“The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. The body will be released for burial either late in the evening or the next morning.” He kept his answer factual, sensing it was what Chase wanted.
“Good. We’ll be able to finalize the funeral arrangements.” Chase studied the whiskey in his glass. He gave it a quick swirl then bolted down half of it. “Have you spoken with Culley yet? With Cat there, he was bound to be somewhere around.”
“I talked to him,” Logan confirmed with a nod. “He said he didn’t see anything. He shadowed Cat and Quint when they drove the cattle back to camp.” Like Chase, he avoided any direct reference to Ty.
“What about that piece of a knife blade that was still embedded in the wound? Were you able to learn anything from it?”
Logan briefly toyed with the idea of keeping that information to himself. But it came back to that issue of maintaining Chase’s trust in him.
“We’re still checking on it, but it appears to have been homemade.”
“Like the kind you might confiscate from an inmate in prison,” Chase suggested.
Logan didn’t like the cold, steely look in Chase’s eyes. Since coming to Montana, he had heard a few whispers about Calder justice. At that moment, Logan knew he needed to make it clear he would brook no interference.
“I’ll handle this, Chase, just like I did the last time there was trouble,” he stated firmly. Even though Buck Haskell hadn’t been mentioned by name, they both knew he was the prime suspect. “Don’t do anything on your own that you’ll come to regret.”
“I won’t. You have my word on that.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile that was as cold as his eyes, which made Logan all the more uneasy. “By the way,” Chase continued, much too casually, “have you learned where Haskell was this morning?”
“It’s being done now.” Logan had nothing confirmed and refused to pass on any speculation that had been heard.
Chase didn’t have an opportunity to question him further on the subject as footsteps approached the den. Recognizing the familiar light tread of them, Logan rose from the chair. When Cat entered the den, her green eyes were without their usual sparkle. Grief had dulled them and given her a faintly sunken and hollow look. It was a sight that ripped at him. Cat felt all things deeply; this time it was her brother’s death.
She stopped when she saw him, her gaze clinging to his face. “I didn’t hear you drive in.”
Sensing the tight control she was exerting on herself, Logan crossed the room and gathered her loosely in his arms. “I’ve only been here a few minutes.” He felt her shudder then relax against him, her arms circling to clutch him close. “Chase said you were upstairs helping Jessy get the twins in bed. Are they asleep?”
“Finally,” she mumbled against his shirt then drew back, tilting her head to look at him, a stark pain in her expression. “It was awful, Logan. Three times Trey asked for his daddy. I know he’s too young to understand, but he must sense something.” With a sudden flicker of concern, Cat looked quickly around the room. “Where’s Quint?”
“In the living room,” Chase told her. “Sound asleep on the couch.”
“Poor guy.” She managed a wan smile. “It’s past his bedtime, too. We’re ready to go home whenever you are.”
“Sorry, but I’m going to be tied up awhile longer.” Logan didn’t say with what, but she knew he meant with the ongoing investigation into her brother’s murder.
On other occasions when he had to work late, she had usually made some joke about being married to a sheriff. This time, though, she drew away from him, bright tears welling in her eyes.
“Cat.” Logan took a step after her.
“I’m fine,” she insisted with a quick, high lift of her head. “Honestly. This Calder is tougher than she looks.”
He looked at his petite wife and smiled, knowing it was true. “I stopped by the ranch and picked up a few things for you and Quint. I thought it might be better if you spent the night here. That way you won’t have to drive back over first thing in the morning. If there’s anything I forgot, you can let me know and I’ll drop it by tomorrow.”
“It’s probably best that I stay here,” Cat agreed on a thoughtful note. “All the arrangements still need to be finalized, and—” She paused and glanced at Chase. “What will you do about roundup?”
“Nothing. I’ll pull the boys off long enough to attend the funeral then send them back out ’til we finish. We can’t stop now that we’ve started. You know that,” Chase replied with a trace of impatience.
