Chapter 11 Square One
E lla stepped out on the porch and discovered Johnny had arrived. He was halfway down the driveway, dusting off his shirt and jeans.
Gage was waiting beside his company SUV with the passenger door open for her. “Wow!” Appreciation glinted in his gaze. “You look great.”
“Thanks. So do you.” She paused to drink in his tall, dark good looks before locking up. He’d tucked a navy, button-down oxford shirt into jeans and added a belt with a wide silver and gold buckle. And not just any buckle. It was huge — the kind they handed out at rodeos for first-place championship wins.
She stared at it as he hurried her way to assist her across the porch. “You’ve been holding out on me,” she accused. “When in the world did you find time to ride a bull?” She honestly hadn’t pegged him for being that crazy.
“It’s his.” Gage jammed a thumb in Johnny’s direction.
“He lost a dare,” Johnny bragged, swaggering their way.
“That I never agreed to.” Gage looked like he was trying not to laugh .
“It’s okay. I went easy on him,” Johnny scoffed. “Unlike what he did to me when I lost to him.”
“I’m not sure I want to know?—”
“He made me wear a military-grade gas mask to work.” Johnny gripped his neck with both hands, pretending like he was gasping for air.
“I’m glad you survived.” She held up a hand. “You’re welcome to spare me the details. Nice wheels, by the way. Is that a new Jeep?”
“Nope. It was a Christmas gift to myself a few years ago, since no one else would buy it for me.” He took off his Stetson and whacked it against his knee, sending up another cloud of dust.
“Don’t!” Ella and Gage shouted in unison. Gage hurriedly stepped between her and the dust cloud to assist her into her seat and shut the door.
Once the three of them were buckled in, Gage announced, “While we’re on the topic of mud, dust, and other annoying things, my younger brother called a few minutes ago. It’s been months since I heard from him.”
Ella was happy to hear it. “Where’s he been?”
He snorted. “His standard response is that he’d have to kill me if he told me. It’s a Special Forces joke.”
It sounded very much like the fun-loving younger brother he’d described to her. “Is he stateside now?”
“Yep, and get this. He recently finished an online degree in criminal justice with an emphasis in forensic art. I think you know where I’m going with this.” He’d previously mentioned setting up some sort of video call for them.
“Oh, wow! Absolutely. When can I meet with him?” Her insides twisted with angst as she recalled the faceless creature who’d attacked her father.
“I told him I’d text him back as soon as you give me a green light.” He started the motor and headed down the driveway. “We’ve got a video phone set up in one of the Lonestar conference rooms.” He caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. “What do you think the odds are of convincing your mom to join us?”
“In our favor.” Ella doubted there was anything her mother wouldn’t do to help find her husband’s killer.
They drove through town and soon left the city limit sign behind. On the other side of it, grain silos appeared on both sides of the highway.
Gage pointed out four silver silos standing in a perfect line. “According to the local news, those are the next set of silos going up for sale.” They looked identical to the repurposed ones that had been used to build the Heart Lake Animal Rescue Sanctuary.
“Here’s some local gossip on the topic.” Johnny’s gaze followed where he was pointing. “Years ago, your mother’s family,” he pointed across the seat at Ella without turning around, “allegedly sabotaged a bunch of silos before selling them to the Bolanders.”
“Oh, really?” She could only hope it was a topic of conversation that wouldn’t come up over dinner.
“Really,” he drawled. “Let me regale you with the tale.”
During the remainder of their drive, he recounted how Mr. Walker Moneybags Radcliffe, as he called him, had decided out of the blue to update all of his silos. It sounded like something that had happened a few decades earlier. He’d subsequently offered to sell a dozen of his older silos at a steep discount to the Bolanders. Though the two families were barely on speaking terms, Creston Bolander hadn’t been able to pass up such a bargain, but he’d soon lived to regret the decision. According to the story, the silos he’d purchased from the Radcliffes had required constant repairs. He’d eventually started auctioning them off dirt cheap just to get rid of them. He’d let the animal rescue sanctuary help themselves to three of them for no more than the cost it had taken to haul them off.
“Sabotaged silos,” Ella mused. Just when you think you’ve heard it all. “Was there ever any proof?”
“Nope.” Johnny shook his head. “Most folks have long since chalked it up to a small-town legend.”
“Are the four silos we just passed some of the allegedly sabotaged ones?” She craned around to get a final glimpse of them before they disappeared.
“Nobody knows.” Johnny adopted a spooky voice. “According to another legend, two of the sabotaged silos eventually became haunted.”
