Page 9 of Killer on the Homestead (Bent County Protectors #2)

She stopped, looked at him somewhat suspiciously.

He didn’t know how this would have all gone down if she hadn’t accidentally been here. Certainly not as smoothly. “I’m glad you were here.”

There was just a second where she went completely still. An arrested expression crossed her face, then she shrugged and stalked away.

Duncan couldn’t think about her reaction to that, or his. He had to go inside and deal with his parents.

Rosalie typed it all up. Her fingers moved almost as fast as her mind.

She found in her years of working at Fool’s Gold Investigations that people talked a lot more when you weren’t taking notes or recording things.

They gave information more freely when it felt like a conversation, like you cared about them as much as the case.

Owen Green was telling the truth. Rosalie knew that not because she believed she had some amazing ability to tell truth from lie, or that she didn’t believe people could act. She’d learned her gut instincts could be fallible and some people didn’t need a reason to lie—they just liked it.

But poor Owen was overwrought. Hurting. Grief was one of the few emotions she’d never seen someone fake well.

When people were faking it, they just acted sad, or maybe they’d maneuver in a little anger.

They cried a lot, yelled a lot. They didn’t know that with grief always came a helpless undertone of shock, and guilt.

No matter how old or young the deceased, no matter how peacefully they might have passed, grief and guilt held hands for those who’d loved the person they lost.

Rosalie muttered a foul curse under her breath, because she didn’t want to be thinking about grief .

She focused on this case for the rest of the day.

Well past dinnertime she was sending emails, making phone calls, and putting together what disparate details she could.

Quinn popped in to say goodbye, and still Rosalie stayed at her desk and worked, only taking a quick break to tell Audra she wouldn’t be home with pizza any time soon.

Later, she heard the faint sound of a knock and looked up, but she couldn’t see the front door from where she sat in her office. Her gun was still holstered at her hip, so she put a hand to it as she stood and carefully moved to the doorway.

The front blinds were drawn for the night, but there was a little window at the door, and in the window, she saw a recognizable face.

Duncan.

Why that made her feel nervous she couldn’t quite figure out. He was an easy enough guy to deal with. It was no doubt about work, so there was absolutely no reason for her heart to skip a beat.

She moved forward and opened the door. It was dark outside, though she saw a flicker of lightning in the distance and could smell the rain with it as well.

Which was the only reason she let him step inside, the threat of that storm in the distance.

So it was just her and Duncan alone in this old, finnicky building, with the lights dimmed for the night.

A strange tension wound itself into a tight ball in her chest. Not discomfort, not anything she fully recognized, and that left her feeling off-kilter. Unable to find her usual brash way through without her normal footing.

“Why are you here?” she asked, sounding far too grumpy and demanding.

He eyed her with some humor, which put her even more off balance. Who met rudeness with humor?

“Cops finally left. You said you wanted to know what they did and said.”

“Yeah, I do, but you didn’t have to come all the way out here.”

He shrugged. “Mom’s already planning the funeral—I guess Hunter’s family wasn’t interested. She had me run some errands for it, and I was in the area, so I thought I’d stop by and tell you. Be easier here, anyway.”

Rosalie remembered then, with a clear detail she didn’t want, how Natalie had stepped in and walked Mom through funeral preparations for Dad even as their entire foundation had crumbled around them.

The Kirks did what needed doing, and maybe she figured the hotshot baseball player who’d barely been home wouldn’t follow suit, but clearly he did.

“We don’t have to do it here if you’re…” He trailed off. The humor didn’t leave his expression. “Uncomfortable.”

She barely resisted a scowl. “Why would I be uncomfortable?”

He gave a little shrug, still standing close to the doorway. “I’m a big guy. You’re a small woman. It’s late, and I assume we’re in this building alone. I wouldn’t blame you for feeling…intimidated.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant that to be a challenge, or if he was just an arrogant SOB. She patted the gun on her hip. “I’m armed.” Because she wasn’t intimidated. Rosalie Young didn’t do intimidated. Never had.

But his amused smile stayed put. “Noted.”

“And you’re not that big,” she continued. Childishly, she knew, but she just hadn’t been able to stop herself. Because, of course he was that big. He had to be pushing six-five, and she was fairly certain there wasn’t an ounce of body fat on that tall, muscular frame.

The way his mouth seemed to take its time unfurling into an upward curl, the way his dark eyes danced with humor, had unwanted and unfamiliar fireworks going off inside of her.

Rosalie hated feeling knocked off her axis.

She associated it with the aftermath of her father’s death, and even if this was a kind of…

an almost pleasant knocked-off-her-axis feeling, she still didn’t trust it.

Or him for bringing out unfamiliar feelings.

“So run me through it,” she said, brusquely turning away from him and marching back into her office.

