Steel Resolve ; Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch by B.J. Daniels

Author:B.J. Daniels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-04-10T19:35:37+00:00

Chapter One

As the pickup bounced along the muddy track to the old homestead, Dana Cardwell stared out at the wind-scoured Montana landscape, haunted by the premonition she’d had the night before.

She had awakened in the darkness to the howl of the unusually warm wind against her bedroom window and the steady drip of melting snow from the eaves. A chinook had blown in.

When she’d looked out, she’d seen the bare old aspens vibrating in the wind, limbs etched black against the clear night sky. It felt as if something had awakened her to warn her.

The feeling had been so strong that she’d had trouble getting back to sleep only to wake this morning to Warren Fitzpatrick banging on the door downstairs.

“There’s something you’d better see,” the elderly ranch manager had said.

And now, as Warren drove them up the bumpy road from the ranch house to the old homestead, she felt a chill at the thought of what waited for her at the top of the hill. Was this what she’d been warned about?

Warren pulled up next to the crumbling foundation and cut the engine. The wind howled across the open hillside, making the tall yellowed grass keel over and gently rocking the pickup.

It was called the January Thaw. Without the blanket of white snow, the land looked wrung out, all color washed from the hills until everything was a dull brown-gray. The only green was a few lone pines swaying against the wind-rinsed sky.

Little remained of the homestead house. Just part of the rock foundation and the fireplace, the chimney as stark as the pines against the horizon.

Past it, in the soft, wet earth, Dana saw Warren’s tracks where he had walked to the old well earlier this morning. All that marked the well was a circle of rock and a few weathered boards that covered part of the opening.

Warren cocked his head as if he already heard the marshal’s SUV coming up the ranch road. Dana strained her ears but heard nothing over the pounding of her heart.

She was glad Warren had always been a man of few words. She was already on edge without having to talk about what he’d found.

The ranch manager was as dried out as a stick of jerky and just as tough, but he knew more about cattle than any man Dana had ever known. And he was as loyal as an old dog. Until recently, he and Dana had run the ranch together. She knew Warren wouldn’t have gotten her up here unless it was serious.

As Dana caught the whine of the approaching vehicle over the wind, the sound growing louder, her dread grew with it.

Warren had told her last night that he’d noticed the boards were off the old dry well again. “I think I’ll just fill it in. Safer that way. Give me something to do.”

Like a lot of Montana homesteads, the well was just a hole in the ground, unmarked except for maybe a few old boards thrown over it, and because of that, dangerous to anyone who didn’t know it was there.

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