Rough Rider

He started to reach for his wallet and his business card, but stopped when she smiled, a rather lopsided smile that showed definite amusement. “I already have it.” Reaching into her pocket, she brought out his wallet.

“You picked my pocket?” He couldn’t help the indignation in his tone. “What kind of private investigator are you?” he demanded, checking his wallet. His money and credit cards were still there. Now he knew what she’d been doing in the bathroom. All she’d apparently taken was his business card.

When he looked up, he saw pride glittering like fireworks in the rich brown of her eyes. “I’m the kind of PI who doesn’t take anything at face value. I’m also the kind who doesn’t work with amateurs, so this is where we part company. I’ll call if I find out anything about your sister or the kidnapping.” With that she turned and disappeared down the stairs.

He caught up with her at the street. “I’m not leaving town. If I have to, I’ll dog your every footstep.”

“As entertaining as that sounds—”

“I’m serious. I’ll stay out of your way, but you can’t keep me out of this.”

She smiled as if she could and would and climbed into an older-model yellow-and-white VW van. The engine revved. He thought about following her to see where she lived. But he wasn’t going to sit outside her residence all night to make sure she didn’t give him the slip in the morning. He couldn’t force her to help him anymore than he could make her keep him in the loop.

The woman was impossible, he thought as he climbed into his pickup and watched C.J. West drive away. A car a few vehicles away started up and left, as well. He glanced at it as it passed but didn’t notice the driver. His mind was on C.J. West.

He knew nothing about her. She, he feared, knew everything about him, or would soon. The entire story of his family’s lives for the past twenty-five years was on the internet.

Swearing, he reminded himself what was at stake. He couldn’t go home without good news for his father. Hank Knight had started a file. He thought of the brief file now lying on the seat next to him. “Pink ribbon. Pink grosgrain ribbon.”

It didn’t take much of a mental leap to come up with a pink ribbon since Oakley’s horse had a blue ribbon on it. If that information had gotten out, then... But pink grosgrain? Had their attorney Jim Waters released that information to the PI? Or had Hank already known about the toy stuffed horse and the key bit of information about the pink ribbon?

Now more than ever, Boone believed that Hank Knight had known something about the kidnapping. Had maybe even known where Jesse Rose was. Or at least suspected. And it might have gotten him killed.

One way or the other, Boone had no choice. He was staying in Butte and throwing in with this woman whether she liked it or not. He just hoped he wouldn’t live to regret it.

Chapter Five (#ud8aa55e5-1064-5278-937c-b2e70e3406a8)

C.J. closed her apartment door and leaned against it for a moment. Tonight, being in Hank’s office, she’d felt him as if he was there watching her, urging her on.

Tell me who killed you! she’d wanted to scream.

She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he’d left behind a clue. Some lead for her to follow that even whoever had ransacked the office wouldn’t get, but she would because she and Hank had been so close they could almost read each other’s mind.

Until recently. Lately he’d been secretive.

But did it have something to do with the McGraw kidnapping? Just because she’d found the file in Hank’s hiding place, it didn’t mean it was the last case he was working on. While she and Boone had found a couple of recent case files, neither of them had seemed like something that could get Hank killed. Then again, like Boone had said, any case could turn violent.

She’d tossed the three file folders from fairly recent cases of Hank’s on the kitchen table as she’d come into the apartment. Now she moved to them. Other than the McGraw file, there was one labeled Mabel Cross. Inside, she found a quick abbreviated version of Mabel’s problem. The woman suspected that her niece had taken an antique brooch of hers. But she also thought her daughter’s husband might have taken it. She had wanted Hank to find it and get it back.

The second file folder was labeled Fred Hanson. His pickup had been vandalized. He was pretty sure it was one of his neighbors since they’d been in a disagreement. He wanted to know which one of them was guilty.

The third case, Susan Roth Turner, suspected her husband might be having an affair.

