Page 33 of A Mile of Ocean

Tate sent daggers toward her grandmother. Tired already, her steely blue eyes shimmered with resentment at the realization the truth had been withheld for twenty-two years. “Is what he said true?”

She waited for an answer but got stony silence. Then it dawned on her. “How dare you keep this from us? I can understand not telling seven-year-olds how their parents died, but you’ve had two decades to mention this before now so that we could deal with the truth. Obviously, what’s happening now is connected to what happened to Mom and Dad. And you didn’t even think about bringing it up Friday night, the next day, or Sunday when we were sipping punch on the freaking veranda? Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you eventually tell us how our parents were killed?”

Duchess straightened her spine and got to her feet. “I’ll be heading home now to my own bed.” She cradled the shotgun in her arms as she descended the steps before turning back toward her grandchildren. “Everyone else was assigned patrol duty. What am I supposed to do tonight when everyone else is guarding the ranch?”

Tate and Trent traded looks, but Tate was the one who sneered, “Why don’t you and Dolly huddle together in your big ol’ house and binge-watch Yellowstone together? If he comes back, use your shotgun on him. Maybe some emotion will find its way into your heart and soul by that time through empathy or meditation. Although I seriously doubt it will ever happen.”

The siblings watched their grandmother raise her chin in the air and march down the pathway to the main house.

“Why are you always such a stone-cold bitch?” Tate shouted at her back as she stormed up the steps to the porch and into the house, with Trent following.

“I don’t believe this,” she bellowed, marching around the small living room. “Why did she finally open up to you?”

“She didn’t. It was Granddad’s journal, the one she wanted me to read before the funeral. They couldn’t get along after Mom and Dad died and ended up separating. It took Granddad six months before he went to Wyoming and asked her to come back. But there was a condition, a big one. She wanted him to stop talking about what happened.”

“Stop talking about it? My whole life, I knew she was emotionally distant. We’ve talked about it three dozen times. But I never in a million years figured she was that cold, not wanting to mention how her son died. All those times we sat there at mealtime and tried to bring it up, only to hit an icy brick wall with both of them. Remember those days? That explains a lot.”

“Dolly was the only one who took us to visit their graves. Now we know why.”

“It’s as if Travis and Linley Callum never existed,” Tate lamented. “Am I wrong to be this angry?”

“If you’re wrong, then so am I.”

“We deserved to know what actually happened that night, Trent. Never discussing it wasn’t the answer.”

“I know.”

“Look, I have to get cleaned up and try to catch a few hours of sleep before we go on patrol tonight,” Tate said. “Maybe a cold shower will calm me down. No, on second thought, I’m so mad I could scream. You are thinking that what happened to Mom and Dad is connected to now, right? I’m not the only one, right?”

“You better believe it. Nothing else makes any sense.”

“Good. Because I’m only sure of one thing, somebody was pissed enough to cause that accident—to shoot out their tire—”

“And they came back to finish the job twenty-two years later.”

“As crazy as that sounds, we’re dealing with someone who has now murdered four people.”

“And now he has nothing left to lose.”

“You need to mention this to Colt or Theo.”

“Don’t worry. I intend to tell them everything I know, which isn’t much.”

“And whose fault is that?” Tate snarled. “Let me take a shower, and we’ll make that call together. Then we’ll grab something to eat at your place. I’m not setting foot in our grandmother’s house until I’ve cooled off.”

Chapter Nine

By the time they geared up for night patrol, Trent and Tate had spent an hour on a Zoom call, discussing the case with Colt and Theo.

Embarrassed that they hadn’t known more about the details of their parents’ accident until now, they felt a renewed determination to see justice done.

“My mom and dad were only a few years older than us when they died,” Trent pointed out. “It’s past time someone did something about it.”

“You will look into it?” Tate wanted to know. “Isn’t it possible whatever happened then is connected to now?”

“It’s possible,” Colt said. “We’ll try to get the case file from the sheriff’s office and start from scratch as if it happened yesterday.”

“That sounds promising,” Trent told his sister.

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