What She Saw by Rachel Lee

Author:Rachel Lee [Lee, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 9780373278138
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“How’d it go?” Gage asked as he picked Buck up at the crossroads. “You look like hell, man.”

“Who expects a roadside ditch full of grass to be that muddy?”

Gage gave a smothered laugh. “Runoff from irrigation. I’ve driven past here four times. I was starting to wonder.”

Buck had pulled off his jacket and stuffed it in his bag, but the front of his pants still had the remnants of nearly dried mud on them. “What do you know about alpacas?”

“Not much. Why?”

“I need to know why a sheep rancher would want to get into alpacas and how much it might cost. Anyone I can talk to who is discreet?”

“I know a guy. He raises sheep.”

“Won’t gossip?”

Gage shook his head. “In a previous life he was an intelligence operative.”

“You seem to have a lot of formers around here.”

“It’s the peace and quiet.”

Buck wondered about that. So far he hadn’t seen a whole lot of that.

“So did you see something at the Bertram place?” Gage asked.

Buck shook his head. “Some alpacas.”

“Then?”

“I took off like hell. No, I’m wondering because Claire Bertram complained about the expense to Haley. If the guy’s in over his head financially, that could be relevant. If he’s not, that’s relevant, too. The process of elimination.”

“I see where you’re going. What about the Listons?”

“Something in their barn is covered with a tarp, and it’s about the right size and shape for a shipping crate.”

Gage fell silent, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Could be anything,” he said finally.

“Could be,” Buck agreed. “I need another favor.”

“That depends.”

“Of course. If possible I need you to let it get around that it appears Ray was killed in an ordinary accident. True, so far as you know at this point. If you wait for the tox screen, that might change.”

“You trying to put folks at ease?”

“That’s the idea.”

“I don’t lie to people around here, a result of my former life. I’ll have to think about that one.”

“Let’s just forget it.” Buck hadn’t really expected him to agree, but it was worth a shot.

“Care to share the rest of your plans now?”

“I’d like to get to know Jim Liston. If he’s involved and someone at the terminal let him know I was looking into this mess, that could be a huge mistake.”

“Let me run a check on him first. I might even arrange to pay a courtesy call myself on the family. Give me your bare-bones estimate on how many people might be involved.”

“Well, someone has to be getting contraband to the various shippers. Then someone at the shipper has to be paid off to put the stuff in one of the shipping containers. Then you need various drivers who want some extra money to pull a crate switch in the middle of nowhere. On this end...well, you need a driver. You need a place to store the crate. So somebody around here is, at the very least, getting a payoff for allowing the use of a building for temporary storage. Then you’ve got whoever is running the show.

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