Page 177 of Taken Away

Red didn’t look at Scout. His gaze stayed on Burke, hard as flint.

“Talley Feed and Tack,” Red growled, chest rising under his denim shirt. “That’s where I heard it. Walter Grady had his mouth running, telling the counter boys Mabel was fixin’ to sell the cattle farm. Thirty years, Burke. Thirty years I’ve sweated over this herd. This ranch was as much my life as it was hers. Fixed every foot of wire, pulled every calf out of the frozen mud, and she was gonna sign it away, without even giving me a heads-up?”

“So you went to the house,” Burke said.

“Damn right I went to the house,” Red snapped, taking a step forward, his fists clenching at his sides. “I walked right in there, and I asked her to her face if it was true. I was angry. I didn’t hide it then, and I’m not hiding it now. I told her she wasn’t going to sell this place out from under me.”

Burke’s voice dropped into a lower register. “And when she didn’t back down, you told her she’d ‘find out the hard way.’”

The silence that hit the pasture was immediate, heavy enough to hear the wind moving through the tall fescue behind the barn.

“So an old busybody walks into your office, tells you me and Mabel had words, and suddenly I’m your killer?”

Burke didn’t bite. “I’m not here to talk about who came into my office. I’m here because those were your words.”

Red huffed out a sharp, bitter breath, shaking his head. “You really think if I was gonna kill Mabel Blackwood, I’d stand in her dining room and threaten her in front of a witness?” He snorted. “Come on, Burke. I might be mad, but I ain’t stupid.”

“Mabel’s hands were shaking so bad she couldn’t pour the tea after you left, Red,” Scout said, his pad still closed but his eyes tracking every micro-movement of the old man’s shoulders. “She spilled it all over the lace cloth. She couldn’t stop.”

That hit him.

Red went still, his jaw working like the picture of Mabel’s trembling hands had cut straight through the anger. He looked away toward the grazing cattle.

“She didn’t look like she was shaking to me,” he muttered. “She smiled and told me to get my muddy boots off her rug. She didn’t look sick.”

Burke studied him. The anger was still there. So was the regret.

Burke let a beat stretch, then eased in a notch softer.

“You sure didn’t pull any punches with her,” he said. “And she was having some issues.”

Red’s head snapped back around. “Well, hell, I didn’t know it,” he shot back. “Me and Mabel Blackwood been going head-to-head like two old bulls for years. That ain’t new. She’d have skinned me alive if she thought I was goin’ soft on her now.”

His mouth twisted. “June’s just a busybody lookin’ for fire where there ain’t any. Always has been.”

Burke had interviewed enough killers to know guilt and grief weren’t the same thing.

The trouble was, sometimes they looked exactly alike.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Blackwood Estate Winery

Staff Meeting

By the time Aubrey walked into the conference room off the mezzanine, half the Blackwood staff had already claimed their usual seats.

Lockwood leaned against the wall near the windows, arms folded across his chest; Zack Fowler sat sideways in one of the metal chairs, long legs sprawled. Eli from maintenance and two cellar hands clustered near the far end. Savannah and Chloe shared the middle stretch of the table, Savannah with her tablet open and stylus in hand, Chloe with a legal pad and three uncapped pens scattered in front of her like ammunition.

Walter Grady sat closest to the head of the table, a thick binder open, reading glasses perched low on his nose. Several field workers filled the remaining chairs. Red Stephens stood near the door, hat in hand.

Bennett stood at the front of the room with one hand braced on the back of an empty chair. He’d traded yesterday’s suit for his usual dark jeans and black T-shirt, but the shadows under his eyes hadn’t gone anywhere.

He glanced up when Aubrey stepped in.

“Come on in,” he said. “Find a spot.”

She slid into the empty chair beside Walter, setting her coffee on the table. Moose lay outside in the hall, his massive body half-blocking the doorway like he’d appointed himself bouncer.