Page 71 of A Mile of Ocean

“But I saw this guy,” Brock Childers added. “At least somebody dressed all in black.”

“That’s a very vague description that we’ve had to work with this whole time,” Beckett said, leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “Come to think of it, all that time up on the roof, did we ever get a clear shot of our suspect?”

Birk shook his head. “No. For a time or two, we began to think he might be a ghost.”

Hawk added his two cents. “Look, I’ve been on a lot of security details. So have Lincoln and Drum. The three of us could never understand how this guy kept evading us this time. There were never any tracks to follow for long. They alwaysended up at a creek bed or rocks. We began to suspect that whoever was doing this had inside knowledge.”

“What are we saying?” Brock asked. “Are you thinking Duchess had something to do with all this?”

“It sounds like that’s where you’re all headed. But how do you explain the notebook with Colter Bohannon’s fingerprints?” Savannah questioned. “That has to mean he is still the prime suspect.”

“There is that,” Trent noted. But when he saw Brock squirming in his seat, he asked, “What’s on your mind, Brock? Do you know something you aren’t telling us?”

“Not really. It’s probably nothing.”

Tate reached across the table to put her hand on Brock’s. “We need to know everything. If you saw something, now’s the time to level with us. Spit it out. Don’t hold back.”

“Well, it’s not that. It’s just that Trent paired Toby with Duchess. Right? During their patrols, Toby mentioned that Duchess kept insisting they split up. She’d disappear for an hour or two at a time, then circle back to where he was. He was complaining about it, but, you know, it was the boss so—”

“He never mentioned that to me,” Trent stated. “Why would she want to split up? We really need to find that murder weapon that was used to kill Barrett. Slade died of a shove down the stairs that broke his neck.”

“She could’ve snuck up on him. She could’ve done that,” Tate theorized. “But how did she shoot Granddad?”

Birk shifted in his chair. “I’ve got a better question. How did she manage the black truck showing up when it did? Someone—not her—drove it off the ranch and ditched it on the other side of town.”

“Simple. She had help,” Tate insisted. “She’s the owner of a successful cattle ranch in Green River. From what we now know, a multi-millionaire. My guess is that she has more assetsthan what’s in the offshore bank account. She has other money available, so her paying someone to help her out couldn’t be traced.”

“I’m willing to keep an open mind,” Trent informed the group. “After everything I’ve heard today, it’s possible she hired someone.”

“I’m texting Eastlyn now,” Cooper offered. “She should know if forensics found anything of value in the black truck to ID the driver.”

They waited five minutes before Eastlyn responded, and Cooper relayed that information. “The truck was wiped clean.”

“Wait a minute,” Birk stated. “Are we really suggesting your grandmother—that little old lady who offered us a place to stay—deliberately carried out a false flag OP on all of us?”

Before Trent or Tate could answer, Cooper let out an audible gasp. “Holy crap. Eastlyn just texted me. Your killer cannot possibly be Colter Bohannon.”

“Why is that?” Beckett asked.

“Because he died three weeks ago back in Stillwater. The coroner ruled his death was an apparent suicide.”

“Are the authorities sure it’s him?”

“Yeah. He was positively ID’d by fingerprints, dental records, and family members. He got into his truck, turned on the engine in the garage, and died by carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Beckett traded glances with his brother. “Then who the hell are we trying to lure into this trap?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Trent slammed his hands down on the table in frustration, his brain on overload trying to make sense of the new information. “If it’s not Colter Bohannon, then who the hell have we been dealing with this whole time?” he muttered, a sense of unease settling over the group.

Tate leaned forward, her expression grave. “You know the answer as well as I do. What have we been discussing for the last half hour? We need to consider the possibility that Duchess has been behind this the whole time. Who else could have elaborately planned Granddad’s murder?”

“If we think she’s been playing us all along, manipulating the situation to her advantage, then we should reevaluate everything. It’s clear now that we’ve been blinded by a deception that would makeMachiavelli proud.”

Cooper drummed his fingers anxiously on the table. “You can’t ignore the obvious. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to frame Colter Bohannon; making him the main suspect was actually brilliant. The notebook was the icing on the cake. It could’ve been stolen from him before his death. His fingerprints would’ve been all over that notebook. Maybe someone else added everything about the ranch after he died.”

A sudden revelation dawned on Trent. He felt a wave of disgust washing over him. “Maybe our master manipulatorordered her accomplice, whoever it is in the fancy boots, to steal the notebook and orchestrated Bohannon’s death to make it look like a suicide. Maybe the guy in Stillwater is the one who wrote the note. Maybe that’s what got him killed.”

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