The Ranchers' Daughters

By Kate Rizor

"I killed him because the voices told me to. They keep me up most nights and I can’t sleep because of them. There is only one way to make them stop and that is to end his life and mine because the voices tell me he must die." Lucy St. James writes these cryptic words in her suicide letter minutes before killing her son, Tom, and then herself. The murder-suicide of this ranching family shocks everyone except Kevin McAllister, the ranch’s foreman who knows why it happened. Kevin plans to destroy Lucy’s journal, handed down by four generations of women who owned and operated the family ranch. He would be suspected in Tom’s murder if anyone read it—and he has secrets of his own.
Forgiveness has never come easy for Teagan St. James, Tom’s daughter who has been estranged from Tom and Lucy after they once accused her of being an alcoholic. The single mom works as a model but longs to stay at home with daughter Haley. She agrees to a shoot in her hometown and takes Haley with her but gets in a car accident.
Dinah St. James is Teagan’s mother. Divorced from Tom and once an aspiring model herself, she rushes to the hospital where she learns the truth: Teagan was drunk behind the wheel and Haley is being removed from her care. Dinah agrees to take temporary custody—something Teagan will regret later. Teagan learns about the murder-suicide and that she now owns the ranch where she returns while she works to regain custody of Haley. There, she meets Kevin and their friendship develops into something more. Meanwhile, Teagan is alarmed to discover that her mother has ulterior motives regarding Haley. As she struggles with her alcoholism, guilt and ability to regain custody of Haley, she finds the family journal and begins to read it. As she delves deeper into the journal, she realizes her troubles are only beginning when she learns the truth about Kevin, her father's death and the role her grandmother played in it, further testing her sobriety, happiness and ability to forgive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483571072

Book preview

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Chapter 1

Dear Charlotte: My heart hurts today from devastating news last night—Doc Ashby has given Pa six months to live. His only chance for survival lay west of the Mississippi, where the mountain air is pure. It means leaving home and family and a long five-month journey but I must. I would do anything to save my William. I will pack immediately for our journey. Mom, January 1847

Ouray, Colorado

Present Day

Her hands trembled as she finished writing her suicide letter. Lowering her pen, she leaned over the desk and read the note again to make sure it was legible. The first three drafts lay crumpled in the trash can. For forty minutes, she’d struggled with the words because she wanted them perfect, nothing left to interpretation. She wanted everyone to know what she had done—what she didn’t want people to know was why.

Her eyes skimmed the letter until she came to these words:

I killed him because the voices told me to. They keep me up most nights, and I can’t sleep because of them. There is only one way to make them stop and that is to end his life and mine because the voices tell me he must die.

She’d always been known around town for being eccentric, but recently she’d overheard whispers about her being crazy. She didn’t blame people for saying or thinking that. Her visits to town stopped three years ago because she knew people would ask questions. She no longer accepted phone calls or visitors. No more gardening or line dancing or visiting the hot springs because she didn’t want anyone to know the truth.

No one would be surprised when they found out.

Just like her mom, they’d say at her visitation. Crazy as a loon. Should have locked her up long ago.

That’s what she wanted them to believe anyway.

She signed the letter and slipped it inside an envelope. She scrawled Kevin’s name across the front and kissed it, then sealed the envelope and placed it on top of her journal. A separate letter stuck out from between the pages, instructions for Kevin on what to do with the journal.

Her bones creaked like the old floorboards of the one-hundred-sixty-two-year-old farm house as she stood and stretched, feeling every one of her eighty-three years. She walked across the bedroom, parted the sheer curtains and peered outside to see Kevin straddling a horse, his right arm circling the air like he had an invisible bullwhip in his hand. The horse lashed out with its back legs and twisted in the air like a drunken marionette. And like the puppeteer, Kevin stayed in control.

She smiled as she watched Kevin break the neighbor’s horse. Tommy would be proud; he’d taught Kevin everything he knew.