Cat knew it wasn’t directed at her, but at the fact that it had to be that way. “Of course I do.”
He threw a look beyond her. “Is Jessy coming down?”
“In a few minutes, she said,” Cat replied.
“Good. I—” Chase broke off the sentence, catching the muffled roar of a fast-traveling vehicle outside.
He turned with a frown as headlight beams slewed across the windows. This was not a night when people would call to offer their sympathies. Tonight was a time for the family to grieve in private.
As the bright beams swung away from the windows, brakes squealed and tires skidded. In all of it, there was a sense of alarm. Chase headed for the front door as racing feet pounded up the porch steps.
“Dear God, what’s happened now?” Cat picked up the same vibrations and darted a worried look at Logan, but he had already followed Chase into the wide hall.
The front door burst open with a force that slammed it against the doorstop. A wild-eyed Tara rushed in and halted briefly when she saw Chase, wet streaks of black mascara running down her cheeks.
“Chase, thank God.” She launched herself at him, desperate fingers clutching at his shirtfront. “They just told me—” Tara broke off the sentence with a denying shake of her head. “It’s not true. It can’t be true. Ty is here, isn’t he?” Emotion sobbed in her voice. Frantic, she looked past him. “I need to see him.”
“Tara.” Chase gripped her shoulders. “Tara, it’s true. Ty is—”
“No!” she screamed to silence him and twisted in a wild frenzy to pull away, fear giving her a man’s strength. “That’s a lie! He isn’t dead. He’s here. I know he is.”
In a frenzy, Tara charged toward the living room. Logan made a grab for her, but she jerked free from him as easily as she had from Chase.
“You aren’t going to keep me from him. None of you!” Tara hurled the warning, a half-crazed glare in her eyes. “I’ll find him. Ty!” she called then saw Jessy coming down the stairs, her outer calm in direct contrast to Tara’s hysteria. Tara froze for a split second then ran for the steps. “He’s up there, isn’t he? Ty! Ty?”
At the landing, Jessy blocked Tara’s path. “You can’t go up there. You’ll wake the twins.”
“Get out of my way!” Tara shrieked and reached to push Jessy aside. “Ty’s up there! I have to see him. Ty! Ty!”
As always, she had met her match in Jessy. Jessy shoved her back. “Stop it, Tara! He’s dead.”
Wild with denial, Tara threw herself at Jessy again. “You’re lying,” she sobbed hoarsely. “You’re all lying.”
Reinforcements arrived in the form of Logan as he grabbed Tara from behind and pulled her off Jessy. When Tara started to fight him, Jessy slapped her hard across the face.
“I have wanted to do that for a long time.” Jessy glared at Tara with a kind of cold, controlled anger. “Now, get it through your head—Ty is dead. All the ranting and raving in the world won’t change it.”
With a horrible cry of pain, Tara collapsed into Logan’s suddenly supporting arms. He managed, with some difficulty, to scoop her up and carry her down the short flight of stairs, her arms, legs, and head dangling in limpness.
“I think she fainted,” he said to Cat and Chase.
“I’ll see if Sally has any smelling salts.” Cat moved toward the kitchen.
“Ordinary household ammonia will work just as well,” Logan told her as he carried Tara into the living room.
Awakened by the commotion, a sleepy-eyed Quint looked on in confusion. “What’s wrong, Dad?”
“Nothing, son. Tara fainted, that’s all.” With Quint on the couch, Logan deposited the unconscious Tara in the overstuffed armchair.
Jessy followed them into the living room and looked at Tara with dispassion. “I don’t care what you do with her, but she isn’t staying here.”
“Don’t worry. She won’t,” Chase stated.
Busy propping Tara in the chair, Logan made no comment. When Cat returned to the living room, Sally was right behind her. Revived by a couple of whiffs of ammonia, Tara coughed and choked into wakefulness. She looked around wildly for a second. Then her eyes focused on Sally.
“He’s gone, Sally,” she blubbered. “What am I going to do?”