“Hence the dare.” Gage pointed at his belt buckle. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but Johnny insists he caught one on video. In the event he stumbled across Billy Bob’s hideout, something well worth celebrating, I yielded to the dare I never accepted and wore the buckle.”
“You just wanted to wear the buckle,” Johnny ragged, “just admit it already.”
Gage grinned instead of answering.
“See that?” Johnny chortled, pointing at him. “We’re besties now.”
Ella chuckled. “Sorry to break it to you, bull rider, but that spot’s already taken.”
Gage braked in front of a tall black iron gate barring his entrance into Bolander & Sons Ranch. He had to roll down his window and type in a code on the security panel to open it. “Time to put your game faces on.”
They passed by a cluster of ten more silos, much taller than the four going up for sale. A complicated twist of ladders, walkways, and grain chutes were woven up and across them.
Ella caught her breath at the sight of the mansion beyond the silos. She’d stayed in hotels before that were smaller than the home Creston Bolander lived in. It was four stories of elegant sandstone. Lights glowed from nearly every window in the house in the deepening shadows of dusk outside. The front porch was round, with arched openings on three sides and a domed roof. She counted a four-car garage on one side and a six-car garage on the other.
A road forked at the courtyard and fountain in the center of it all, winding around the home to a sprawl of buildings behind it. Some looked like barns. Others looked like storage buildings. There were also two long rows of cabins she could only presume were for the employees.
This is the infamous Bolander compound.
A uniformed servant met them at the front door, offering in a stuffy voice to escort them to the dining hall.
“Lemme guess.” Johnny pretended to stare down his nose at the silver-headed guy. “The butler did it with a candlestick in the ballroom.”
The man didn’t look the least bit amused.
Ella swatted at Johnny’s arm. “This is a ranch. Pretty sure there’s no ballroom here.” She gave the older gentleman an apologetic look.
“Actually, ma’am…” He gestured for them to follow him. While leading them down the hallway, he told them a snooty-sounding story about how the owners of the home had once hosted a glittering party, which was attended by a celebrity she’d never heard of.
Johnny walked directly behind the man, making stabbing, slashing, and shooting movements .
It was all Ella could do to keep it together. She rested a hand on Gage’s arm and hissed, “Whose idea was it to bring him along?”
“I’m looking at her.” He raised her hand to his lips. “And you feel safer already.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
The butler paused at the arched entrance of the dining room to announce their presence. The high-ceilinged room was a statement in modernism, with a long glass table and twelve white leather and chrome chairs. Two gossamer oval pendants the size of whiskey barrels were suspended over them.
Ella’s mother, who’d been talking animatedly to Creston Bolander and another gentleman, hurried their way. “There you are!” Her cheeks were flushed with anger and some other emotion Ella couldn’t quite define. “Oh, honey! You look amazing.” She leaned in to air kiss Ella on both cheeks.
Ella’s grandfather and the other man stood and strolled their way, looking enormously pleased by their presence. “You’re beautiful, my dear.” Instead of shaking Ella’s hand, he tenderly enclosed it in both of his, inclining his head over it. “This is my son, Raleigh.” He let go of her hand to introduce her to the man at his side. “One of your uncles.”
Raleigh Bolander looked like money. He had a head full of professionally tousled sandy hair and a short-clipped beard with a GQ amount of frost edging it. The diamonds on his cufflinks looked real, and his gray herringbone suit was designer-grade. He wore no tie. Despite the thousands of dollars it had taken to dress his tall, slim frame, his most remarkable attribute was his eyes. They were a startling blue, just like Creston Bolander’s.
And my dad’s .
If Ella had accidentally run into Raleigh Bolander on the streets of town, she would’ve instantly known he was a Bolander. What’s more, she would’ve instantly known he was related to her father.
“I’m Ella.” She struggled through inward shadows as she extended her hand to him.
“Hello, Ella. It’s good to finally meet you.” His expression was unreadable. Though his grasp on her fingers was that of a perfect gentleman, the cruel, unshaven face of his younger brother popped into her head.
“Thank you.” She withdrew her hand as quickly as possible, wishing she could forget his brother’s filth and malice.
Though Raleigh’s manners started off impeccably, she watched a layer of ice creep into his gaze as his father finished the introductions. He shook Gage and Johnny’s hands. “Two bodyguards, ‘eh? You don’t think I can protect my own niece while she’s visiting with family?”
The vehemence in his voice surprised Ella. So did his familial claim to her. It wasn’t as if they’d ever met before.
