Rancher's Redemption

Chances were, she’d never know.

Clay climbed into the saddle and turned Crockett toward the main stable.

Thanks to finding the stolen car, he was well behind schedule for the day.

He didn’t know what bothered him more, the evidence that a violent crime had taken place on his property or the reappearance of his ex-wife in his life. One could mean trouble for the ranch, the other could stir up past events better left alone. As a kid, Clay had learned the hard way what happened when you poked a hornet’s nest. The summer after first grade, he’d spent two weeks recovering from that foolish bit of boyhood curiosity. His divorce from Tamara was still too fresh in his memory to dwell on the could-have-beens.

Still, he sighed. Having Tamara at the ranch again had felt natural. As if five years and countless lonely nights didn’t stand between them.

He gave Crockett a pat on the neck. “You sure seemed glad to see her. Bet you thought she had some of those sweet treats she used to spoil you with, didn’t you?”

Clay sat straighter in the saddle and rolled his stiff shoulders. The simple joy that had filtered across Tamara’s face when she’d recognized Crockett and patted the bay gelding made his breath lodge in his throat. Tamara’s love of animals had been one of the reasons he fell for her, one of the reasons he’d believed she’d be happy on the ranch.

One of the reasons she ended up heartbroken. One of the reasons they’d fought the night she left. What would she think if she knew how much it had hurt him to have Quinn put down his prize stallion?

Clay shook his head and scoffed. There he went poking that hornet’s nest again.

As they crested the rise at the north end of the main pasture, Crockett saw the shady barn where his evening hay and cool water waited. The bay picked up his pace.

Clay was just as eager to get a cold shower and a hot meal. But before he could call it a day, he had animals to feed and groom, stalls to clean, and financial reports to review. Hired hands helped with the daily chores and a part-time housekeeper cooked for him three nights a week, but ranching still filled every waking hour. Many times those hours extended late into the night if a horse got sick or a mare was ready to foal. Clay couldn’t complain, though. Ranching was his life, his passion.

He thought again of the blood Tamara had found on the stolen Taurus and the huge sum of unclaimed money. A chill skated down his spine. Whatever seedy events had happened under the mesquites by the Black Creek ravine, Clay would make damn sure the ripples couldn’t touch his ranch. Since Tamara had left him, the Bar None was all he had.

Tamara carefully transferred the partial fingerprint they’d lifted from the trunk to a slide and sent the image to the main computer for analysis. She wasn’t holding her breath for a match, but she’d been surprised by what her tests had revealed in the past.

Forensics was a science. Her tests revealed facts and scientific data that had to be reviewed objectively. No amount of hoping the print would lead them to a suspect would change what the computer analysis told her was the cold truth.

Never mind that the crime scene was on Clay’s land. Still, the notion that a heinous crime could have happened so close to where her ex slept at night made the fine hair on her neck stand up.

Tamara clicked a few computer keys. The hard drive whirred softly as the program searched local and state police databases for a match on the print. The familiar hum was comforting. Her lab was a safe haven of sorts. She was in her element here, where her logical mind could have free rein and her tender heart was never at risk of being broken. Statistics, patterns and chemical elements provided basic certainties with no room for emotional entanglement. At day’s end, she could set a case aside like shedding a pair of latex gloves. No fuss, no muss. No heartache if things didn’t work out as you’d hoped.

Not like her years of working the ranch with Clay, where a foal might be stillborn or a case of colic could be fatal or a prize stud could be put down in the name of business.

Tamara rocked back in the desk chair and propped her feet on the drawer. She watched the computer screen click through images, making mathematical analyses, comparing patterns and probabilities.

Numbers. Safe, unemotional numbers.

Tee, I have a business to run. Even if we could save Lone Star,the treatment would be expensive. He’s contagious, and I can’tafford for any other horses to get sick.

Her breath caught, and she slammed her feet back to the floor as she sat up.

For Clay, ranching had been about the numbers.

Her heart performed a tuck and roll. Maybe she and her ex-husband weren’t so different after all. Was it possible Clay relied on the numbers, based his decisions on business models because they provided a distance, a safety net for the difficult decisions when a beloved horse was at stake? Was he trying to protect himself from the pain of loss inherent to the business of horse ranching?

