Page 22 of Indigo Ridge (The Edens 1)

tailgate, giving us some space.

Griffin stood, but his feet didn’t move. He towered over us as I asked my questions and took my notes.

It was fairly straightforward. Conor had come out to fix the fence per Griffin’s orders. He’d caught sight of Lily’s dress on the rocks and rushed to the body. He hadn’t tried to move her but he’d picked up her hand to check for a pulse. The tattoo, as I’d suspected, had given her identity away. From there, he’d climbed down and called Griffin.

“Thank you, Conor.” I gave him a sad smile. “I’ll probably have a few follow-up questions for you.”

“Okay.” A tear streaked down his cheek. “We went to high school together. Lily and me. We dated our junior year. Broke up but she was always . . .”

The tears came faster.

Finding a dead body was never easy. Finding someone you loved . . . this would haunt him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.” His chin quivered. “Wish she had talked to me. Wish I had talked to her.”

“This isn’t your fault.” Griffin’s tall body dropped beside mine. “You head on out with Jim, okay?”

“What about the fencing truck?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Conor shoved to his feet, his balance unsteady.

Griffin stood and clamped a hand around Conor’s arm, escorting him to where Jim was waiting.

I followed at a distance, watching as Griffin hugged the kid and helped him into the passenger seat of a white truck. The door was marked with an E and underscored with a U-shaped bar beneath—the Eden ranch emblem.

Griffin spoke to Jim for a moment before the older man nodded, then went to the driver’s side.

“Will he stay with Conor?” I asked Griffin as Jim and Conor pulled away, rolling down a two-tire track.

“He will.”

“I need to keep this quiet for a little bit so I can ensure we have the right identity, then notify next of kin.”

“Lily’s mom is a nurse at the nursing home. Allen can get you her information.”

“What if it’s not Lily?”

“It’s her, Winslow. We know our own people.”

As in, I wasn’t one of them. Ouch.

A new trail of dust followed a vehicle down the main gravel road. Hopefully it was the medical examiner.

“This is your property, correct?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Is this road ever closed? With a gate at night or something?”

“No.” He shook his head. “The property on the other side of the road used to belong to another ranch, but I bought it two years ago. This is all Eden property now. There’s no reason to gate it off other than to segment pastures for cattle.”

“Do you ever have people drive out here?”

“Not really. It’s private property.” He fisted his hands on his hips. “Why?”

“Have you seen any strange vehicles coming and going this week?”