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Abby came forward after a word with the detective and joined Cody and Lucy. “Should I call Don up to take Lucy home with them?” she asked Cody.
He was fighting strong emotions. His dog’s illness was getting to him. But he thought for a minute of the trauma the child would face if they found the body somewhere close by. He looked at Abby and nodded. “That might a very good idea.”
She called Don on his cell phone and explained in nebulous terms that she needed him to let Lucy stay with Maisie and his little daughter for a while.
Don rode up while she was still talking to him on the phone. He gave the detective a puzzled look, as if the detective was familiar to him somehow, but passed it off when he realized that his would-be cattle foreman that the visitor resembled wasn’t dressed up that fancy and he’d pretty much forgotten what the man looked like. It had been several weeks ago.
Don chuckled. “I was patrolling. We’ve had a trespasser, it seems.” He put up his cell phone and looked at Cody with both eyebrows raised.
“We’ll talk about it later, Don,” he promised. “Right now we need you to take this little one home.” He looked down at Lucy and smiled. She grinned up at him.
“I can take her back with me now. Want to ride on a big horse, Lucy?” he teased.
“Oh, yes! Can I, Aunt Abby?” she added, with a pleading look at her aunt.
Abby chuckled. “Of course you can.” She moved closer to lift Lucy onto the horse, but Cody was closer and quicker.
He lifted the girl easily, loving the feel of her soft little arms around his neck as he handed her up to Don, who put her in front of him in the saddle.
“Thanks, Sheriff Banks!” she said.
“You’re very welcome.” He thought the child was adorable. She was like the child he’d imagined he and Debby might have one day. But that dream was long dead.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Don said.
“I know that,” Abby replied. “You be good for Maisie,” she told her.
“I will, Aunt Abby.”
Don tipped his hat to Abby, turned the horse, and galloped away with Lucy.
“Now,” Abby said, turning to the two men. “What’s this about a body?”
“THAT’SWHEREITWAS,” the young man said. He’d been standing to one side with his back to Don until the foreman rode off. But now he moved forward, pointing to an indentation in the grass. He started toward it, but Cody’s arm shot out and prevented him.
“It’s a crime scene, until we know it’s not,” Cody told him. “I’ll bring out my investigator and let him go over it.”
“Well, how can he find anything if there’s no body?” the young man asked and seemed strangely nervous.
“You’d be surprised. I have a few more questions for you,” Cody added.
The young man’s phone rang. He looked at the number and ground his teeth together. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.” He moved away from the others.
Abby moved closer to Cody. “I suppose you noticed that the body print in the grass is just the size of your visiting detective,” she said under her breath.
“That’s not all I noticed,” he replied.
“I’m truly sorry, about your dog,” she said uneasily. “I had one of my own, once, when I lived here. I was about seven. My dad was drunk and my dog got in his way, trying to protect me and Mama...” She broke off. She couldn’t talk about it, even all these years later.
“I didn’t know you back then,” Cody said quietly. “We kept to ourselves, too. You’re not the only one with a father who got drunk and used his fists on people. It’s why I became a lawman. Trying to prevent other kids from going through what I did.”
“It’s why I became a paralegal,” she said after a minute. “To try and salvage people who were victims of it. You don’t meet happy people in law offices,” she said. “You meet broken lives, broken dreams, broken people.”
“Your boss, Owens, has a good practice,” he remarked. “He’s respected in the community, even by people he helps into prison.”
She smiled. “I noticed that.”
His eyes were on the detective, who was speaking rather shrilly into his phone. “You’ve done a good job with Lucy,” he said. “She’s a sweet, kind child.”