Didn’t she purposely refuse to think of the evidence she gathered in terms of the people who were involved, the lives taken, and the families shattered by the crimes?

Her computer beeped, telling her its work was done and calling her out of her musings. Rattled by her new insights about Clay’s attitude toward ranching, her hand shook as she rolled the mouse to review the results lighting the screen.

Shoes scuffed on the floor behind her, and Eric stepped up to review the fingerprint analysis over her shoulder.

“You get a match?”

Tamara scanned the report. “No. The print’s not in the state database.”

Her boss sighed and rocked back on his heels. “Got anything on the carpet fibers?”

She spun the chair to face him and folded her arms over her chest. “Yeah. The color is called basic beige. It’s an inexpensive brand sold by most do-it-yourself home stores and used widely by the construction company that built three-fourths of the new homes in Esperanza in the past twenty years. No help there.”

Eric skewed his lips to the side as he thought. “How many homes could have been built in a podunk town the size of Esperanza?”

She grunted her offense. “Hey, I grew up in Esperanza, remember?”

“And you told me you couldn’t get out of that two-horse town fast enough, if I remember correctly.”

He was right. In high school, she’d been itching to shake the dust of Esperanza from her feet and head to New York or Chicago. But once she’d married Clay, she’d revised her plans for a while. She’d have been happy living in Esperanza with Clay until her golden years, if only…

She squelched the thought before it fully formed.

“I’ll have you know, Esperanza had a boom of new houses in the early ’90s. Surrounding towns did, too. The guy made a mint building small, affordable homes for the families who wanted the rural life and to be within easy driving distance of San Antonio.”

Eric raised a hand. “Okay, so more than five houses with this carpet?”

“Way more. Try ninety to a hundred, if you count the surrounding towns and do-it-yourselfers.” Tamara turned back to the computer and clicked a few keys. “I also found nothing on the red hair from the passenger seat. DNA breakdown for it and the blood from the driver’s door won’t be ready for a while yet. A batch of samples from the Walters case got in before us.”

Tamara frowned. “I can’t help but think we missed something. I was careful, and I double-checked everything, but…where’s all the evidence? The scene was just too clean.”

“You can always go back out to Esperanza and take another look. Head down to impound and check the car again. Maybe without your ex-husband watching your every move, you’ll find something you didn’t notice before.”

Tamara snapped her gaze up to Eric’s. “Clay didn’t—I wasn’t—”

“Save your breath. I saw how you looked at each other.” Eric headed for the laboratory door. “Just don’t let your feelings for your ex get in the way of this case.”

She squared her shoulders, pricked by the implication that she still cared for Clay, that she was less than professional in her approach to her job.

Her boss turned when he reached the door. “Go back to Esperanza tomorrow and widen the search grid. I’ll sweep the Taurus again and take Pete with me, so be sure to have one of the department cameras with you when you go.”

“Right.” Tamara swallowed hard. Being close to Clay and her old home had been hard enough the first time.

Maybe she could do her search without alerting Sheriff Yates or Clay. If she found anything significant, she’d call Jericho. If she were lucky, she wouldn’t have to face Clay at all. She hoped not anyway. Her heart stung badly enough from their unexpected encounter today.

The next morning, Tamara drove across the drought-parched pasture at the far end of the Bar None and headed for the mesquite trees near the Black Creek ravine. After parking her Accord, Tamara climbed out and lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the bright sun. She swept her gaze around the field. What had she missed? The department’s camera in hand, she headed toward the stand of trees where the Taurus had been found. From there she could fan out, searching in a methodical way, dividing the land with a grid and going section by section.

After two hours of the tedious work, with little to show for her efforts, Tamara had reached the edge of the Black Creek ravine. She thought of Clay, striding up from the ravine yesterday when she’d sought him out for questioning. With his dark good looks, cool control and muscled body, he personified the rugged, larger-than-life attitude that made Texas famous.

The trill of her cell phone roused her from her wandering thoughts.

She checked her caller ID and pressed the answer button. “Hi, Eric. What’s up?”