Gage inclined his head politely. “Just friends, sir. We’re off duty.”
Her uncle didn’t apologize. However, he did stand down.
By now, it was apparent to Ella that her grandfather had forgotten all about his promise to yield an upper-level balcony to her and Gage for their dinner date. Either that, or he’d been joking about doing so in the first place.
Gage and Johnny stayed glued to her as they approached the table. Ignoring the monogrammed place cards in front of the gold-rimmed dinner plates, they claimed the chairs on either side of her.
Uncle Raleigh gave them a sardonic look and claimed the spot directly across from her. After a short disagreement, her mother and grandfather decided to claim the chairs on either side of Raleigh. They immediately returned to their bickering, leaning both in front of him and behind him to send their verbal jabs at each other.
Ella’s uncle caught her gaze and gave her a slight head shake. It was as if he was silently apologizing for them.
Unlike Ella, her mother had her two bodyguards standing like soldiers against the walls, one on each side of the dining room table. Their expressions were bland and impersonal. All they did was scour the room and occasionally blink. They were present strictly to do their jobs.
Interestingly enough, her mother and grandfather paused their squabble long enough for him to say grace. Two women in chef hats sailed into the room with baskets of steaming dinner rolls, followed by plates of salad and sliced black watermelon. After the appropriate amount of time had passed, they returned with artfully arranged plates of lobster, fillet mignon, and asparagus.
Johnny was the first to interrupt the constant stream of barbs flying between Ella’s mother and grandfather. He leaned conversationally closer to Raleigh, which put one of his broad shoulders nearly in Ella’s plate.
Though she discreetly tried to elbow him back into his spot, he didn’t budge. “We’ve been seeing repurposed silos pop up all across town.”
Raleigh’s smile was half bored. “Recycling at its finest.” He reached for his glass of sparkling water and swirled it in his hand instead of taking a sip.
“How many more do you have to sell?” Johnny probed. “After seeing what they did out at the animal rescue sanctuary, I’m half tempted to take one off your hands and turn it into a bachelor pad. ”
Ella nudged him again. “I wasn’t aware you were in the market for a piece of land.” She recalled him bragging once about how content he was with apartment living, where someone else had to mow the grass and make the repairs.
Johnny gave her a playful look. “What you don’t know about me, darling, could fill volumes.” He returned his attention to Raleigh, shaking his head and muttering, “Women!”
He sounded like such a backwoods nitwit that Ella inwardly cringed.
Raleigh watched their exchange. “You passed four silos on your way here that we’re about to put up for sale. Tall. Silver. Galvanized steel. There’s no way you could’ve missed them.”
Uh, newsflash! Most people don’t pay any attention to a bunch of dumb silos. Ella found his I-own-the-world attitude a little nauseating. If she, Gage, and Johnny hadn’t been discussing the decades-old disagreement between the Bolanders and Radcliffes on their drive to dinner, she very easily could’ve overlooked them.
Ella’s mother leaned back in her seat, tuning into their exchange with a hard expression. Silos were a sensitive topic with these two families, and Johnny knew it. Why was he purposely rattling that particular hornets’ nest?
“Nah, I didn’t miss ‘em.” He drummed his fingers noisily on the table. “They’re just not what I’m looking for. They’re too big.”
Though all Raleigh did was elevate his eyebrows a fraction, Johnny took it as an invitation to keep talking. “I was hoping for something smaller.” Though it was completely unnecessary, he demonstrated with his hands. “No more than fourteen or fifteen feet wide and maybe ten or twelve feet tall. I’d take two of them in a heartbeat. ”
Ella was struck by how specific Johnny’s measurements were.
“Sorry.” Raleigh’s mouth tightened. “We don’t have anything in the storage shed size.” His tone was borderline condescending.
As much as Ella didn’t want to agree with him, she couldn’t imagine turning something that small into living quarters.
“Maybe we do.” Creston Bolander jumped into the conversation, wagging a finger expressively at his son. “What about those two silos in the east pasture?”
Raleigh’s expression darkened a few degrees. “Those clunkers are falling in. For safety reasons alone, I wouldn’t recommend doing anything other than taking a wrecking ball to them.”
“If you say so.” Mr. Bolander held up his hands apologetically. “I was only trying to be helpful.”
“Helpful!” Avery Radcliffe gave him a sharp look. “I applaud your son’s priorities in elevating safety over profits.”
“Thank you, my dear.” Though Raleigh agreed with her, the endearment he added to his comment made her stiffen in renewed anger.
