Page 65 of Her Wild Coast Refuge

He huffs a chuckle. “No.”

It’s not like I was expecting them to be hiding dark secrets or anything, but it’s a relief they aren’t. “Anything else I should know?”

“They live in Denver. Mr. James co-owns a brokerage firm called Hemery Tate with his wife. Mr. Spencer is the company’s CFO. Neither of them have children. No warrants for their arrest.”

“But,” Hunter adds, his eyes turning serious, “Mr. James has a juvenile offense on his record. I can’t access it without special permission from a judge.”

I set my coffee down. “That sounds bad.”

Hunter gives me a pensive glance. “Maybe, maybe not. It could be something small, like trespassing or joyriding. Kid stuff, or it could be something bigger. But he hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket since.”

I break off another bite of scone. “His dad sent him to some tough love school in Utah that got shut down. Maybe the two are connected.”

“His father was a real piece of work. Bankruptcy. A couple of DUIs. He died of liver failure about six years ago. Might have been an alcoholic.”

I huff a hard breath, wondering if this is true. Ugh.

“Okay, your turn,” Hunter says. “When you called, it wasn’t to tell me you were running late.”

“Right.” I share Kalle’s tip about the mine’s apparent progress, including my Google Earth search to confirm it.

“They can’t move on building anything unless they have the permits.” Hunter removes the pad and pen he always carries from his back pocket and jots down a few notes. “The mining company is called Bealer? I’ll look at them. If they’re breaking federal land laws, we can put a stop to this immediately.”

Relief fills me so fast my body feels like jelly. “Really?”

“Hell yeah.”

“What if somehow they have the permits, what should we do?”

“I’ve been thinking about this. Some of Dad’s old cronies are still working government jobs. Maybe one of them could convince the governor to get involved. He would certainly want to know if some mining company was jumping the gun on a claim they don’t have the right to.”

“Wow. I can write the letter, if that helps?”

He runs his thumb along the rim of his coffee cup. “Good. Keep it brief, though, okay?”

“Got it.”

“We have some money to spend now, too.” He fixes me with a serious gaze. “We pooled resources, talked to a few banks. It’s not enough to buy the claim, but it can certainly help with things like this.”

“Wow, Hunter. That’s incredible. How—”

He puts up a hand to stop me. “The important part is using it wisely.”

“Right.” I unfold the printouts from my pocket and smooth them flat on the table. “Check this out. I got the names of the original claim’s descendants.”

Hunter and I scan the information. Augustus Daly’s wife Eleanor died in 1988 at the age of eighty-six. Her two children are still alive. The daughter, Trina, lives in Portland, Oregon. She married Oliver Mills and they have three children. One is my age, the other is older. Eleanor and Augustus’s son, Allen, lives in Grand Junction, Colorado. He’s twice divorced, no children.

“Did you find out which of them might own the claim?”

“Not yet.”

Hunter raises and eyebrow. “Let me take it from here. My computers are a little faster than that archaic system at the lodge.”

“Thanks, Hunter.”

“Last thing.” Hunter pulls up an image on his phone. “Know this guy?”

It’s Hayden, standing on the corner of what looks like a seedy hotel and a warehouse. The light is bad, but he’s easy to identify because of the Mavericks Baseball cap and the way his beefy arms hang from his frame. It’s probably the reason his fastball clocks at ninety miles an hour. And why he was able to give me this bruise with one swipe of his paw.

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