Page 23 of A Mile of Ocean (Pelican Pointe #19)

T rent slammed his hands down on the table in frustration, his brain on overload trying to make sense of the new information. “If it’s not Colter Bohannon, then who the hell have we been dealing with this whole time?” he muttered, a sense of unease settling over the group.

Tate leaned forward, her expression grave. “You know the answer as well as I do. What have we been discussing for the last half hour? We need to consider the possibility that Duchess has been behind this the whole time. Who else could have elaborately planned Granddad’s murder?”

“If we think she’s been playing us all along, manipulating the situation to her advantage, then we should reevaluate everything. It’s clear now that we’ve been blinded by a deception that would make Machiavelli proud.”

Cooper drummed his fingers anxiously on the table. “You can’t ignore the obvious. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to frame Colter Bohannon; making him the main suspect was actually brilliant. The notebook was the icing on the cake. It could’ve been stolen from him before his death. His fingerprints would’ve been all over that notebook. Maybe someone else added everything about the ranch after he died.”

A sudden revelation dawned on Trent. He felt a wave of disgust washing over him. “Maybe our master manipulator ordered her accomplice, whoever it is in the fancy boots, to steal the notebook and orchestrated Bohannon’s death to make it look like a suicide. Maybe the guy in Stillwater is the one who wrote the note. Maybe that’s what got him killed.”

Savannah wanted to be the voice of reason as she looked around the table at the faces of the others. “You’re talking about the woman who gave my 4-H kids the opportunity to see horses up close, invited us out here, and was nothing but nice.”

Like she’d done with Brock, Tate laid a hand on Savannah’s. “What are the key traits of a master manipulator?” She ticked them off on one hand. “Their self-importance tops anyone else’s. Their lack of empathy. They are charming one minute, cold and distant the next. They’re control freaks because being in charge helps them achieve their goals. And the fifth one is my personal favorite. They never admit they’re wrong.”

“Let’s say for a minute you’re right,” Birk pondered. “She knew we planned this trap to lure in Bohannon. What was her plan when he didn’t show?”

“Who says he won’t show?” Tate pondered.

“Let’s look at this logically,” Trent proposed. “There could be two possible scenarios. First, she warns off her accomplice to get the hell out of Dodge. Disappear. Second, if she is this master manipulator, she’d want to tie up loose ends. She would allow her accomplice to walk into the trap and start shooting. He’d be killed. She’d look like the hero, making everyone believe she took down Barrett’s killer. She walks away and gets away with murder. My vote is Option Two.”

“I’m going with Option Two,” Tate voted, looking at Savannah.

“I’m not sure I should get a vote,” Savannah said.

“Did you go out on patrol?” Birk snapped. “Because if you did, you risked your life like everyone else has. Don’t be a wuss now. Tell us what you think.”

Savannah cleared her throat and shifted in her chair. “I read the documents from the safe. I looked at the documents Cooper brought to the table. I think she’s devious enough to carry out Option Two.”

As they went around the table, the others went with Option Two until they reached Hawk. “It never even occurred to me that your grandmother could’ve pushed Slade down those stairs.”

“Same here,” Trent replied. “But the one thing that’s been nagging at me since I saw his body is wondering how the person doing this could’ve known about that staircase. It’s a detail that only a handful of people would know about. Like you said, someone on the inside. Colter Bohannon would never have known about that staircase.”

With his arms folded across his chest, Hawk nodded. “Okay, I vote for Option Two.”

Drum and Lincoln made the count a united front.

Trent leaned forward. “Okay, now that we’ve agreed on that, my guess is she won’t risk using the gun that killed Barrett because of ballistics. So what rifle has she been taking out with her on patrols? Whatever it is, we need to locate that weapon, unload it, and remove the firing pin. Then wait until she gives herself away trying to kill the guy.”

“Toby would know,” Brock offered. “I’ll text him.”

“No, text him to come to the dining room,” Trent instructed. “I don’t want anything to leak out. Cooper, why don’t you contact Eastlyn and let her know what’s going on? She’ll need to work on a search warrant for the entire property, looking for the murder weapon and possibly other corroborating evidence of the crimes. I’d start with a warrant for her cell phone data. She probably communicated regularly with this person.”

“I’m on it,” Cooper said, keying in the information to his wife.

Trent looked around the table. “Anybody else have anything to add?”

“So, I don’t get to snipe anyone,” Birk complained. “I was all set for a momentary return to my glory days, especially taking out someone who shot an old man in the head.”

“He wasn’t gonna kill anybody,” Beckett added. “Birk was just gonna wing him.”

Lucien slapped his buddy on the back. “Maybe next time. Not every case can be all fun and games. I can’t believe Duchess Callum had us all fooled from the beginning,” he muttered. “And I thought my family was warped.”

Savannah traded amused looks with Brogan. “Hey, me too. We’ve talked about our family issues since you guys found out who killed Owen.”

