Chapter 25
Hank threw his glass against the wall in a fury. Things were unraveling. He knew it.
“Calm yourself,” Isaac said from the sofa.
God, how Hank detested when Isaac used that condescending voice. He wanted to turn and punch the lawyer. One day he would.
“You spoke to Cal in front of others,” Isaac said. “How did you expect him to act?”
Hank spun and glared at him. “I’ve known Cal for years. I know him.”
“And what is it you think you know?”
“He’s not with us on this.”
Isaac snorted, a bored look crossing his face. “You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know that he is.”
“Freddy and Joshua had a long talk with him. He willingly went with them to Dillon’s.”
Hank fisted his hands. “He was drunk.”
“Drunk or not, he agreed.”
“Not if he doesn’t remember it.”
Isaac barked in laughter as he sat up. “Is that what this is about? You think he doesn’t remember?”
“Not with how he’s been acting.”
“Acting. Yes, exactly. He’s acting.”
Hank shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
“I know people.”
“Were you there that night?”
Isaac remained silent.
Hank felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach by a bull.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked,” Isaac said with a roll of his eyes as he leaned back against the cushions. “Cal was all too willing.”
“He’s got innate goodness in him. Just like his father.”
“Bullshit. Everyone has a price. You know that.”
That rankled him. “And what, pray tell, was Cal’s price?”
Isaac laughed and shook his head, glancing away. “That’s between Cal and me.”
“You had no right to bring him into this.”
“If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t be so close to getting what we want.”
Hank wished he had another glass to throw. “You think we’re close?” he bellowed. “We’re farther away than before, all while under scrutiny from the authorities.”
“Stop acting like a scared little girl. Did you kill the stallion?”
It was Hank’s turn to remain silent.
Isaac’s nostrils flared, his face mottling red in anger. “I told you what to do.”
“No one tells me what to do on my ranch. Your people stole the fucking horse and brought it onto my land. I get to decide what to do with it. Not you.”
Isaac rose to his feet. “Your idiocy will bring this plan to a grinding halt. It’s just an animal. You can find another.”
“You dare to get all righteous about me keeping a horse that you stole? A theft that brought the TSCRA down on me? Shall we talk about your man, who keeps shooting at Dillon?”
“You know as well as I do that her death makes everything easier for us.”
Hank drew in a breath in an effort to calm his rage. “We want the ranch. Taking a life was never what we agreed.”
“I told you when I became your partner in this that we’d have to do things to speed the plan along. You readily agreed with that.”
“You didn’t mention murder!”
“What did you think I meant?” Isaac shouted.
Hank glared at him. “Not that.”
Isaac looked away and remained silent for a moment. “You don’t need to worry. Nobody will be taking any more shots at her.”
“You pulled your goons away from killing her?”
Isaac chuckled. “I didn’t say that.”
“Who shot at her?”
With a loud sigh, Isaac turned his gaze to him. “If the authorities question you, you can’t tell them what you don’t know. It’s better if you remain ignorant of such things.”
There was truth to his words, but Hank couldn’t help but feel that Isaac was leaving him out of many other things, as well—things that had nothing to do with legalities. If Isaac tried to take the entirety of Bar 4 from Hank, he’d kill the bastard with his bare hands.
“Leave Cal to me,” Isaac said as he got to his feet once more. He adjusted the sleeves of his dress shirt beneath his suit jacket. “I still can’t believe you go to that ridiculous dance every year.”
“That get-together started over a hundred years ago.”
“I don’t care if Jesus himself brought it into being.”
Hank crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you find so foul about it?”
“Everything.”
“You sure it isn’t just because you can’t dance?”
Isaac’s head snapped to him, his gaze shooting daggers. Hank bit back a smile. He liked when he managed to hit one of Isaac’s nerves. And this one was a big one.
“Stop freaking out over every little thing. I’ve got this handled,” Isaac stated as he walked out the door.
Hank ran his hand through his hair as he roamed his house.
It was empty and silent. He hated the silence.
He’d wanted to talk to Isaac, so he’d declined female company.
He could still call a couple of women who were regular lovers, but he wasn’t in the mood.
But the longer he walked through his big, silent home, the more he hated the quiet.
He grabbed his phone and dialed a number. She answered on the second ring. “You busy?” he asked.
Chet Thompson walked into the motel room with a sigh. He was no closer to finding Dillon Young’s stallion than when he’d first arrived, but his gut told him that the horse was on Hank Stephen’s ranch. The problem was proving it.
He sank slowly onto the mattress, his old bones creaking.
He missed his bed. More than that, he missed his wife.