C.J. sighed. None of those seemed likely to have gotten Hank killed. But she knew better than to rule them out since other than the McGraw file, they were his most recent cases and three of his last ones before he was to retire.

Moving to the refrigerator, she poured herself a glass of red wine and headed for the couch. This was the hardest part of her day. As long as she was busy taking care of all the arrangements for Hank’s funeral, tying up loose ends with their business dealings and looking for his killer, she could keep the grief away.

But it was moments like this that it hit her like a tidal wave, drowning her in the pain and regret. Hank had taught her everything about the private eye business from the time she was old enough to see over the top of his big desk. Her mother had worked in the building back in those days and C.J. used to wander the halls, always ending up in Hank’s office.

He’d pretended that her visits were a bother, but she’d known he hadn’t meant it. He’d started bringing her a treat, an apple, a banana or an orange, saying she should have something healthy. He’d always join her, pushing aside a case file to sit down and talk with her. Even extinguishing his cigar so the smoke didn’t bother her.

From the time she was little, she loved listening to him talk about the cases he was working on. He never mentioned names. But he loved discussing them with her. She had seen how much he loved his job, how much he loved helping people. He’d hooked her on the PI business. All she’d ever wanted was to be just like him.

Hank had loved it all, especially solving mysteries that seemed impossible to solve. He was good at his job and often worked for little or nothing, depending on how much his clients could afford.

Sometimes we’re all a person has, he used to tell her. They need help and everyone else has turned them down.

So how was it that he’d gotten himself killed?

Exhausted, still grief stricken and feeling as if she was in over her head, she wandered into the bedroom to drop onto the bed. She desperately needed sleep, but she picked up her laptop because she had a feeling she hadn’t seen the last of Boone McGraw.

Within minutes she was caught up on the latest information that had been released to the press about the twenty-five-year-old kidnapping as well as what she could find out about Boone. The more she read about the kidnapping, the more she worried that he was right and Hank had discovered something about the case that had gotten him killed.

She didn’t want to believe it. What could he have found out that had put him in such danger? She recalled something Boone had said and dug her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans.

“Can’t sleep?” Boone said in answer to her call.

“You said something earlier about this Vance Elliot turning out not to be Oakley McGraw. He must have had some kind of proof to make you think he was the missing son.”

“He had my little brother’s stuffed horse.”

She lay back on the bed. “What made you think it was the same horse?”

“It had a blue ribbon tied around it and some of the stitching was missing. Oakley never slept without it in his crib.”

“So how did he just happen to have this horse, if he wasn’t the real Oakley McGraw?”

“It’s a long story, but basically, someone had picked up the horse as a souvenir at the crime scene and later decided to use it to get money out of my father.”

“So you have no idea who in the house helped the kidnapper take the twins? What about the nanny who became your stepmother? She seems the perfect suspect. I just read that she might be released from jail until her trial for attempted murder.”

“Suspect, yes. But for trying to kill my father, not for the kidnapping.”

Exhaustion pulled at her. She could hardly keep her eyes open. “So they were fraternal twins, right? Six months old.” She was thinking of what Hank had written in the file. “I’m assuming your sister also had a stuffed horse toy in her crib that was taken that night? One with a pink ribbon.”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes, seeing the yellow lined paper and the words pink ribbon written in Hank’s even script. Pink grosgrain ribbon. “Was there anything about the ribbon around its neck released to the media?”

“No. There was nothing about it being a pink grosgrain ribbon.”

“That’s the kind that has the ridges, right? The lawyer must have mentioned it to Hank—”

“I’m sure he provided information about the kidnapping to Knight Investigations, but not that,” Boone said. “Hank knew something before he made the call. Otherwise why would he have contacted our family lawyer with questions about Jesse Rose?”

Good question. Unfortunately, C.J. had no idea. But her gut instinct told her that Boone was right. Hank had already known all about the kidnapping twenty-five years ago. For some reason, he had followed the case closely all these years.

But if he’d kept anything in writing, she hadn’t found it. Yet.