Brogan grinned. “I’m a firm believer that perfect families are an illusion. They don’t exist in real life.”

As they all sat in somber contemplation, the tension ran high. Trent tried to wrap his mind around how they had been manipulated. Had the signs always been there, just lurking under the surface? Had he ignored his grandmother’s lack of empathy and distant coldness all these years? Now, she loomed over his every thought like a dark cloud, her true motives coming to light in the most chilling way possible.

Cooper’s phone buzzed with a message from Eastlyn, confirming that she would begin working on obtaining search warrants for the property and phone. Clearly, they needed to act quickly and decisively if they were going to catch Duchess in the act. “Eastlyn will have the entire team, along with Brent, standing by.”

Just then, Toby entered the dining room, looking slightly confused but ready to help however he could.

Trent wasted no time getting straight to the point, asking Toby about the rifle Duchess had carried on her patrols.

Toby frowned, thinking back to the last night. “She carries that Winchester .30-30, pre-1964, with the hair trigger. It’s a collector’s item. She told me so. She said it belonged to her daddy, manufactured sometime before World War II. Man, is she ever accurate with that thing. She can hit center target practically every time.”

“I know the rifle,” Trent said with a nod. “I should’ve guessed that’s the one she’d use. I also know the gun safe where she keeps it.”

“Unless she put a new lock on it,” Tate cautioned. “There’s that possibility.”

“Will you go check the main gun safe?” he asked his sister.

“I’ll go with her,” Savannah offered.

Brogan got to her feet. “Me too. It isn’t in her bedroom, is it?”

“No, it’s in the family room where Granddad taught us how to play chess,” Tate said, heading into the adjoining room. “Let’s hope she hasn’t changed the lock.”

Toby watched Tate leave and looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know what’s going on, but don’t you want to know about the handgun, too, with the longer barrel?”

Trent set up straighter. “What handgun?”

“She carries a P226 MK25. She showed it to me.”

Birk stood up and looked over at his brother. “No way. That’s what Seals carry. Didn’t yours go missing six months ago?”

“As a matter of fact, it did. Son of a bitch. Does it have a series of distinctive scratch marks on the right-side grip plate?”

Toby scratched his chin and nodded. “The handle? Yeah. I’m pretty sure it had a little round mark there. She called it an imperfection. It smelled like linseed oil, like she had cleaned and tried to remove the scratch. But it was still there.”

“Jeez. Was she planning on framing me for some murder?” Beckett grumbled.

“Considering her marksmanship skills, I wouldn’t think so. But maybe she sent whoever she’s working with to steal a gun and used it to force Colter Bohannon to comply back in Stillwater,” Trent surmised. “It doesn’t make sense, though. We have numerous firearms, including handguns, available here.”

“Yeah,” Beckett said. “But they can probably be traced back to the ranch. Do you have any idea how unsettling it is to know she sent someone to steal my weapon? I’m sentimental about that pistol. Good thing I reported it stolen and filed a police report. If I was ever on the fence before, I’m not now.”

Savannah hurried back into the room. “Tate unloaded the Winchester and removed the firing pin. But she says there’s a shotgun missing, the Mossberg that Duchess carries. We looked for Duchess but couldn’t find her anywhere. She’s not in her room or the bathroom.”

Trent cursed under his breath as he shoved away from the table. “I forgot about the shotgun. That’s what happens when you’re running on fumes with little sleep. Maybe we overplayed our hand at breakfast and said too much.”

Trent’s jaw clenched. “We need eyes on her at all times. If she’s not in the house, we need to find her. But it shouldn’t look like we’re searching for her. I’ll let Woody and Cecil know to keep their eye out for her. We need to let them know what’s happening at some point.”

“What is happening?” Toby asked.

“We have a new suspect,” Trent said. “And we think Duchess is involved.”

Toby picked up his walkie-talkie. “Do you want me to radio Woody and Cecil?”

“Stay off the radio. No communications using it,” Trent ordered. “She might be listening. We think she’s working with someone else. So she may have gone out to meet them ahead of time.”

He turned to Hawk. “Duchess knows Tate and I are upset with her. You and your men should be the ones to check the barn, the stables, and all the outbuildings. But don’t approach her. She needs to believe we’re still looking for Colter Bohannon. If she does see you, tell her you’re doing one last sweep before heading into town.”

“We can do that,” Hawk determined. “If we’re not using the radio, should I text?”

“Definitely.”

“What do the rest of us do in the meantime?” Beckett wanted to know.

“Start packing up your stuff. Make it look as real as possible when loading up your cars. We still need to go through with the ruse as if nothing has changed other than we’re moving up the timeframe. Instead of waiting until dark, we need to take her down during daylight. We don’t want to tip our hand until the last possible minute. We need concrete evidence. She has plenty of money to hire the best lawyers. She could drag this case out for years. And die before going to prison. We need to catch her in the act of taking out her partner. For once, we need to be a step ahead of her.”

