“I’ve asked them to put a rush on those remains you sent them,” Grant said.
“A rush?” she echoed. She’d thought she’d have time. Now, her undercover sleuthing aside, once the sheriff found out about the DNA test and the hunting license she’d be lucky to still have a job. Worse, she could end up in jail.
“After what happened at the bar last night, I had to speed up the process,” Grant was saying. “Apparently Rocky, with the help of Eugene Crawford, got a bunch from out on the reservation all worked up. They’re convinced one of their ancestor’s grave has been disturbed.”
“It wasn’t an Indian grave.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She wished Rocky had kept his fool mouth shut, but it was too late for that. “Along with the bones, I found shirt snaps, metal buttons off a pair of jeans and what was left of a leather belt.”
“So it was a grave,” Grant said, sounding surprised. “I thought it was just bones.”
He hadn’t asked her and he hadn’t been around when she’d mailed everything off to the crime lab. At least that was her excuse for keeping more than the hunting license from him.
His being distracted for weeks now had made it too easy. Now everything hinged on that DNA report from the crime lab.
“When you said the bones were human, I just assumed they’d been there for a while,” Grant said now. “How old are we talking?”
“Hard to say.” Remains deteriorated at different rates depending on the time of year, the weather, the soil and how deep the body was buried.
“More than fifty years?”
“Less, I’d say.”
He was silent for a long moment. “Where exactly were these bones found again?”
She told him.
He grew even quieter before he said, “Thanks for taking care of Rocky last night. We’re still holding Eugene Crawford. I understand he got into it with you. Are you all right?”
“He didn’t hurt me.”
“But he apparently grabbed you and shoved you?”
“He was drunk and looking for a fight,” she said. “I didn’t see any reason to make more of it than it was.”
Grant studied her for a moment before nodding. “Well, good job at keeping a lid on things. It could have been much worse if you hadn’t acted as quickly as you did. It wouldn’t be the first time Eugene Crawford tore up a bar.” He glanced at his watch, sighed and stood, signaling that they were finished.
McCall tried to hide her relief.
“We should have the results from the lab on those bones in a week,” Grant was saying. “In the meantime, I think it would be best if we said as little as possible about the discovery, don’t you agree?”
She did indeed. She couldn’t help but wonder how he’d feel when he found out just whose bones they really were. If he thought there was trouble now, wait until he had to deal with Pepper Winchester.
One week. When the report came back with the DNA test, all hell would break loose. She’d give up the hunting license and let the chips fall where they may. But in the meantime, she planned to make the most of it.
LUKE GLANCED OVER at his uncle, worried. Buzz didn’t seem to be taking to retirement well after thirty-five years as a Montana game warden. While he swore that he was content fishing most every day, Luke suspected he missed catching bad guys.
Buzz, who’d made a name for himself as one of the most hard-nosed game wardens in the west, had been written up in a couple of major metropolitan newspapers and magazines, helping make him a legend in these parts.
“Did Eugene get out of jail?” Luke asked into the silence that had stretched between them.
“I’m going in this afternoon to bail him out. It was the soonest they’d release him.” Buzz swore under his breath. “You know who arrested him, don’t you?” Luke felt his stomach clench. “McCall Winchester. The Winchesters have always had it in for our family.”
And vice versa, Luke thought, but was smart enough not to say it.
“Eugene said he hit you up for that money he owes for gambling debts,” his uncle said after a moment.
Was that accusation he heard in Buzz’s voice? “He needs fifty thousand dollars. I can’t raise that kind of money.”
“He asked you for that much? When he came to me it was only thirty.” Buzz swore. “He tell you anything about these guys he owes the money to?”
“No.” But Luke could imagine.
“He seems to think they won’t find him here. Or maybe he thinks we’ll protect him.” Buzz had always protected his son, to Eugene’s detriment. Luke saw there was both regret and determination in his uncle’s expression. “I don’t have the money to give him either.”
Luke wasn’t sure where this conversation was headed. “He has to stop gambling, get a job—”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Buzz snapped. “But fifty thousand? It would take him years to make that much at a job in Whitehorse. Meanwhile, these guys aren’t going to wait on their money.”
Luke shook his head, hating the desperation he heard in his uncle’s voice. Eugene would be even more desperate and probably do something crazy, knowing his cousin.
“I need to get going,” Luke said finishing his coffee and rising to take the mug back into the kitchen.
As he came back out, he heard the sound of a vehicle engine. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he saw a white pickup pull in, a sheriff’s department emblem on the side and a set of lights on top.
Luke heard his uncle swear as Deputy Sheriff McCall Winchester climbed out.
Chapter Five
McCall had hoped to catch Buzz Crawford alone. The last person she wanted to see was Luke. But unfortunately as she pulled up to the lake house, his pickup was parked outside.
No way to make a graceful escape even if she could let the coward in her win out.
As she neared the house, she saw the two Crawford men on the deck, Luke standing as if about to leave and Buzz