It’d been a long time since she’d seen Kevin ride with such vigor. Months? Years? She didn’t know. Time had become insignificant to her. But it was good to see his smile, hear his laughter, see something other than concern on his face.

She watched as Kevin looked out over the pastures pockmarked by snowdrifts, but he didn’t look at it like Tom used to. He’d never stood in the middle of the pasture in the thaw of spring with his head thrown back, eyes closed, nose to the wind, smelling ozone as rain clouds threatened overhead. He’d never bent over to pick up the dirt, simply to feel it in his hands. Or climbed the San Juan Mountains to watch the sun slip below the horizon.

She released the curtain, letting it fall back in place. Even though she’d known him only four years, Kevin was like a grandson to her. She would miss him immensely.

She withdrew the lock box from her desk drawer and set it on the bed. Stabbing the key in the lock, she twisted and heard the metal lid pop open. She lifted the .38 caliber Ladysmith revolver from the box. It was cold, heavier than she remembered when she bought it a month ago from the gun shop in Ridgway, her first trip to the town in three years. She said she needed it for protection on the ranch, a good enough excuse. The man who sold it to her said it was perfect for someone her age: small, lightweight, easy to fire, little kick. He accepted the seven hundred dollars she gave him for the weapon, the last of her savings. Money well spent.

Nobody would guess she had rheumatoid arthritis as she pulled bullets from the box with quick, nimble fingers. She grew up hunting this land, so guns didn’t scare her. She respected them because she knew the damage they caused.

She loaded the bullets—one, two, three, four, five—hearing them click against the metal cylinder as she seated them. She snapped it closed and held the gun to feel the weight and power and enormity of what she was going to do. This was her third attempt. She would not change her mind this time. She couldn’t.

Her fingers shook as they encircled the butt of the gun. She closed her eyes, took a deep, ragged breath. She could do this. She just had to remember who and what she was: a St. James. They did what needed to be done.

The gun dangling at her side, she entered the kitchen with her journal in her hand. She placed the journal on the counter where Kevin would see it. She entered the living room.

Tommy? Hesitating in the doorway, she watched her sixty-three-year-old son. His back was to her, arms crossed, head cocked as he looked out the window at Kevin. She wondered what he was thinking.

She walked up to him but he didn’t turn around. It was better this way. Easier.

Leaning against him, she wound an arm around his waist and pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades. Heard him inhale sharply at the contact.

I will see you soon, son, she whispered.

Stepping back, she pressed the gun against the base of Tommy’s head and pulled the trigger, feeling warm blood and brain matter splatter her hands. He collapsed on the floor and didn’t move. She knelt and touched his wrist, feeling for a pulse. When she was sure her son was dead, she turned the gun on herself.

Chapter 2

Dear Charlotte: I am preparing for our journey to CALIFORNIA. My guidebook describes large beasts called buffalo that are as big as our wagon! I sold the house and most of our belongings but it is worth it for Pa can barely make it out of bed most morns. Will depart for Independence in March. Mom, February 1847

Smile. Smile until your face hurts, Teagan St. James thought as the camera clicked and whirled. She leaned back in the driver’s seat and smiled as the photographer circled the Jeep Wrangler, looking for the best angle and light.

Lift your chin.

She did.

Not that high. A little lower. Good. Now turn your head just until…yes. Yes, that’s right.

Click, click, click.

Smile, Teagan.

I am smiling, Peter.

That’s not a smile. It’s not meeting your eyes.

Her smiles did that a lot lately. They’d felt fake. Stiff. Teagan closed her eyes and tried to remember her last genuine smile but couldn’t.

Open your eyes. At least pretend you’re enjoying this.

She had never worked with him before. She’d heard a lot about the photographer who didn’t go by a last name; he was a big name in the industry. He’d shot for several magazines that Teagan once dreamed of gracing the cover of, dreams that disappeared eight years ago when she became a mother. After that, all she wanted was to stay home with Haley, but it didn’t work out that way.

