liked a woman who was as smart-mouthed as me. You are going to fit right in.” Chad laughed. “Did you guys get the squatters handled?”
“Not exactly,” Trevor said. He cocked his head toward Sabrina in a silent message to Chad.
Chad’s smile disappeared. “Sabrina, do you mind getting started with your cleaning up here in the kitchen? ’Fraid I may have made a bit of a mess in there.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped and instead gave Trevor a look as though she hoped he would step in and allow her to take part in their conversation.
“Uh, actually…” Trevor stammered. “Sabrina, you must be pretty tired. Like I said, if you wanted to head back to your place—”
“No,” she said, taking off her jacket and hanging it in the coat closet just inside the door. “I’ll get started in the kitchen. I have a job to do, and this place isn’t going to get any cleaner if I just go back to my place.”
Sabrina strode into the kitchen and the door swung shut behind her.
“Let’s step outside,” Trevor said.
Chad followed him out and Trevor made sure to close the door behind his brother. He glanced in the front window of the house to make sure that Sabrina wasn’t anywhere in sight. Thankfully, it looked as though she was in the kitchen.
“What in the hell were you thinking sending that woman out there?” Trevor asked, turning back to his brother. “Do you know what the hell I found in that shack? And because you were in some freaking hurry, Sabrina saw. Now she’s a possible loose end.”
“First, you were supposed to get out there long before her. You don’t get to make this my fault. You should have stuck to the schedule.”
“Had I known you were sending someone out behind me, I would have. How about you learn to freaking communicate?” Even as he said it, he couldn’t help but feel that he was the pot calling the kettle black.
“What exactly did she see?” Chad asked, taking a step back from him like he was afraid that Trevor was going to take a swing.
“That damned Cussler guy was splattered all over the walls. Been dead at least two or three days.” He pointed in the direction of the shanty. “I had to convince Sabrina that the dude was better off if we just left him and waited for the family to come back and collect his remains.”
Chad turned around as he ran his hands down his face. He stomped as he turned back. “Are you kidding me? We haven’t been here a week and there’s already a dead bastard in our back forty?”
“You should have just left me to handle my end of things, man. I had this taken care of. All I needed was a little time. But no, you wanted to rush things. To make sure everything was cleaned out and taken care of before Zoey and Jarrod arrive.”
“You know how they can be—they were even more adamant than I was about the absolute need for privacy here. This family is all we have, Trevor.”
“You don’t need to tell me that.”
Chad took in a long breath as though he were trying to collect himself. “So, was the guy’s death a suicide or what?”
“There’s no goddamned way. Someone shot him.” He thought of the handgun he’d left sitting on the ground beside the dead man. “The gun was too far away from the body. No major stippling around the entrance wound, and the bullet had lost enough velocity that it didn’t even travel through the entire skull—there was no exit wound. I’m guessing whoever pulled the trigger had to be at least ten to fifteen feet away.”
“And where did you say you found the man?”
“He was sitting up in a chair, like someone got the drop on him. He didn’t even have time to stand. He didn’t see it coming.”
“What about the rest of the hillbilly clan…did you find them? They alive or dead?”
“Hell if I know.” Trevor threw his hands into the air. “I’m hoping that they just ran off. We don’t need a dead family on our hands.”
“Did you get a chance to look around?” Chad asked. “Wait, did you and Sabrina call in the locals?”
Finally, Chad was beginning to understand the implications of his screwup. If only he hadn’t been in a hurry, they wouldn’t already be compromised.
“Sabrina went along with keeping it quiet, but I don’t know how long she’ll be up for maintaining that.” He glanced back inside, but the beautiful and stubborn woman was nowhere in sight. “She hasn’t been acting right, ever since…” I held her in my arms. He didn’t finish his thought.
“Huh? Ever since what?” Chad pressed.
“Since she saw the body. I’m afraid she may be a liability.”
“What are you saying?” Chad asked. “You think she needs to disappear?”
“No,” Trevor said, almost the same moment his brother had uttered the question. “No. We can’t harm her. She hasn’t done anything wrong. And who knows, maybe I made a mistake in thinking she can’t be trusted. Maybe she won’t be a problem.”
Chad shook his head. “What if she does tell someone? What if it comes out that we tried to cover up a man’s death at our new ranch?”
Trevor stared at his boots. “She wouldn’t…”
“Dude, if she tells anyone… First, we are going to look as guilty as hell. Second, our faces are going to be spread across the world in a matter of hours.”
“She won’t say anything.”
“And how are you going to know if she does or doesn’t? For all we know, she’s in there texting her mother’s brother’s cousin about what you guys found. Hell, she could be sending pictures of the dead guy.” Chad paused. “You know that I don’t want to hurt an innocent woman. Not after what happened in Turkey… And Trish…” Their sister’s name fell off his brother’s tongue like it was some secret code, some unspoken link between past and present.
“Then let’s leave her be.”
Chad shook his head. “No. If you don’t want to neutralize the threat, you’re going to have to watch her like a hawk. Every move she makes, you need to be there… hovering.”
“And what about the squatters? The body?”
Chad sighed. “What about it? Like you said, let that guy’s family handle it.”
“And what if they do, and they call the police?”
“If they haven’t already, they aren’t about to now.” Chad stared at him. “For all we know, one of them is the one who pulled the trigger—or else they’re lying out there in the woods somewhere, too. Either those bastards are on the run or they aren’t going to be spilling any secrets any time soon.”
“Do you think I should go back out there? See if I can find them? Make sure that they’re going to stay quiet?”
Chad