She immediately began to sob and wail hysterically. When Sally took over the job of attempting to console her, Logan left her to it and turned to Chase.
“See if you can raise somebody at Tara’s place. Have them fly a doctor there right away. She’ll likely need to be sedated.” He made a grim study of the distraught woman. “As soon as we can get her to settle down, I’ll put her in the back of my squad car and take her there. Maybe Sally can ride along and keep an eye on her tonight. She is in no condition to be left alone, that’s for sure.”
After twenty minutes, Tara’s hysterical sobbing finally subsided to an incessant weeping and moaning. Logan half carried and half walked her to his vehicle and installed Tara in its back seat. Sally crawled in after her and gathered the sobbing woman into her arms.
With The Homestead quiet once more, Cat retrieved their overnight case, took Quint by the hand, and led him upstairs to bed. Jessy watched the pair until they disappeared from view.
“Poor guy,” she murmured to Chase, observing, “he is so tired.”
“Are you?” His gaze made a thoughtful study of her face.
Jessy reacted with a sharp shake of her head, her glance sliding upward in the direction of the master bedroom. “I can’t sleep. Not yet.”
“Good. We need to talk.” He started toward the den.
But Jessy was quick to reject it. “I’d rather not, Chase.”
His glance was full of understanding, yet insistent. “I don’t want to any more than you do, but these next few days will be hectic and there are things that need to be said. Right now may be the only time we have.”
Jessy didn’t renew her objection when he placed a guiding hand on her back and steered her into the den. She sat down in one of the wing-backed chairs, but she didn’t relax in it, tension showing in the line of her body. Chase paused at the drink cart, poured some whiskey into two glasses and carried one to her, then reluctantly made his way to the swivel chair behind the desk.
“It doesn’t seem real, does it?” he guessed astutely.
Her mouth twisted in a wry grimace of acknowledgment. “A part of me keeps expecting him to walk through the door.” Head down, Jessy stared at the glass in her hand. “I have to be honest, Chase. I’m not sure I can stand to live in this house.”
“Why?” He rocked back in his chair. “Because it’s nothing but a bunch of rooms, filled with familiar things yet empty and lifeless? Because it doesn’t feel like a home anymore?”
Jessy lifted her head, stunned that Chase could describe it so accurately. Until that moment it hadn’t occurred to her that the house might feel the same way to him. Why should it when he had lived in it all his life while it had been her home for only a few years?
“It’s a feeling that won’t go away anytime soon, take my word for it,” Chase told her, and Jessy immediately thought of Maggie and how difficult it must have been for Chase to live here after she died. “Eventually Trey and Laura will breathe life into it and make it feel like a home again. In the meantime, you have to hang on and wait.”
“I suppose.” She felt much too empty inside to care.
“You are a strong woman, Jessy. And a smart one, too. I’m counting on that,” he stated. “Take a good look at that map on the wall behind me.”
Responding to the authority in his voice, Jessy did as she was told even though she had looked at it a thousand times before. Every mark and line on its aged surface was as familiar as her own face in the mirror.
“There is no way any man can know if he will live two more days or twenty years. But we both know it isn’t likely that I will live to see Trey take over the reins of the Triple C. That means it will be in your hands.”
Jessy stared at the map, the length and breadth of its boundaries making a new impact on her. The possibility that she might one day shoulder the responsibility of its operation was not one she had ever imagined. But the truth in Chase’s words couldn’t be ignored, however much she might want to deny them.
As if reading her mind, Chase said, “Neither one of us expected this to happen, but it has. Maybe I should have waited a few days before telling you, but it has to be faced. You might as well know the Triple C won’t give us time to mourn. There is work to be done, Jessy. And it’s up to you and me to do it.”
Everything he said rang true. “I have a lot of learning to do,” she realized.
A small smile of approval edged the corners of his mouth. “Not as much as you think.” He nodded at the glass in her hand. “Drink that whiskey and go to bed. It’s going to be a long full day tomorrow.”