She would’ve given him a piece of her mind at what he’d been eating since arriving here.
That made him smile. She had always tried to get him to eat healthily, and he did—for the most part.
But it wasn’t always easy during an investigation.
After removing his boots, he pushed off the bed and laid his hat upside down on the desk.
He rubbed his eyes and pulled out the file that had the photos of the tracks, proving the stallion had been stolen.
He compared them to the ones taken at Dillon’s house after the shooting.
Chet didn’t know what he was looking for, but he hoped there was something there to be found.
He’d looked at the same photos every night for four days and still hadn’t found anything. But years on the job told him that they were connected. He pulled out the desk chair and sank into it. Then he opened his laptop, where he kept his notes for the TSCRA that he uploaded straight to them.
Chet read over the notes covering the past few days but had nothing new to add. Still, he was restless. There was no point in going to bed because he knew he wouldn’t sleep. It was better if he used the time wisely instead of staring at the ceiling.
He dug into his briefcase and pulled out a lined, yellow legal tablet, writing down everything that had happened to Dillon Young over the course of the last year.
One could argue that some of the minor accidents had been just that, but a closer look revealed that others had been done on purpose—like the tractor’s brake line being cut.
Thanks to Dillon, he had pictures of the line, showing the clean cut and not the fraying that would occur if it had degraded on its own. While that didn’t directly point to Hank Stephens, there wasn’t anyone else interested in the ranch.
Then there was Cal Bennett. Chet didn’t want to like him, but damn if he didn’t.
Cal didn’t just sound and appear honest, he had been the one to come to Dillon’s aid on two separate occasions—the two most dangerous ones.
The problem was, Chet still didn’t know how Cal had come to be on Dillon’s ranch.
If he could find the answer to that question, there was a good chance it would lead to uncovering a lot more.
Chet ran a hand down his face and sat back in the chair. This is when he’d talk to his wife about it. She’d always had a way of seeing things from angles that he hadn’t considered. Missing her would never get easier, no matter how many years passed.
He put aside thoughts of his wife and returned to the present issue. Hank Stephens had money and connections. He wasn’t the sort of man to get his hands dirty in case things went sideways. He’d hire others.
As Chet was thinking, his gaze landed on his notes where he’d written down that Dillon had received offers for the ranch from Hank, but Stephens hadn’t sent them himself. Dillon had said they had come from an attorney.
Chet sat up and shuffled through his papers. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any documents stating what firm had sent the offers. He made a note to himself to get that information from Dillon in the morning. Chet tapped his finger on the desk, hating that he didn’t have the information now.
Then, he suddenly had an idea. He searched local law firms to see if any might claim Hank Stephens or the Ivy Ridge Ranch as clients. It didn’t take him long to find exactly what he was looking for.
“Gotcha,” he said with a smile as he stared at a picture of a Latinx gentleman named Isaac Gomez.
The name sounded familiar. He pulled out the small notebook he always carried in his pocket and flipped through the pages until he found it.
Cal had mentioned a man named Isaac Gomez.
Based on his notes, Cal had told Chet that he’d left Ike’s bar with two men and that the bartender had said that one of them worked for Gomez.
“There’s the connection,” Chet said into the room.
He wanted to know the name of the man who worked for Gomez. If they took Cal out to Dillon’s ranch, then that placed them at the scene for the stallion’s theft.
Chet tossed down the notebook and scratched his extended belly.
He would have to tread carefully. Locating the two men who’d driven Cal away from the bar wouldn’t be easy.
Cal hadn’t gotten their names, and it wasn’t as if Gomez or Stephens would readily hand that information over if Chet asked.
And he wouldn’t. If he did, it would alert them, making Gomez or Stephens tell the two men to disappear.
He rose and paced the room. His ankles were swollen again.
Too much salt. But how was a man to enjoy a meal if it didn’t have salt?
Chet missed the days when his body didn’t creak and hurt.
His stomach rumbled. He took out a bag of peanuts from his briefcase—salted, of course.
He’d always hidden the snacks in his bag, thinking his wife wouldn’t know. But she always had.
Chet smiled, even as he opened the bag and dumped the peanuts into his hand before putting them into his mouth. His mind kept tripping up when going over why the minor accidents with Dillon had suddenly escalated to attempted murder. There was a reason.
“The ranch,” he said as it suddenly dawned on him.
Hank wanted the land badly enough that he had made four very generous offers, but it wasn’t until after Dillon refused that the accidents had begun to happen.
When that didn’t cow her, they’d upped the ante by stealing Legacy.
But shooting at her? That seemed out of place.
Almost like two different people were after her.
“Son of a bitch,” Chet mumbled.