Page 66 of A Mile of Ocean

They divided up the contents, each taking a stack of papers, and began organizing them into piles of invoices, legal filings by a law firm in Oklahoma City that went back decades, employee paystubs for Triple C, and a complete set of financials.

“Yes, well, get this,” Savannah said. “I’m reading the earliest legal filing, dated 1974, claiming she inherited the Triple C in December of 1970 after the owner, Noble Colter, died earlier that year. Apparently, a nephew in Oklahoma, Noble Colter’s only surviving relative, was shocked to learn that he wasn’t the Colter heir. So he sued to declare the will invalid. The case dragged on until the Wyoming courts finally ruled in 1974 that Colter’s will was valid at the time of his death, leaving it to Deanne de Haviland.”

“I’m confused,” Tate stated. “Why didn’t this guy leave the ranch to Barrett Callum?”

Trent stopped digging through his stack of papers. “That’s a good question. Only one person can answer that, and she’s decided not to talk. Who is this nephew? What’s his name?”

Savannah scanned the documents. “Josiah Colter Bohannon versus Deanne de Haviland. Josiah was the son of Noble Colter’s sister, Anna Lee Colter Bohannon. During the legal wrangling, Bohannon stated he wanted to develop the property by dividing it into smaller parcels, creating wealth for his future children.”

“How old would this nephew be now?” Tate asked. “This sounds like it goes back fifty years.”

“He’d be somewhere around eighty, nearing your grandmother’s age,” Savannah replied. She looked at Trent. “That means you’re likely dealing with a child or grandson of Josiah Bohannon, bent on getting back at the Callums.”

“Why the Callums? He sued Deanne de Haviland,” Trent noted. “A son or grandson who believes his family was cheated out of their rightful inheritance fifty years ago by Deanne de Haviland.”

“The courts ruled the will was valid,” Tate pointed out. “It wasn’t like she forced the old rancher into making her his heir, right? But what I don’t understand is why he killed Granddad and not her. If his beef is with her, he’s either a lousy shot or making her life miserable until she pays up.”

“To make a point,” Trent proffered. “To put the fear of God into her. I don’t know. But what you’re missing, Tate, is that she’s been hiding all this from her husband for decades. And us. At some point, did she promise him that she’d sell the ranch back to the people in Oklahoma and then not follow through? Why else would she hide that she’s been running the Triple C since 1974 out of state from California?”

“Oh, my God,” Tate exclaimed. “She’s known about this threat since the night Granddad was shot. She’s kept it to herself all this time. How were we supposed to catch this guy when she won’t cooperate with us?”

Tate let out a gasp for air. “I just thought of something far worse than that.”

“What?”

“Is Josiah Bohannon the person who showed up here twenty-two years ago and killed our parents? Shot the tire out of the truck, and it flipped upside down in the lagoon?”

Trent looked as though he’d been sucker-punched. “She knew about this twenty-two years ago. She knew who was responsible or at least suspected who had caused the accident and said nothing.”

Dolly heaved out a sigh, placing a hand over her mouth. “Surely you’re wrong.”

“I don’t think so. She refused to let anyone bring up their deaths for twenty-two years,” Tate concluded. “When all she cared about was running the Triple C behind everyone’s back. Why did she keep it a secret if everything was above board?”

The possibility that their grandmother had been keeping such a devastating secret for over two decades left Trent reeling. “How could she hold onto such crucial information and not come forward to help get justice? To help us. We could’ve avoided all this now if she’d done the right thing back then.”

“We have to confront her,” Tate said firmly. “She owes us the truth. Hell, she owes everyone the truth.”

Trent nodded in agreement, his eyes reflecting the betrayal he felt weighing on his chest. “We can’t let her continue to hide things from us. We need answers, even if they’re hard to hear.”

From five feet away, Savannah noticed something stuck to the inside top of the safe. She bent at the waist to get a better look. “What is that?”

Trent followed the track of her eyes, reached in, and pulled a large, legal-sized envelope from its hiding place. He bent the clasp and looked inside. “Holy shit. This contains the letter she said she burned. It’s addressed to Barrett Callum, dated three days before he died. It reads:

The time has now expired. Action will be taken. Retribution will be swift. So far, you have not lived up to your agreement. We’ve given you plenty of time to restore the Triple C to its rightful ownership for the agreed-upon price. Your refusal to accept our offer has already cost several lives. If you don’t return the Triple C to our family, what happens next is on you. If you can live with the consequences, so be it. There will be blood.”

“They weren’t asking for money,” Tate surmised. “They offered her money to get their ranch back, although it doesn’t say how much.”

“Did they actually want anything from the safe?” Savannah questioned.

Trent scanned the documents laid out across the floor and the desk. “Have we overlooked something? Is there a document somewhere that spells out the agreement and the agreed-upon price?”

“How long have the two sides been bickering about this stupid ranch?” Tate questioned. “Surely not twenty-two years.”

“Long enough that they were desperate to go to war over it,” Trent assessed, studying the weird note. “Anyone could’ve sent this. The note’s written in cheesy block letters. There’s no return address. It doesn’t look like FedEx or the postal service delivered it. There’s no postmark or tracking number. Those kinds of envelopes are sold at Murphy’s Market.”

Savannah had been digging through documents and held one up. “Here. I found an offer letter, signed by Josiah Bohannon and Deanne de Haviland but never executed, dated twenty-three years ago. Deanne backed out of it. There’s no court stamp on it or anything, no notary, as if it never made it to court for a judge to sign off on or add it into public records. There’s no bill of sale, deed, or transfer of ownership on record.”

“For how much? How much did they offer?”

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