“She’ll be all right,” Winnie assured him. “You can make peace.”
He laughed hollowly. “Think so?”
The cafeteria door opened and Hayes Carson came in. He wasn’t smiling. He made a beeline for the Sinclairs.
“I need to talk to you,” he said tersely, looking around to make sure he wasn’t being overheard. “I just found Ella Welsh, dead in her living room!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“DEAD?” BOONE EXCLAIMED, careful to keep his voice low. “Of what?”
“A gunshot wound,” Hayes replied. He pulled out a chair and sat down. “I had the coroner out, along with a forensic team from the state crime lab and my own investigator. We found latent prints and a shell casing, but I don’t need ESP to know who did it.”
“Keely’s father,” Winnie guessed. “Or that partner of his, Jock.”
“They were desperate for money, Keely said,” Hayes replied. “I told Keely to tell Ella to put the house on the market, but not really sell it, to make Brent Welsh think she was complying. But the men must have gone to her and demanded immediate results. She either refused or infuriated them, I don’t know.” He sighed. “We don’t dare let Keely see her body. It will have to be a closed casket.”
“What?” Boone exclaimed.
Hayes’s expression was eloquent. “They tortured her, probably to find out about any assets she hadn’t produced.”
“Good God!” Boone said heavily. “They’ll come after Keely, won’t they?” he asked coldly. “She’ll be next, because she’ll inherit what little Ella had to leave her.”
“We haven’t heard anything about sightings of them since Misty and her father and the detective ran for the border,” Hayes told him. “They may be spooked enough to keep running, if they were in the same network with the remnants of the Fuentes brothers’ drug smuggling operation. Too, the murder may prompt them to keep running, since they know we’ll be after them for it. On the other hand, if Ella left life insurance, Keely will get that. And Ella’s savings accounts would mean ready cash. I talked to her banker already. He told me there is some money there.”
“We’ll need more men to protect the ranch,” Winnie thought aloud.
“Several more, all ex-military, and I know where to find them,” Boone said grimly. “I’ll make the ranch into a fortress. Welsh will never get his hands on Keely!”
“I could make a comment here about vigilante justice,” Hayes said with grim humor, “but I won’t. Just don’t step over the line. I can’t afford any more bail money.”
Boone chuckled. “You’ll be paid back for that.” The smile faded. “Poor Keely,” he said heavily. “First the snake, now her mother.”
“Someone will have to tell her.” Hayes looked around him at the grim faces. “We could draw straws. Or we could ask Coltrain to do the dirty work.”
“I’ll tell her when the time comes,” Boone said softly. “It’s my responsibility now.”
Winnie didn’t say anything, but she looked thoughtful, and happy.
* * *
WHICH WAS A far cry from how Keely looked when she came out from under the effects of the medicines she’d been given.
Boone never left her bedside. She’d glared at him the first time she saw him there, when she was still too sick and weak to speak. By the third day, she was regaining some strength and she was furious.
“I know, I know,” he said before she got started. “I got everything backward. I accused you of things you didn’t do and threw you out of the house.” He looked briefly tortured. “I know I caused this.” He drew in a long breath, staring down at his boots. “God Almighty, I never meant for you to walk home with temperatures at the century mark! I must have been out of my head not to realize that you didn’t even have a way to get home.”
Keely wanted to rage at him, but she was still very sick and her arm hurt. She winced every time she moved. “It wasn’t me…with Clark, in that picture you shoved in my face!”
He lifted his head and nodded. “I know,” he said grimly.
That look, and the words, told her things she wouldn’t have asked about. He knew. He knew about her shoulder. She closed her eyes and tears flowed out of them. She felt even worse now. She’d never wanted Boone, of all people, to know her secret. Her mind went back to the boy who’d thrown up when he saw her shoulder…
He moved close to the bed and bent over her, with one big hand beside her head on the pillow. “They’ll kill me if I sit down here. I know you’re still weak and you hurt like hell. But I want you to feel something.” He drew her right hand up to his chest over the shirt and smoothed it down. He watched her eyes while she did it, saw the realization in her green eyes, and nodded.
She frowned as she met his eyes.
“There are more of them,” he said stiffly, rising away from her. “A lot more—one that even took bone out of my thigh. When Misty saw me, in Germany, just after the bandages were removed, she ran out of the room. It’s a little less messy now, after some plastic surgery, but the scars are too deep to be permanently erased, and it’s noticeable. I don’t go shirtless anymore,” he added bitterly. “I haven’t for years.”
She felt the pain. She understood it. “I haven’t worn anything short-sleeved since I was thirteen years old,” she replied quietly. “When I was sixteen, a boy I liked asked me out on a date. He was just fumbling, you know, like boys will, but when he got my blouse half-off and