“She’s not anywhere in the house,” Tate announced to her brother as she returned to the dining room. “Brogan and I searched everywhere, from the basement to the attic. Duchess has to be somewhere outside on the ranch.”

“No doubt, meeting up with her partner,” Savannah concluded.

When Trent didn’t answer, Tate noticed he stood at the window, looking out onto the property. His shoulders were tense, his arms dangled by his sides, his hands curling into fists, his body barely able to control the rage.

She moved behind him and reached out. But he flinched at the touch. “There’s nothing I can say. I’m furious beyond words.”

But she saw the raw rage in his eyes, the searing fury building inside him. “Talk to me, Trent.”

He shook his head. How could he tell her it felt like a nasty stab to the heart? The sharp sting of betrayal simmered just beneath the surface, ready to burst forth at any moment and consume everything in its path. “Never before have I felt like lashing out at someone until these past weeks. Not with this kind of anger. I wanted to find this person and put an end to them. Imagine how I feel now, standing here knowing all this time it was my grandmother who orchestrated all this. Do you realize that when we got to Turtle Ridge that night, she knew then and there that Granddad had been shot and said nothing? She rode with us to the hospital, all the while letting us believe he’d suffered a stroke. She was faking her emotions. Remember after the surgery when Dr. Nighthawk came out to tell us he’d died on the operating table? Her performance was flawless. She had me fooled. I believed her even when she said she didn’t hear the shot. How stupid is that?”

Tate laid a hand on his arm. “She had everyone fooled, Trent. Weren’t you listening when I told Savannah how to spot the master manipulator? She has all the traits. She’s been dead inside for years. You know it’s true. Maybe she was born with a sense of entitlement. I don’t know. But she’s been like she is now from as far back as I can remember. No one realized she could ever do something so vile as to murder Granddad. No one saw that coming. Not even Dolly. And she’s known her a lot longer than we have.”

Trent turned away from the window, his jaw set in a hard line, his eyes burning with resentment. The weight of his grandmother's betrayal bore down on him like a heavy anchor dragging him into the depths of a dark sea. How could he have been so blind to her true nature all this time? The memories of her fake tears at the hospital, each manipulative act, and her calculated deception replayed in his mind like a horror film.

Tate’s words echoed in his ears, reminding him of the signs he had failed to see, the warning signals he had ignored.

“Right now, the most important thing is to keep a level head if we intend to pull this off,” Tate warned.

“Listen to her. She’s right,” Savannah said from the doorway. “We all need to keep it together until this plays out. Put aside your pain and anger for now. I know it’s probably the most difficult thing you’ll ever do. But there’s no way this ends the way we want without clear thinking and no distractions. Don’t let your anger get in the way of taking her down.”

“I never thought she was capable of something so heinous,” Trent said, barely audible. “All this time, I was blinded by her true nature. How many lives has she destroyed with her deceit? How many more will be at risk if we don’t stop her? There’s a lot on the line.”

Savannah went to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “She won’t get away with it. We’ll stop her. Look at the team you have around you.”

His phone dinged with a text message. “It’s Hawk. He has a visual on her. She’s riding back in from somewhere. Woody met her and Confetti Queen at the stables. He’s helping her cool down her horse. That’s a perfect excuse for him to go through her pack to retrieve the shotgun.”

Trent began texting Woody instructions.

Dolly called out from the kitchen, “Here she comes. I see Duchess. She’s headed this way.”

“What do we do?” Savannah asked.

“Try to act natural,” Tate suggested.

“Don’t worry about it,” Trent assured them. “She’ll likely storm past us.”

But Duchess surprised him. She came strolling into the dining room dressed in riding gear from head to toe. She wore a short black jacket over a white blouse, tan jodhpurs, and black boots. She looked like a vibrant 60-year-old with a zest for living. But her sharp tongue could still cut like a knife. “My goodness, you’d think on such a busy day you’d have better things to do than lounge around the dining room bitching about me and airing our dirty laundry in front of guests.”

It was all Trent could do to keep a civil thought in his head. “We’re sorry about that.”

“Accusing me of killing Travis and Linley is not only inexcusable but unforgivable. I want you both to think about your futures and what to do with yourselves after you’re gone from here. After this nastiness is behind us, you’ll need to start looking for somewhere else to live.”

Not wanting to provoke her, Trent nodded. “Sure. We’ll sit down and hash out the future when this is all over.”

Tate bobbed her head. “Sounds like a meeting I won’t want to miss.”

Duchess pivoted toward Savannah, her eyes shimmering in icy disdain. “If you were here for Trent’s money, dear, he won’t have any when all this is done. You’d be better off setting your sights on someone with a future earning potential. I’m afraid he won’t be worth much by the time I’m done with him.”

Savannah tried to think of a quick comeback, but nothing came out.

“Oh, dear, I’ve left you speechless. Think of it this way. I’m doing you a favor, saving you from years of living with a dreamer too stubborn to think big.”

That said, she marched out with her chin held high, smiling to herself.