She opened her eyes and forced another smile. It shouldn’t be this difficult. She’d been modeling since she was in diapers. Expressions should come naturally.

The Jeep shook from the brisk April wind that tore through Yankee Boy Basin. It lifted her hair, creating a golden cloud above her head.

Good, good, Peter said. Beautiful!

Teagan scanned the 13,000-foot peaks of the San Juan Mountains to take her mind off what she was doing. She knew why the client had chosen this desolate spot for the shoot. Twin Falls roared behind her, dipping twice over the mountains in two linked waterfalls. The surrounding pine trees had stood here long before miners came west with dreams of fortunes. Other trees were flattened from the merciless winter avalanches.

The miners were long gone. All-terrain vehicles driven by thrill-seekers and nature lovers had replaced horses and wagons. Once bustling mining towns were now ghosts because they couldn’t sustain themselves. They had sat vacant for several decades, at the weather’s mercy. Nobody came up here until the Jeep was invented, another reason the client wanted the shoot here, outside Ouray, Colorado, a town considered the Jeep Capital of the World.

A town like Ouray didn’t change. It couldn’t, being situated in a box canyon. There were no Walmarts here. No drug stores or McDonald’s. It was like stepping back in time when you entered one of the few towns that survived the silver crash of 1893.

Everything was the same as that July afternoon ten years ago when Teagan and her mother left this hole-in-the-wall place, destination New York City.

Peter lowered his camera. Something’s not right. He strode up to her and tilted her head. His fingers were cold as he shifted her shoulders and touched her chin, pushing it down and to the side.

Teagan let him maneuver her body because it was easier that way. Peter knew what he wanted and he wanted it right the first time.

She frowned. Not enough light?

He had removed the Jeep’s hardtop earlier to allow more natural light but maybe it wasn’t enough.

She tensed but didn’t resist when Peter nudged her shoulder back. He was known for his temper and for blaming the model if his pictures didn’t turn out perfect. She needed to make this client happy if she wanted to keep this job.

He snapped a few more pictures before lowering his camera again. It’s just not sexy enough.

"It’s not supposed to be. We’re shooting for a Jeep advertisement. Not Maxim."

I know that.

Teagan sighed and squinted into the sky as a hawk shrieked its arrival and drifted over, wings outstretched in the wind. Its talons extended as it caught sight of something moving in the grass. Dipping down, it snagged a mouse before veering away. She watched it disappear, wishing she could do the same.

Teagan glanced down at the second Jeep parked at the bottom of the hill. Haley was in the passenger seat, surrounded by their suitcases, probably getting bored with her Nintendo DS. Her daughter was going to wonder what was taking so long and when they were going to Telluride for the spring break vacation Teagan promised.

It was the first time she’d taken her eight-year-old with her to a shoot and vowed it would be the last. Normally, Teagan left her daughter home with her mother when she worked, but Dinah St. James was vacationing in the Bahamas and wouldn’t be back for another week.

Peter opened the driver’s door. Get out.

Teagan slipped off the leather seat and stood. And do what?

Get on the hood.

I’m not getting on the hood. I’m wearing a skirt.

Trust me. This will look great.

She sighed and climbed on the hood, folding one ankle over the other as she stretched her legs out. I don’t see why I have to—

Spread your legs.

Excuse me?

Quit acting like Mother Theresa and spread your legs.

Teagan uncrossed her ankles and spread her legs a few inches apart. Her skirt fell modestly between her knees, the white ruffles battling each other in the wind.

You’re selling a Wrangler, Teagan, not a minivan. Now spread ‘em.

They wanted me behind the wheel.

You’re a washed up has-been who never was, he said. The only reason you were hired for this shoot is because you’re from here. Now do what I say.

She clenched her jaw and swallowed the names she wanted to call him. But he was right. In the twenty-eight years she’d been modeling, somehow becoming a household name had not happened.

