Page 176 of Taken Away

June swallowed, her voice trembling. “Mabel tried to tell him to calm down, but Red wouldn’t hear it. He pointed his finger right at her nose and said that if she thought otherwise... she’d find out the hard way.”

Burke’s jaw locked, his pen making a heavy mark on the pad. “‘Find out the hard way.’ Those were his exact words, June?”

“His exact words,” June whispered, eyes wide. “It was shocking, Burke. I was sitting right there, terrified he was going to lay a hand on her. He stormed back out the front door, slamming it so hard the glass in the transom buzzed.”

She took a slow breath, fingers loosening around her purse.

“Mabel tried to brush it off,” June said softly. “She forced a laugh, said Red was just an old bull who didn’t like a new gate. She tried to go right back to eating. But Burke... when she picked up the silver pot to pour the tea? Her hands were trembling so bad she spilled it all over the lace cloth. She couldn’t stop shaking.”

Silence settled into the small office. Outside, Main Street hummed on, but inside, Mabel Blackwood’s final days turned darker in Burke’s mind.

Burke's thoughts flashed back to the autopsy. Mabel had suffered a massive heart attack during the assault—but it hadn't finished the job.

Burke set the pen aside, the weight of June’s confession tightening his chest.

“June, you stay right here with Scout and write this down exactly how you told me. Every syllable.”

He stood, reaching for his utility belt and his Stetson. When he opened the office door, his face was a hard, unyielding mask.

Out in the bullpen, Luke looked up from the briefing table, sensing the shift before Burke spoke.

“Scout,” Burke said, voice steady but edged, “grab your keys. We’re going to pay Red Stephens a visit out at Blackwood.”

Blackwood Black Angus Cattle

The drive out to the lower pasture was dead silent.

The truck’s AC hummed, doing little to relieve the heat between the front seats. Burke watched the winding blacktop of the valley road, his palms flat on the wheel. Scout stared out the passenger window, fingers tapping his legal pad.

Neither of them spoke. In Sylva, you knew every name on the dry-erase board—and their daddies, too. Confronting an old bull like Red Stephens with a statement that put a target on his back wasn’t just police work.

It was a reckoning.

When the truck cleared the gravel turnoff for the Blackwood cattle operation, dust curled up behind it. The valley opened into rolling fields of summer grass, crossed by neat runs of black split-rail fence.

Burke spotted the battered ranch truck idling near the secondary equipment barn.

Red Stephens stood by the open bed, pulling a grease gun from a metal toolbox. He didn’t look up when the truck’s tires crunched to a stop on the limestone. He didn’t blink when the engine died or the doors opened.

Burke climbed out, adjusting his Stetson against the noon glare. Scout followed a step behind, his hand resting near his belt.

“Red,” Burke said, his voice carrying flat and even across the pasture.

Red gave the grease gun a final, deliberate wipe with a rag before turning. His sun-baked eyes took in the uniforms, his weathered jaw tightening under his gray beard.

“Burke,” Red said, voice a low rasp. “Brought the whole circus today, did you?”

“We need to talk, Red. Out here. Away from the crew.”

Red snorted, tossing the rag into the truck bed. “I told your boy Hale everything I know yesterday. Spent Saturday night out here chasing a broken line of north fence in the mud. I didn’t see anyone, and no one saw me. You want it a third time so Scout can write it down in his little book?”

“This isn’t about Saturday night,” Burke said, stepping closer until he stood at the edge of the truck’s shadow. “This is about Wednesday afternoon. In Mabel’s dining room.”

The sun had baked too much color out of Red’s skin for it to drain, but the lines around his eyes tightened into dangerous slits.

“You’ve been talking to June Harper,” Red said flatly.

“June walked into my office an hour ago, shaking,” Scout said from Burke’s shoulder, his tone steady. “She said you came storming through the front door of the Victorian. Said you slammed it hard enough to rattle the hutch.”