The cabin had only the one door, but there was a good-sized window in the back. Longarm moved the oilcloth covering aside and swung a leg over the sill. He paused and looked back at Aurora, who was running a comb through her disheveled hair and pinning it back in place. The transformation was well nigh miraculous. She didn't look like she'd ever had an impure thought, and there was certainly no hint of what she had actually been doing with him on that bed a few minutes earlier. As Longarm watched, she gave a quick jerk to the comforter, which straightened it out and removed the evidence of their activities.
Longarm caught her eye and mouthed 'So long' at her. For a second she looked exasperated, as if she wished he would go on and leave and be done with it, but then she gave him a quick grin that told him she had enjoyed their lovemaking every bit as much as he had. Carrying the memory of that grin with him, Longarm stepped out the window and let the oilcloth fall back into place behind him.
Then he paused just outside the cabin and thought about what Aurora had said. According to her, the visitor was Ben Callahan, and it took only a second for Longarm to figure out why that name sounded so familiar. Callahan owned the logging outfit that was operating to the north of the Mcentire timber lease in the Cascades.
And for some reason, Aurora didn't want Callahan to even suspect that she had been enjoying a midday romp with a man. Otherwise she would have told Longarm to get dressed but would have allowed him to remain in the cabin while she greeted Callahan. She could have introduced him to the owner of the other timber company and come up with a plausible reason for his being there.
Clearly, that hadn't even occurred to her, and Longarm wondered why.
There was one way to find out, he thought. Given an opportunity to eavesdrop, he wasn't going to pass it up. There was no way of knowing when something he overheard might turn out to be important to the case.
Those thoughts went through Longarm's head in a flash. Leaning closer to the window, he heard the sharp rapping on the door, then heard it open and Aurora say, 'Why, Ben Callahan! What are you doing here?' Her voice was pleasant enough, but it held an undercurrent of tension.
A man's voice said harshly, 'You know perfectly well why I'm here, Aurora. I've come to raise my offer--though I warn you this is the last time I'll do so. Forty thousand dollars, and not a penny more.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Ben,' said Aurora. 'That government contract alone is worth twenty or thirty times that much, not to mention the lumber I've been able to sell to private business. Why should I sell you my company for forty thousand dollars?'
'Because it's all the cash I've got in the world,' said Ben Callahan, 'and because we both know that contract should have been mine!'
'We both had a chance to bid on it,' Aurora returned firmly.
'Yes, but you took advantage of the fact that Angus and I were friends and used to be partners! You found out what I was going to bid, and then you undercut me!'
Aurora's voice was a smooth but dangerous purr as she said, 'You and Angus were never friends from the day you dissolved the partnership, Ben. You thought you could do better on your own, and when you found out that you couldn't, you held it against Angus and resented him for the rest of his life.'
Heavy footsteps stomped back and forth across the floor. Callahan was pacing angrily, Longarm thought. Longarm put his face close to the window and risked a quick glance throughthe narrow gap around the oilcloth. He was grateful that the sawmill and the cookshack were on the other side of the cabin. If anybody saw him peeping into the window like this, he'd feel like a damned fool.
And yet he wanted a look at Ben Callahan, and he got one as the rival timber magnate swung around to stalk back across the cabin's single room. Callahan was a tall, broad-shouldered man who looked like he had swung an ax and wielded a saw plenty of times himself. His features were craggy, battered, and at the moment flushed. He was balding, and the hair that was left was brown laced with gray. The muscles of his arms and shoulders bulged the coat of the tweed suit he wore.
'That's not true,' he answered Aurora's accusation. 'I never resented Angus or envied his success.'
Longarm didn't even know the man, and even he doubted the truth of that claim. Callahan sounded as if he had resented Angus Mcentire plenty.
'Well, I'll certainly not sell the company to you,' said Aurora. 'Poor Angus would turn over in his grave if I did that. But I will buy you out if you'd care to sell.'
'What?' roared Callahan. 'By God, woman, if I didn't know better, I'd say Angus passed his brass balls on to you when he died!'
Outside the cabin, Longarm had to suppress a chuckle. Though he knew Callahan was deadly serious, something about the idea of Aurora Mcentire with brass balls just struck Longarm as funny. He gritted his teeth to keep from laughing and continued eavesdropping.
'This is getting us nowhere,' Aurora said coldly. 'I want you to leave, Ben. I'm not interested in selling my company to you now, nor will I be in the future.' Ominously, Callahan said, 'I wouldn't be so sure about that. Everybody in this part of the country knows you've been having trouble, Aurora. You might be better off to salvage what profit you can by selling and get out now, before anybody else gets hurt.'
Longarm stiffened. Of all the high-handed... ! This put things in a whole new light, he thought. Callahan was blatantly threatening Aurora. Practically admitting that he was behind her troubles. Longarm had been looking for another suspect in this case--and he had just found one.
'I won't stand for that kind of talk,' snapped Aurora. Longarm heard the rasp of a drawer opening in a desk. 'Get out.'
'You might as well put that down, Aurora,' said Callahan. 'I'm not afraid of you. You're not going to shoot me.'
Longarm sure as hell hoped not. He didn't want to have to bust in there and take a gun away from Aurora if she was mad enough to plug Callahan.
The next instant, he heard the unmistakable metallic clicking of a pistol's hammer being drawn back and cocked. 'You think I won't?' Aurora asked. 'I'll shoot you, Ben. I promise you, I'll be glad to shoot you.'
Clearly, this was a long-standing disagreement between these two. If they got along this badly, Longarm thought, why hadn't Aurora said anything when he'd asked her if she had any other enemies? From the sounds of