This shoot was the first to come along in several months. Her mother blamed the lag in her career on her age. Her agent blamed it on her attitude.

How much longer, Peter? She didn’t like where this was going. Photographers had hit on her before. Some stopped with the flirting. Others didn’t and needed to be put in their place. She expected Peter to be professional. She’d obviously been wrong. She scanned Yankee Boy Basin for signs of the crew returning. They’d left an hour ago to grab lunch in Ouray.

I need a break. She slid off the vehicle. These boots are killing me. Teagan sank into the director’s chair where her makeup had been applied that morning. She unzipped the black leather boots and rubbed her bare feet.

Don’t take too long, he said, changing the lens of his Leica camera. We’re losing light.

Grabbing her thermos from her duffle bag, she uncapped it and drank until it was empty. Teagan bent over and opened the cooler, grabbing a cold can of diet cola. She popped the tab with French manicured fingernails, heard it hiss as she poured the contents into the metal thermos. When he wasn’t looking, she pulled a metal flask from her bag. She uncapped and poured some rum into her thermos, capping it again. She slipped it back in the bag and shook the thermos, hearing the liquid slosh around inside.

Teagan took another drink and then another, working up liquid courage to return to the Jeep and finish the shoot.

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she had not eaten since breakfast. She scanned the basin for Madelyn Johnson’s white Jeep. Her makeup artist had promised she’d return with lunch, but she was nowhere in sight.

Teagan was alone with Peter. Tourists were scarce in April because snow still spotted the mountain tops, making many roads impassable. The river rushed faster and roared louder because of winter thaw.

Peter brushed up behind her and cupped her bare shoulders.

She jumped at the sudden contact. You scared me.

He began massaging her shoulders. Lighten up.

Her hands shook as she took another drink. Let’s finish this. She leaned over and slipped on her boots. The sooner she could finish this, the sooner she and Haley could head south to her mother’s cabin in Telluride.

Peter bent over her shoulders. His lips were warm against her ear as he whispered, Relax.

How could she relax when he was touching her? She took another sip of her drink, something she’d been relying on more and more to get through these shoots. She kept a flask in her purse for emergencies like this. Her shoulders loosened but it wasn’t from his words—it was from the alcohol.

That’s better. He kneaded her shoulders several times before his thumbs shifted to the base of her neck. He prodded the delicate bones of her spinal column. You’re so tense. You need to relax.

Teagan lowered her thermos. Let’s g’back to work. She touched her lips and came away with red lipstick-stained fingers. Her words were becoming as fuzzy as her thoughts. She stood unsteadily, took a step and stumbled. It must be the boots. She leaned against the chair for support.

What’s the hurry? He encircled her waist and kissed her neck.

She turned to face him and almost fell from the sudden movement. Don’t.

He steadied her. Don’t what?

Let’s just finish this.

He tightened his hold around her waist. That sounds like a good idea.

My daughter—

She’s can’t see us. Peter buried his face in Teagan’s hair. You’re so beautiful.

Teagan stepped back. Let’s just get back to work. The crew will be back any minute. She wanted to slap him and tell him what he could do with his camera. She did neither. She couldn’t. She needed the job too much. She had rent to pay. Bills were piling up.

Her eyes scanned the horizon for signs of the crew but only saw the hawk again as it circled the sky.

I told them to take the afternoon off.

Teagan took another step back. Why would you do that? We have work to do. She was alone out here with this creep. She should have agreed to go with the crew into town, but she wanted to wrap up early so she and Haley could leave.

It’s nothing we can’t handle alone. I know some people in high places, Teagan. You won’t have to struggle again if you—

No. Teagan grabbed her bag. Forget the bills. She was getting out of here.

Where do you think you’re going?

I’m leaving.

Leaving? Why? We have a job to finish.

