Page 19 of Colt
Everyone dug in and seemed to have forgotten I’d been asked about myself. Colt hadn’t. “Molly’s the new ER doc at the hospital. Came from Cheyenne.”
He looked to me if he got that correct, which only showed how little we knew about each other. Clothed.
I nodded. “Yes. I saw the opening and thought it was a good fit.”
“Where’d you go to medical school?” Trig asked, then shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth.
“Hopkins, in Maryland.”
“Molly’s also the medical examiner,” Colt added, his gaze directly on Trig.
Trig swallowed, then set down his fork. He glanced at Ellie, then back at Colt. All humor was gone. “And?”
It wasn’t just Trig who stopped eating. Everyone at the table paused.
“He had a stroke,” Colt said, then looked to me.
“I can’t share confidential information about a patient, even deceased.”
Colt jaw clenched for a moment, then he nodded. “I can. The fall didn’t kill him.”
I set my hand on Colt’s arm. “What are you doing?”
Colt lifted his chin. “Remember I said my brother’s wife’s father was Lance Mann?”
I nodded. He’d said that when he announced we had to leave the house.
“That’s Ellie.”
My gaze whipped to meet Ellie’s. “Oh my God. I’m sorry for your loss.” I smacked Colt. “Are you insane? The woman’s lost her father and you want to talk about hisautopsy?”
Trig huffed. “There’s no love there, so don’t you worry your pretty head.”
“Hey, you worry about your own woman’s pretty head,” Colt countered, sounding very territorial.
Mabel stopped by with our meals and set them before us. The scent of cheese and green peppers wafted from my plate and made my mouth water. The hash browns next to the omelet looked crispy and deliciously greasy.
Ellie rolled her eyes as she stuck a piece of melon in her mouth. “This pretty head can speak for herself,” she said to the men, then turned to me. “It’s okay. I barely knew him. Hadn’t seen him in years. I’d been living in Seattle and he asked me to come home. Turnsout, he’d made an arrangement to marry me to his crony in exchange for paying off debts.”
I blinked. “Um, what?”
She filled me in on the rest and Trig beside her looked pained, like he’d eaten broken glass instead of eggs and bacon.
“Wow. Okay, that’s… crazy,” I said when she finished. My sister waffled between being a sociopath and a psychopath so I was familiar with family doing insane things. I wasn’t close with my parents, but they would never trade me for money. “Are you next of kin?”
Ellie nodded. “Legally. Technically.”
“Legally, I can share the details with you.” No matter what the man did or how much she hated him, he was still her father. “While he had broken bones from the fall down the stairs, it was the brain bleed that killed him.”
“Not Trout then,” Trig stated. I didn’t know who this Trout person was, but I assumed it was the one they thought might have pushed Lance Mann down the stairs.
“Not Trout,” Colt confirmed. “Death was from a medical cause, not murder.” He glanced at me. “Right?”
“Correct.” I nodded.
“There isn’t a murderer in Devil’s Ditch then?” Bray asked.
Colt took a swig of his coffee. “No murderer. I already called the paper with an update so the town can settle back down.”