Ella kicked Johnny under the table. What was he doing, and why wasn’t Gage jumping in to steer the conversation in another direction? They hadn’t come to dinner to rip scabs from old wounds, for pity’s sake! They were supposed to be trying to keep the peace.
Again, Johnny ignored her. “Falling in?” His eyes widened innocently. “I thought those old steel cans were indestructible.” He waved his hands some more. “In the old days, they were sunk into a few feet of concrete, and?—”
“They’re not indestructible, which is why they’re slotted for the dump.” Raleigh informed him so coldly that it was clear he had no more to say on the topic.
Ella held her breath, praying that the message had gotten through to Johnny’s thick skull.
Gage’s phone started buzzing with an incoming call. Johnny’s followed suit. They pulled out their phones, gave them a quick scan, and exchanged a troubled look with each other.
“We have to go.” Gage stood and held out a hand to Ella.
“Oh, no,” her mother moaned. “We haven’t eaten dessert yet.”
“It’s my chef’s signature chocolate créme br?lée,” Creston Bolander reminded proudly.
Ella, who’d been studying her Uncle Raleigh, detected a flash of empathy in his gaze as he watched her mother deflate over their preparations for an early departure. It was gone so quickly that she wondered if she’d imagined it. Was it possible that he harbored a scrap of human compassion for the daughter of his family’s biggest rival? The possibility that he did cast him in a better light.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s been an accident at the animal rescue sanctuary,” Gage explained. His expression was so grim that Ella knew it had to be bad.
“Whatever it is, can’t the authorities handle it?” she protested with a piteous look at her daughter.
“I’m sorry,” Gage repeated, towing Ella away from the table. “One of our friends is hurt. Thank you again for the invitation, Mr. Bolander. I apologize for the necessity of cutting our visit short. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
“Certainly.” Creston Bolander walked around the table to shake their hands again.
Afterward, Gage and Johnny bustled Ella to the Bronco so quickly that it took her breath away. Only after the doors were shut and locked did she explode, “What in the world?”
“It’s Jordan,” Gage informed her tersely. He took off with a squeal of tires, stopping impatiently at the security gate until it swung open at a torturously slow pace.
“Someone broke into the sanctuary again,” Johnny had his cell phone in front of his face, rattling off the details spelled out in the text message he’d received. “Jordan got roughed up pretty badly. He’s on his way to the medical center. Sounds like Cassie walked in on them with a gun and fired over their heads to scare off the assailant.”
It didn’t sound to Ella like it was another robbery. “What did they want this time?”
“You.” Johnny’s voice was cold. “He was trying to pinpoint your exact whereabouts.”
“But failed to beat it out of him, according to Cassie,” Gage added.
“Poor Jordan.” Ella deflated against her seat cushion. It hurt her heart that the quiet, introverted Jordan Jacobson had been injured on her behalf, the kind of guy who wouldn’t hurt a flea. Since it was after hours, she could only presume he’d been tending to his horse when it happened.
Gage and Johnny lapsed into an energetic debate over the potential suspects.
“We can rule out the three we had dinner with,” Gage sighed.
“And the butler.” Johnny sounded disappointed. “Though Billy Bob is still in the mix.”
“We can probably rule out Walker Radcliffe. He walks with a pretty heavy limp.” Gage rubbed a hand behind his neck. “If he’s behind it, he certainly didn’t do it himself.”
“Which basically puts us back to square one.” Johnny slapped his thigh in irritation, managing to raise another small cloud of dust.
Gage turned on his blinker and moved into the passing lane to go around a hay baler. “Nice work with the silo questions, by the way.”
“Nice work?” Ella was aghast. “It was like watching someone strike a match and throw it on a pile of dry leaves.”
“Exactly,” Gage agreed cryptically.
“In case you missed it, Raleigh wasn’t happy that I’d brought up the topic.” Johnny gave a dry cackle. He’d enjoyed stirring the pot.
“But he didn’t get all twitchy like someone with something to hide.”
Ella had no idea what they were talking about or where they were taking her, for that matter. “Isn’t the medical center in the other direction?”
“It is.” Gage sounded surprised by her question. “But after what happened to Jordan, we’re taking you some place safe.”
“I have to see him, Gage.” She glanced at the road behind them, thoroughly tired of running and hiding.
“It’s too dangerous.” His tone was pleading.
“He’s my friend, and I’m well protected.” She didn’t see how he could argue about that.
He didn’t. At the next intersection, he made a U-turn and set their course for the medical center.