We’re done. She turned and walked away. I’m—

The ground rushed up and she found herself facedown on the grass. Air exploded from her lungs. Her jaw slammed into a rock, snapping her head back. White dots exploded in front of her eyes. Her lungs…she couldn’t breathe. She blinked the dots away and tried to inhale but couldn’t. No air. She couldn’t breathe! She—

Air. Her lungs opened and she could breathe again. Had she tripped? Had he pushed her? She didn’t know. She just wanted to get away. She rose on her hands and knees but he pushed her back down. She landed on her hip. He was on top of her before she could move again. He sank onto her back and straddled her body, pinning her arms against her sides.

Let me up!

Cold air touched her thighs when he lifted her skirt.

Get off me! Something warm oozed down the side of her face and dribbled onto her lips. Her tongue darted out between dirt-crusted lips. Blood. She was bleeding. "Peter, let me up! Get off me!"

She thrashed like a fish on a hook when she heard him lower his zipper. Shrieking, she bucked, trying to throw him off.

Haley. Her daughter couldn’t hear this. Couldn’t see this. Teagan bit her lip to silence her screams.

Mommy?

Teagan lifted her head. Too late. Haley stood ten feet away, staring at them through big blue eyes so like her own. Her daughter slipped her thumb between trembling lips, something Teagan hadn’t seen her do since she was four years old. Several strands of blond hair had escaped her pigtails and lashed wildly around her head.

Haley.

With strength she didn’t know she possessed, she rolled and pitched Peter to the side, which allowed her to slip her arm out. She remembered the hawk crushing the mouse, and her fingernails became talons, slicing, clawing at his face.

Peter jumped to his feet and stumbled away, cursing, clutching his face.

Teagan scrambled to her feet. She grabbed her bag in one hand and Haley’s hand in the other and stumbled toward the Jeep she’d sat in minutes before. She swung Haley into the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel.

Teagan! Peter screamed.

Her hands shook as she stabbed the key in the ignition. She twisted the key, heard the engine roar to life. Buckle up, Haley. Now. She did the same and looked over her shoulder to see him running toward the Jeep.

Teagan shifted into drive and floored the gas pedal. The Jeep lurched forward, the tires spitting chunks of grass. Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, she drove away.

Mommy, you’re bleeding.

Mommy. A term Haley hadn’t used in years.

Teagan touched her bloody forehead. She wanted to say something to comfort Haley but the words became jumbled in her brain.

That man hurt you.

Teagan’s fingers trembled as she reached out and found Haley’s hand. She squeezed it reassuringly and tried to speak again but couldn’t.

She squinted as she turned onto Canyon Creek Road. With no guard rail, the mountain road could be dangerous. Growing up, she’d heard about snowplow trucks and other vehicles going off the road. She’d seen emergency crews pull bodies out from the wreckage.

Teagan blinked as her vision blurred. Blood in her eyes? Tears? The blow to her head? She rubbed her eyes but it didn’t clear her vision.

Her breath came in unsteady gasps. Stop. Just stop before something terrible happens. They were far enough away now. But they were on a mountain road, and there was nowhere to pull off.

She eased off the gas and tried to shift her foot to the brake but her foot was heavy and she pressed the gas instead. The sudden speed and sharp turn in the road surprised her. She cried out as the Jeep twisted toward the sharp cliff and launched off the edge.

She screamed when she saw Canyon Creek rushing closer. And then she saw nothing.

Chapter 3

Dear Charlotte: Left Independence at noon, heading west toward the Platte River. Our wagon is packed knee-high with all we own. The prairie spreads out for miles. Our wagon train t’is so long I cannot see where it begins nor ends! Mom, April 23, 1847

Kevin McAllister tipped his head back and whooped in excitement as he rode the bucking horse. Plucking off his cowboy hat, he raised it over his head and counted. Five seconds. Eight, twelve, and still he remained on the horse.

There was no secret to breaking a horse, Tom St. James used to say. He scoffed at men who called themselves horse whisperers.