He followed her into the room, took the seat across from her desk that she gestured to. When she looked at him again, the humor and smile had both melted away.

Back to murder and questions. She almost regretted it. Except this was her job and this was why he was even here.

“They came back with search warrants for the house and the bunks. They were really interested in gun safes and who owned what, the licenses everyone had. That sort of thing. Makes sense, I guess.”

Rosalie nodded. That was about what she’d expected. “They’ll be back once they know what kind of gun killed him. They’ll compare what guns they first inventoried, make sure none mysteriously disappeared. They’ll have more questions as they carefully and methodically build a case.”

“Against who?”

“It’ll depend on the guns. It’ll depend on if they think they’ve found a motive. An investigation like this… It’s all layers. They’ll work hard, but unless it’s easy answers, it’ll be slow going.”

Duncan clearly didn’t like that answer, and Rosalie couldn’t blame him.

He sat forward, balancing his elbows on his knees as he looked at her intently. “The thing is, if everything Owen said was true, Hunter was trying to get on the straight and narrow. He left the bad stuff behind in North Dakota. Why would it follow him all the way here? Why would it end in murder?”

“I’ve put some feelers out, as no doubt Detective Beckett has, to the authorities in North Dakota to see if we can get an idea of the trouble he’d been in, and who else was involved.”

“What if it’s nothing?”

“No point crossing that bridge ’til we come to it. First, we’ve got to find the nothing.”

Duncan made a frustrated grunting sound. “I’m worried about my parents. Not just their safety, but the mental toll of all this. They were already worried about the missing cows, now this. If it drags on… I don’t want it to drag on.”

Rosalie’s heart twisted at the genuine concern in his tone and on his face, but the cows…

Missing cows. Another unexplained bit of weirdness going on at the Kirk Ranch. “Could it be connected?” she wondered aloud, trying to work out how .

Duncan just stared at her for a full minute. “A murder and missing cows?”

“Neither make much sense, so maybe they don’t make sense together. Did your parents or you tell the detective about the missing cows?”

Duncan was quiet a moment, clearly reaching back and remembering. He shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose it occurred to any of us that the murder would have anything to do with something so…mundane.”

“They should tell Detective Beckett. As soon as possible. Someone needs to bring it up. I’ll corroborate you came to me before the murder. It’ll help.”

“Help what?”

“Duncan…” She hesitated, which was rare for her. She believed in being a straight shooter, and she left softening blows to people better suited to it. But the concern he felt for his parents was palpable and she didn’t want to add to it.

It was the right thing to do, though. “If there’s anything it looks like they’re hiding, that’s going to… It’s going to draw attention to them.”

“To… My parents ?” The pure, unadulterated shock on his face made it clear that Duncan Kirk had never known a day of truly unfair in his life. “You can’t be serious.”

She wanted to resent his naivete, but… Well, Natalie and Norman Kirk were good, honest people.

Why shouldn’t he be offended on their behalf?

“Duncan, you know your parents. I know your parents. The Bent County Sheriff’s Department?

They don’t. At least, the lead detective doesn’t.

So he’s going to treat them like facts on paper—and that might grate, but it’s his job to do that. His job is facts.”

Duncan stood up, somewhat abruptly. She thought maybe he was going to leave, but he just stood there, looking thunderous and…

Hot .

So not the time.

“If anyone so much as insinuates that my parents could have possibly had something to do with this murder—”

Rosalie stood, skirted the desk, and against her better judgment, reached out and put a hand on his arm.

He winced a little instead of finishing his sentence, and she realized her grip was on his bad arm.

She pulled her hand back. “Sorry,” she muttered, feeling stupid for too many reasons to count. “Listen. You have to put your personal feelings away, okay? I know that’s asking a lot, but if you get mad, then you’re in the line of fire.”

“So what?” he demanded. “I’ll hire a passel of lawyers to drown their asses.”

“Or,” she returned evenly, “you could just tell the truth, Duncan. You could give the detectives everything they need to hopefully find a murderer. Put your pride aside, put your…” She hated to admit that she understood this was more than some rich guy’s pride and pettiness. He wanted to protect his parents.

And that understanding made her softer than it should.

“Put aside wanting to protect them. I get it. I really do. I’d protect my sister at any and all costs, but take it from someone who knows their way around a police investigation.

If you take it upon yourself to protect—and keep the police at arm’s length—you’re only making everything worse. ”

He stood there, breathing a little hard, eyes blazing with a pointless anger she understood too well.

Damn it all to hell, the last thing she needed was to understand him.

“All right. I’ll trust you on this, Rosalie.” His gaze was hard, but she couldn’t quite fight the shudder that jittered through her at the way he said her full name. “But you better be right.”