The Lone Rancher - By Carol Finch Page 0,64
from my pistol while I was unconscious. I don’t know who fired at whom or why. I came to in time to hear three riders racing away in three different directions.”
Hobbs glanced up with sudden interest. “Three men? They rode off in three different directions?”
Quin bobbed his aching head. “It was a gang, obviously.”
Hobbs took several swallows of coffee, frowned pensively, then set aside the cup. “I’d better check the site again and bring in the body. I also want to see this supposed note you received. I’ll swing by to question Adrianna and Butler.”
“And I’d like to see the note you received about the dead man,” Quin insisted. “I wonder if the handwriting matches.”
Hobbs strode to his desk, then returned with the note.
Quin squinted at the handwriting. “It doesn’t look the same. One of the other gang members must have written it.”
Hobbs sent him another dubious glance, then replaced the note in his desk drawer. He craned his neck around the corner to the room with the cells. “Sit tight, Cahill. I’m locking up this office while I investigate.”
Quin plunked down on the cot to rest. So much for the man-to-man discussion to clear his name quickly. It looked as if he would be sleeping off this hellish headache on a lumpy cot in jail.
He wondered if his brothers and sister would delight in knowing Quin was in misery. They, like some of the spiteful locals who chose to believe the gossip and scandal, probably thought Quin was exactly where he belonged. As for the envious and resentful folks hereabout, they probably wanted him to sit here and rot.
Chapter Eleven
After Cahill and Hobbs left, Adrianna rode to her ranch. She walked into the foyer of her house and took a whiff of the air. Although she had opened all the windows after the rainstorm doused the fire, a hint of smoke still clung to the fabric of the furniture and drapes.
Not enough to use as an excuse to stay with Quin much longer, she mused as she ascended the staircase. Tonight she would be in his bed—without him. Since Quin hadn’t returned home, she presumed he hadn’t convinced Marshal Hobbs of innocence in the unidentified man’s death. Surely someone around town knew who he was. If no one claimed to know him, did that suggest he knew nothing about Ruby and Earl Cahill’s wagon wreck and he was attempting to extort money?
Adrianna expelled an exasperated breath as she stared out the upstairs window. Her troubled thoughts trailed off when she noticed the brown saddle horse with three white stockings grazing in her pasture with the remuda. She snapped to attention. That was the very same horse she had commandeered the previous night to follow Quin when he rode to Phantom Springs—and received two knots on his hard head and become a murder suspect.
Who had tethered that horse in front of Quin’s bunkhouse one night and why was it grazing in her pasture this afternoon? And where was the strawberry roan horse that had been tethered beside it?
Adrianna lurched toward the door. Too many unexplainable and suspicious incidents were occurring at her ranch and the 4C. Someone was exploiting the rumors of her personal feud and the supposed Cahill Curse to explain rustling, butchering and arson. That someone was making a profit from the ranch losses. Adrianna was determined to find out who that someone was.
She flew down the steps and breezed out the door to take a head count of the cowhands in charge of the chores at headquarters. Everyone who was supposed to be on the premises appeared to be working. As for the hired hands in charge of riding fences and checking herds, Adrianna couldn’t say if they were on duty. But she was going to ride around the pastures to make certain her cowboys were doing what they were supposed to be doing.
Furthermore, she wasn’t going to voice any suspicions to anyone except Cahill because she wasn’t sure whom she could trust. Her disgruntled ex-foreman was only goodness knew where. Even her new foreman wasn’t exempt from suspicion, she mused as she strode off swiftly to retrieve Buckshot. Rocky Rhodes was familiar with her ranch and with the 4C, she reminded herself warily. He had access to both places and might be making extra money for himself.
Rocky seemed to be an honest man but Adrianna had encountered several charlatans in her time. She wasn’t looking past the possible motives of anyone in her quest to ferret