"Them ain’t real men, Tom would say. None of that talking to and bargaining with, Kev. Horses ain’t gonna respect you that way. Get up there and ride him until you exhaust him and then ride him some more until he respects you."

That’s what Tom believed but it wasn’t Kevin’s way. Kevin preferred to take his time and earn the animal’s trust. For weeks, he’d been working to break Dante, a mustang the neighbor, Greg O’Brien, bought at auction. The physician had lived next door all his life. Greg and Tom grew up together in Ouray, attended the same school together. As adults, they were close enough to be brothers.

Kevin envied O’Brien and the St. James family, people who had roots, stability and each other. He never had that luxury growing up. He’d been shuffled from one foster home to another as the six-year-old son of a man who spent more time in prison than out of it.

Kevin arrived at Windsong four years ago with an empty stomach and an empty gas tank. He’d just filed for divorce—his second. He told Tom he knew how to herd sheep; he would have said anything to get the job. Tom hired him and quickly found out it’d all been a lie. Instead of firing him, Tom worked with him, teaching him everything he knew about sheepherding.

Windsong was virgin, never touched by miners like most of the land here in Ouray. Over the past century, hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver and ore had been mined from land throughout the San Juans until there was nothing left. Like his ancestors before him, Tom refused to sell the land to mining companies. Nobody knew the real worth of the land, but many speculated that Windsong was worth a fortune.

It’s sacrilegious to have miners here, Tom used to say. They ain’t touching this land. I’ve seen what they done to the Vanderveen’s place.

Metallic beasts dotted Vanderveen’s horizon instead of trees and fence posts that weathered generations of Colorado wind and rain. Plumes of smoke and dust belched from the earth. Wildlife was forced out and ponds were filled in. Dirt piles as tall as the highest building downtown competed with the San Juans that rose like a ring of sentinels in the distance.

Kevin raised his arm higher for balance as he jerked back and forth from Dante’s powerful kicks. Pebbles clinked against horseshoes as the mustang bucked and twisted his hindquarters, trying to unseat Kevin. He leaned back in the saddle, anticipating the sudden movements.

He clamped his legs more securely around Dante’s dark belly. It felt good. He felt good. It’d been over a year since he’d broken a horse. It was the first time in a long time that he felt alive.

Kevin rode Dante until the horse stood still in defeat. Only then did he dismount.

He wished he had more time to break horses but there wasn’t time for anything anymore. Fields needed plowing. Sheep needed to be cared for. Rusting farm equipment littered the barn and hills like battlefield debris because there wasn’t money or time to fix them. So much had changed over the years.

Gunshots.

Two of them.

Kevin’s head snapped up. He dropped the reins and squeezed through the fence. The wind whipped his dark hair against his face as he sprinted for the back door of the house and flung it open. He climbed the mudroom steps two at a time and entered the kitchen that still smelled like scrambled eggs.

Tom? he called out. Lucy?

The kitchen table and sink were clean, no evidence they’d eaten breakfast an hour ago.

Lucy? Tom?

Gunshots didn’t make sense. Weapons were not in the house. Not anymore. Kevin made sure of that months ago.

Tom? You here? He searched the family room and dining room but they were empty. Had somebody gotten inside? Lucy?

He found their bodies in the living room. Tom lay facedown on the shag carpet. Lucy rested on her side as if she were asleep. Her gray curls were red from the gaping hole in the side of her head.

Kevin cried out and fell to his knees beside Tom’s body. "Tom? Tom?" He gently rolled the man over and cradled his limp body against his chest. He felt for a pulse, felt nothing.

Tom was dead. He was dead!

A revolver rested in Lucy’s open hand. Kevin rested on his heels and tipped his head back. He closed his eyes.

Lucy did it.

She’d killed her son.

Tom was dead.The only man who’d ever trusted him, to give him a chance, was dead. The only man he had ever loved and respected was dead.

