an innocent party in this, either. I believe it amounts to loan sharking.”
Dallas groaned. “Doesn’t sound like it’s enough to put him away for a long time.” He glanced at her and frowned. “Maybe all of his talk of you marrying him so you can’t testify was a ruse on his part just to get you to the altar.”
She opened her mouth to deny it, but then rethought it.
“Owen’s always been hot for you,” Dallas continued. “Heck, he could have set this all up. Everything. Including the evidence against him. You’re sure what you have is solid enough to put him behind bars?”
Well, she had been until now. “It was one of Owen’s former business associates who tipped me off about the illegal deals. I dug around, found some papers to corroborate the tip.” She had to pause. “But someone broke into my office and stole the papers.”
“Owen,” Dallas quickly concluded.
Joelle had to nod. “Probably. I tried to get duplicates of everything that was stolen, but they, too, had been destroyed. And the tipster suddenly had to leave town.”
“Damn, when Owen does a cover-up, he doesn’t do it halfway,” Dallas mumbled.
“Yes, except for me. I’m the loose end because I saw the documents and can testify that I did.” She huffed. “Well, I can once Owen is no longer capable of putting us in jail.”
“Neutralizing Owen is a must.” Dallas pushed himself away from the wall and faced her. “I need to discredit him any way I can so it’ll also discredit that knife and handkerchief. It’d be even better if I could find something to prove he murdered Webb.”
Joelle wasn’t sure that was possible, but with so much at stake, she would definitely try. “One problem is that Owen has a better alibi than any of you for the time of Webb’s disappearance. He was with the caretaker, Rudy Simmons, from about seven to ten o’clock, and Rudy verifies it.”
Dallas lifted his shoulder. “Maybe both are lying.”
“I wish, and I wish I could prove it.” And she’d tried to find a witness, anyone, who could dispute that time frame. But the bottom line was that Rudy simply didn’t have a motive for murder.
Well, not one that she’d been able to find, anyway.
On the surface, Webb and he had actually been friends of sorts even though Webb was Rudy’s boss.
“Owen is for starters,” Dallas said, “but we need more. I don’t believe any of my foster brothers or Kirby had a thing to do with Webb’s death.”
But he didn’t sound convinced of that. Neither was Joelle.
“We have to name some other suspects,” he added. “Credible ones, so we can end this investigation and clear our names.”
Joelle couldn’t argue with that. “Then we’ll find them at Rocky Creek just as Kirby suggested. Jonah Webb’s wife, Sarah, still lives on the grounds. Rudy Simmons does, too.”
“What about Rudy’s daughter, Amy, the one Wyatt was fooling around with in the shed?”
She had to shake her head. “She died a few years ago from leukemia. But even if she were alive, I doubt she’d make a good suspect. She was a lot smaller than Declan, and from what I can tell, she didn’t have a motive.”
In other words, Webb hadn’t mentally and physically abused her the way he had some of the boys—like Dallas and Declan.
Dallas stayed quiet for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “Jonah and Sarah had a son, Billy. He was about fifteen when his father disappeared. What did he have to say about Webb’s murder?”
Another headshake. “I couldn’t find him.” And she’d tried hard. “But I do know he spent some time in a mental facility after an attempted suicide.”
“Probably because his father used to beat the hell of him.” Dallas nodded. “Yeah, definitely a motive for murder, and he was big enough to help kill a man. I’ll see if my brothers can track him down.”
Joelle wasn’t about to refuse their help, not with Owen’s ultimatum and the lab test hanging over their heads.
She was so involved in her thoughts that it took a moment for her to realize that Dallas was staring at her. And he was still too close. She started to move away, but he snagged her by the wrist.
“You’re keeping something from me,” he accused.
Joelle opened her mouth to deny that, but she didn’t manage to get out a word.
“Or maybe you’re just trying to hide the obvious,” Dallas interrupted.
Unfortunately, she knew exactly what obvious he meant.
He got in her face. “This attraction won’t affect