Page 89 of Stockman's Showdown

‘I drive better than Charlie. And I didn’t hear you complaining today.’

She never sat in the passenger seat, always choosing the back. Bree never seemed entirely comfortable in his car—like shedidn’t belong in the polished, high-end world of showy wealth. Not that the redhead cared about money or status, it was the person behind the wealth that mattered to her, which only made her all the more precious to him.

‘I should go.’

‘No.’ He grabbed her hand and led her to the boardroom. ‘We deserve a drink after what we’ve done.’ For a man who didn’t like to talk, he wasn’t ready to finish this conversation.

Thirty-one

Bree leaned against the bench in the Riggs brothers’ boardroom, cradling her gin glass, staring at the string lines that reconstructed the scene. Even though it was late, her mind was racing, full of possibilities.

Yet watching the tall, dark and broody male, with muscles for days, who had somehow made this big room smaller—there was nothing like murder to kill a girl’s desire.

‘Humour me, okay… How was the gun set up?’

Ryder pointed to the string lines that led from the window to the pole, with one of those big hands that led to thick wrists, and strong arms with those Hollywood-hero-style biceps bulging as he pointed. ‘From the photos and the shot’s trajectory from the way it pierced his body…’

‘Ah ha.’ Since when did being a nerd become sexy on a stockman?

‘Price would’ve used the open rims of the drum to position it in a way that allowed the gun to face into this room.’

Clearing her throat, she focused on getting back in the game of playing part-time detective. If their theory was right, and with what they’d found so far it seemed likely, it would be the best gift for her grandfather. But there were holes in her theory, biggerthan a road train rolling sideways down a gully that she needed to fill before she got her grandfather’s hopes up. ‘How?’

‘Price could have used the window ledge to hold it up, and something else to chock it in place. Something that would have fallen on the outside from the pressure of the discharge.’

‘The kickback?’

Ryder gave a short no-nonsense nod. ‘A thin board, or a flat stick, wedged in behind the shotgun’s recoil pad would have held it in place. Something tall to allow for gravity to help it topple outside of the drum. The elastic would’ve wrapped around that board, and then looped around the trigger. When the shotgun fired, the elastic was released, in turn releasing the board, so the shotgun fell into the drum. It’s pretty diabolical.’ Ryder stood next to her and pointed at the picture, his rich manly aroma teasing her. ‘Even if that constable didn’t know what he was doing, he did a good job taking photos to help us at least work that bit out.’

‘If we’re right... It means Jack Price pulled the trigger.’ Once again, she checked over the string lines from the dummy gun to the pole to represent Jack Price’s body.

‘Seems like it.’

‘So, Price staged the entire thing. That’s wild.’

‘It’s really hard to get your mind around something like that. What would be his motive to go to the extreme of staging his own death to look like a murder?’

‘I think that, maybe, Price killed Harry and Penelope. He might have been so livid that his wife was going to run away with another man that he set up the explosions to cause a cave-in, trapping them in there.’

‘But would Price blow up the cave knowing all his cash was in there?’

She spun around to face Ryder. ‘I bet he didn’t know about the cash! I bet that once he discovered all his cash was missing,along with his ID and marriage certificate, he realised the only person who would’ve taken it was the wife he’d just buried inside a cave.’ The pieces clicked into place in her mind, her eyes widening at the images on the table. ‘Left with no money, no ID, no wife, with the bad guys after him for those stolen guns, and possibly the Army for his desertion, Jack Price would have lost all hope of escaping, so he framed Harry in his elaborate suicide-as-murder as revenge. What an arsehole!’

‘If the evidence was laid out for the police, like Jack did by writing down Harry’s name, they wouldn’t need to look too hard for clues.’

‘Which they didn’t.’ She grinned at the clever man with his dark eyes narrowed at the murder file on the table, with tousled brown hair, well-groomed beard, broad shoulders, and those jeans. No one filled out a pair of jeans quite like Ryder Riggs.

‘What else have you got?’

‘Well, according to Charlie’s letter from Harry,’ she said, rummaging through the file to produce his copy of the letter instead of looking at Ryder Riggs and those jeans. ‘Those lovers—’Wrong word!‘The couple had been planning their escape but kept postponing it for months. They couldn’t leave until they found the marriage certificate, because they needed it for the annulment so Harry and Penelope could get married.’

‘But how did he know about Harry and Penelope, and that cave?’

‘Well, he was a head stockman—and Charlie said Jack Price was a good one—head stockmen don’t miss much, not when they’re on the job with a station to run. And if Jack Price had people after him, he would’ve already been looking over his shoulder and could’ve noticed his wife was up to something and followed her—’

‘Or their tracks.’

She nodded. ‘I bet Jack Price found Harry’s secret cave where they’d stashed their suitcases.’

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