house. Johnny Benton came around yesterday, with his wife. They said they’d come to tidy the house in case folks came out here. Someone had to get the clothes for Albert and Em.” He looked stricken at the pain that crossed Stephanie’s face. “Sorry, Ms. Stephanie.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Not your fault, Rodney. It’s my fault that strangers had to pick out my folks’ funeral clothes.”
Disapproval crossed Hank’s face, followed by sorrow. He started to say something, then closed his mouth.
“I’ll give you a hand patching the hole. Then we’d better check the rest of the house.”
“If there was another snake, Familiar would have warned us.”
Hank let a chuckle escape. “A snake cat. Now I’ve seen it all.”
“Familiar is a lot more than that,” Stephanie said, and she finally felt the darkness shift from her heart. “He’s a detective.”
“Like a private eye?” Rodney was laughing.
“Exactly. And I’ve hired him to look into the murder of my aunt and uncle.”
Rodney paled. “Murder? It was an accident. That building collapsed on them.”
A heavy silence settled on the table. Rodney sipped his coffee. “It was sort of strange,” he said at last. “Not a cloud in the sky.”
“What time did it happen?”
“About 1:30 in the afternoon.” Rodney frowned. “Em normally wasn’t outside at that time, but she musta gone to help Albert with that old tractor. It was giving him fits. We’d all gone up to the Twisty Creek pasture to ride the north fences. There’d been a lot of trouble with someone cutting the wire.”
Stephanie kept her face carefully blank. “How long had that been going on?”
“About four weeks,” Hank answered. “They were cutting the fence between the Running Z and McCammon. Just about every other day we’d have to separate the herds. It was becoming very annoying.”
“Did you ever catch who was doing it?”
“We never could get ’em. We found some tire tracks and the sheriff sent out a deputy to make a mold, but we never heard a thing about it. ’Course Albert and Em were killed…” His sentence trailed off.
He didn’t have to finish. No one was interested in catching fence vandals after the tragedy of a double death. Stephanie felt Hank’s gaze on her, and she stared at him. His eyes were as green as a winter rye pasture, set perfectly in his rugged face. His dark hair contrasted with his tanned skin, completed with a straight nose and lips that made her think of the pleasures of kissing.
“I’ll check with the sheriff and see what he matched with those molds,” she said, clearing the thoughts of Hank from her mind.
“Rodney, we still have a few hours of light. Why don’t we ride those fences?” Hank asked.
“Sure thing. To be honest, I’d be glad of the company. Not much cause to check the fences now, though. The cows are gone.”
Hank’s smile was lopsided. “That’s right. The only harm would be that my cows could get some water from Twisty Creek.”
Stephanie realized then what he’d come to ask her. “Hank, you’re welcome to the creek and the pasture until I get Uncle Al—my cows back.” She saw his eyebrows lift at her emphasis. “But you might still want to ride that fence. We need to collect evidence, and the wind coming up this evening might destroy it.”
“Let’s search the house and get busy,” Hank said. He put his coffee cup in the sink and headed through the dining room with Rodney.
The door closed behind them and Stephanie began to clean up the kitchen. Through the closed door, she heard Rodney’s voice.
“She’s smart and she’s pretty, Hank. Wonder why she ain’t married?”
THE HOUSE HAD BEEN FREE of additional snakes. Only the black cat had been found, asleep, in the bedroom that had to be Stephanie’s. The room had been done in pale ivory eyelet lace, the carpet a dark beige. It reflected a certain sophistication, even for the nineteen-year-old girl who’d lived in it. The pale blond furniture would not be the taste of most young girls, and Hank realized it even as he lifted the dust ruffle and checked under the bed. An old pair of cowboy boots caught his eye and he pulled them out. They were well-worn, the heels rounded and the toes scuffed. He put them back and turned to the closet.
Several formal gowns reflected high school dates and glory. He moved a few abandoned pairs of shoes and determined the closet was empty of snakes.
“Meow.”
He turned to find the black cat watching him. He didn’t believe a word that Stephanie had said about the cat’s detective agency, but he found the feline’s stare unsettling. It was as if the cat were assessing him. Maybe that was just a cat’s personality. He was a dog man—no use for sleeping critters too lazy to even catch a mouse.
He stepped past the cat and felt a sharp, intense pain in his calf. He looked down and saw the cat had deliberately snagged him. “Hey!”
Familiar turned him loose and trotted back to the closet. “Meow.”
He had the strangest sense the cat wanted to tell him something. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Timmy in the well?”
The cat gave him a long hiss.
“So, for all your many talents, you don’t appreciate Lassie jokes?” He realized too late that he was talking to the cat as if it could understand him.
“Meow.” Familiar disappeared in the open closet and began to scratch at the carpet.
“I think that’s a reason to get evicted from the house,” Hank said, walking over to catch the cat. He’d put him outside and let him scratch some tree trunks or fence posts.
He leaned into the closet and saw that Familiar had moved several pairs of shoes. He clawed at the carpet. Curious, Hank got down on his knees. The carpet had been pulled loose from the corner of the closet, and not by the cat. He lifted the flap, pulling it out to reveal a trap door. Hank hesitated only a moment before he pulled the door free and looked down to see the ground below the house. It was an escape hatch. In case of fires, he supposed.
He looked at the cat. It did seem the feline had known about this and decided to show him. “I’ll get a board and nail it up,” he said. If someone was sneaking around McCammon Ranch, he didn’t want them to be able to slip into the house. The cat’s gaze was so intense, he found he couldn’t look away. At last he realized what the cat wanted. “Okay, thank you,” he said, flipping the carpet back and feeling like the biggest kind of fool for talking to a cat.
He found an empty-handed Rodney at the other end of the house. They walked out together, headed for the barn.
THE OLD OAK BOX was still tucked in the wall safe behind the Remington where Uncle Albert had always left it. Stephanie carefully removed it from the safe and carried it to the kitchen.
Her heart
