Page 59 of Deadly Evidence
He rolled his head against the pillow. “Just leave the tray here by the bed. I’ll...get to it.”
“But the coffee is hot right now,” she wheedled. “Strong and black, just the way you like it.”
His eyes drifted shut. “I will...in a while.”
I’m going to miss you so much. She set the tray on his bedside table and brushed back the wispy white hair that always tipped over his forehead at a rakish angle. “Don’t wait too long to eat, okay?”
At a light rap on the door she turned. Mia stood there, urgently beckoning to her.
Anna followed her to the kitchen and found Dante pacing by the door, his face ashen and his mouth a grim line.
“It’s Copper,” he said. “He came home alone. When I walked in to the barn he was standing in the aisle, still saddled, with hisreins dragging on the ground. I checked everywhere—Brady isn’t here.”
“Was he still hot? Sweaty?” Anna searched her memory for any clues about where Brady usually went. A man down, with 20,000 acres to search, could be almost impossible to find.
“Copper was cool but wet—hadn’t dried off yet. I figure he got back sometime in the last hour or so.”
Anna went after her rifle, then pulled on her boots and a jacket. “I remember Brady once saying that his route usually meant two hours of solitude. That probably puts his location somewhere past our number 5 windmill in the east section. Mia, watch after Jonah, will you? If he starts eating breakfast someone needs to be close by.”
Mia nodded. “I’ll be praying for Brady’s safety.”
“There’s one other thing—” Dante’s voice caught. “There was blood. On the saddle and on the edge of the saddle blanket.”
Icy fingers crawled down Anna’s spine.
She hesitated just a second, then spun toward the phone and found the business card she’d tucked between the pages of the government listings in the phone book.
“Saddle two horses, Dante. We’re heading out right away—but first I’m calling for help.”
Mia sighed as she stared at the clock.
The day wore on, minute by minute. Jonah barely ate and wasn’t up to his usual game of chess.
Supper—like most of the meals he requested these days—was in the slow cooker, this time a nice six-pound pork roast sprinkled liberally with mesquite seasonings and pepper, that would be moist and fork-tender by evening.
Two guys wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses had driven up in an all-terrain vehicle a few hours ago, but Annamust have already given them directions because they took off into the vast pasture without coming up to the house.
There hadn’t been a word all day.
Mia glanced at the kitchen clock then went to stand at the window. Vicente, still unable to ride or handle much of anything with his shoulder injury, sat out on the patio.
Stubborn and silent, he’d spent most of his time out there since the explosion over his stupid guitar and the wedding dress.
Mia thought about poor Lacey, who’d moped all weekend.
She thought about the distance she’d traveled to see this angry, asocial man who pretended she didn’t exist.
And she thought about far greater reasons for a person to be upset—Brady, for instance, who could be dead or dying this very moment or suffering terribly with no one able to find him.
Her frustration rising, she stalked out the kitchen door and strode to the patio, where she pulled up a chair directly in front of Vicente. “We need to talk.”
He grunted and shifted his gaze toward the barn.
“This is childish,” she snapped. “You’re old enough to communicate when something’s wrong—not just sit here like an angry boy.”
“You knownothing,” he bit out, his voice filled with loathing. “What right have you to say these things?”
She recoiled from the venom in his voice, but gathered her courage and continued. “Then maybe you can tell me, huh? You’ve treated me like dirt since the day I arrived. Now you’re giving Lacey the same treatment. She’s only a kid—she made amistake.”
