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“Well, yes, that was obvious.”
“That was never my plan.”
Stella pulled her shirt over her head, unfastened her bra, and tossed both on the floor.
“You know I can’t think when you do that.”
“I do,” she said as she unfastened her jeans and stood before me naked. “No more thinking tonight. Let’s make love, Buck.”
30
Stella
“It’s Jinx,” I said, holding up my phone.
“Do you want me to give you some privacy?”
“God, no!”
Buck smiled, walked over, and took the phone from my hand. “Hey, Jinx, what can we do for you?” He hit the button so the call was on speaker.
“Uh, is TJ there?”
“I’m right here, Jinx.”
“I wanted to give you an update on the partial print.”
“And?” snapped Buck.
“I can’t say definitively, but I believe the print may belong to Nicholas Kerr. The computer made the match.”
I felt the bottom go out of my stomach. “Thanks, Jinx,” I muttered. “Was there anything else?”
“No. I’ll try to give you a call later.”
“Code for ‘when I’m out of hearing range,’” Buck said after the call ended.
“Don’t be like that.”
“Nothing against you, darlin’.”
“Good.”
“Busy morning,” he said when my phone chimed again, this time with a call from Decker.
“Hi, Deck,” I answered. “Buck is here. Okay to put the call on speaker?” I moved the phone from my ear and hit the button.
“Hi, Stella. Hi, Buck. I’ll make this quick. I got word that both Barb’s and Nancy’s death certificates have been issued.”
“Do you know the cause of death?”
“As we anticipated, gunshot wound for both. I’m getting ready to have the plane leave for Gunnison. Stella, if you can’t get the attorney to respond to you, let me know, and I’ll have Hammer intervene.”
“Do you think he’ll have better luck than I do?”
“Why do you think we call him Hammer? Keep me posted.”
It took twenty-four hours before I got a response from the attorney. In that time, the plane sat at the Gunnison airfield. The pilots on standby had come to stay at the Roaring Fork, where Cord put them up in two of the more recently renovated cabins.