Kevin upended the coffee table, spilling remotes, coasters, magazines and knitting needles. He hurled a remote against the fireplace. "Why? Why, Lucy?" He screamed the question even though he knew the answer.

He felt something warm on his face. Tears. He was crying, the first time he could remember crying since he saw his father handcuffed and taken to prison when he was six.

Blood was everywhere. On the blue shag carpet. On the paneled walls. On the brick mantle and popcorn ceiling. The sickening mix of blood and gunpowder and scrambled eggs made Kevin nauseous. Hot bile burned his throat. He pressed a clenched hand against lips that tasted like tears and blood and concentrated on breathing but the deeper he breathed, the more he smelled the coppery scent of blood.

Kevin hurried to the kitchen sink and turned on the water. He stuck his hands under the flow. Tom’s blood eddied around the white porcelain sink before it disappeared down the drain.

He looked up and saw Lucy’s journal on the counter. The journal was nearly three-inches thick. The brown leather cover was cracked, fragile-old and spotted with stains, the corners frayed and torn. He knew it by heart—every word, every recorded memory. It was old, memory-filled, some good, many bad.

An envelope poked out from between the pages. A separate piece of paper was tucked behind it.

Kevin touched the book. It was a journal handed down by Tom’s female ancestors, a written record of the family’s heritage. A family tradition in which each woman passed it on to her child.

The journal had been in the family since Maggie Monroe had come west to Ouray with her sick husband. At one time when things were happier between Tom and Dinah, Lucy tried to pass it down to her daughter-in-law, not because she wanted to, but because it was tradition, and in Grandma Lucy’s mind, traditions could not be broken. But Dinah wanted nothing to do with the journal or tradition.

Kevin pulled out the piece of paper and read the scrawled words:

Destroy the journal upon my death, Kevin. The tradition of handing it down to my descendant must end here for Teagan can never know the secrets inside. Nobody must know. If you love us, you’ll remember the promise you made and never say a word about what happened.

When he was done, he crumpled the paper. He knew why Lucy wanted the journal destroyed. He would do it, but he’d do it for his own selfish reasons. Because if someone read the journal, they would think he had killed them.

Kevin placed the journal on the kitchen counter. He opened the envelope and read Lucy’s suicide note. So she wanted them to think she’d gone crazy, he thought, folding the letter again. He would oblige her.

Kevin sank into a chair. This was why Lucy wanted him out of the house. He shouldn’t have listened to her when she insisted he break Dante that morning. He had argued with her, told her he had ten other things to do around the ranch.

Greg’s paying us good money to make that horse rideable, Kevin.

She pushed him out of the house and issued a stern warning not to come back until he was sitting on that horse. He didn’t think it was odd at the time. Money was sparse; they had just used up the last of their savings to pay the vet bill.

Kevin’s fist came down on the table. The man who’d been like a father to him was dead and it was his fault.

He fingered the envelope. The police would have to investigate the crime scene. He only hoped they didn’t dig too deep. He didn’t want them to find what he’d spent years covering up.

He grabbed the cordless phone and spoke briefly to the 911 dispatcher before hanging up. Next, he pulled out Lucy’s phone book and called Greg O’Brien and told him to come over. He didn’t say why.

Kevin flipped to the entry for Teagan St. James and hesitated. Tom’s daughter hadn’t been back in eight years. Many in town speculated about the estrangement but only Kevin knew the truth. Eight years ago, Tom and Lucy learned about Teagan’s first DUI. They accused her of being an alcoholic and questioned her ability to be a good mother. She severed the relationship and never returned.

He didn’t want to call her but knew Tom and Lucy would want him to. He picked up the phone again and dialed but hung up a minute later when he reached her voicemail.

Tom’s cold-hearted, selfish bitch of a daughter cared only about herself and her career. She had ignored Lucy’s desperate pleas for forgiveness. She never called, never once returned. She didn’t deserve to have the things she did when