanche was my aunt and she died in child birth. The baby she gave birth to is my cousin, Summer. It’s an old story, one the Kincaids don’t talk about too much. And now there’s a body and an old murder to solve. Anything I should know that wasn’t in the file?” David asked.
She shook her head. “We’ve already inter viewed those people in the area who might have had a link to Raven in any way. Old friends, your mother, your aunt, people on the rez who came in contact with him. It’s all there in black and white, what little there is. Right now the case is more or less on hold while we wait for Jackson Hawk, the tribal attorney, to locate Storm Hunter, Raven’s brother. We need to find out if Storm knows any more than we do about what happened all those years ago. But Storm’s been gone from the area almost as long as Raven has.”
David blew out a deep breath. “With the passage of time and the two principals both deceased, this case will be a challenge. And Peter Cook?”
“A construction worker,” she explained. “It appears that he slipped and fell into the hole he’d dug. Until we know more, excavation has ceased completely.”
“Any new leads coming in?”
She had to smile at that one. “Every day. Ghosts. Aliens. People who claim they were out walking their dog in the middle of nowhere and they heard a rustle in the bushes.”
His smile indicated a knowledge of what she was talking about. He’d been doing this for a long time, too. “Any likely leads, I guess I should have said.”
“Not yet.”
But at that moment, the radio crackled and the dispatcher came on. An armed robbery in progress. Just outside of town on a road they’d passed minutes ago.
Gretchen spun the car around and headed for the scene.
A hundred yards from their destination, she slowed and David got out of the car. As she came around the side, he pinioned her with a look. “I’ll go in through the back door,” he said, his voice barely stirring the air. “Stay outside the front in case someone tries to make a run out that door.”
