Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch - B.J. Daniels [40]
In the meantime, he needed to talk to Kitty Randolph about her emerald ring.
* * *
"I NEED TO RUN an errand," Dana said the moment Hilde returned. "Can you watch the shop?"
"Are you all right? I saw Hud leaving as I was pulling in," her friend said.
"The woman in the well was Ginger Adams. That's what he came by to tell me."
Hilde frowned. "Ginger Adams? Not the Ginger who your dad…"
"Exactly," Dana said, pulling on her coat. "I'll be back."
Her father had a small place along the river on the way to Bozeman.
Dana took the narrow dirt road back into his cabin. His truck was parked out back. She pulled up next to it and got out. A squirrel chirped at her from a nearby towering evergreen; the air smelled of river and pine.
When she got no answer to her knock, she tried the door. Of course it opened. No one locked their doors around here. She stepped inside, struck by a wash of cool air, and saw that the door leading to the river was open. He must have gone fishing.
She walked out onto the deck, looked down the river and didn't see him. Turning, she spotted her father's gun cabinet and moved to it.
There were numerous rifles, several shotguns and a half dozen different boxes of cartridges and shells. No .38 pistol though.
"What are you looking for?"
Dana jumped at the sound of her father's voice behind her. She turned, surprised by his tone. "You startled me." She saw his expression just before it changed. Fear?
"You need to borrow a gun?" he asked, stepping past her to close the gun cabinet.
"I was looking for your .38."
He stared at her as if she'd spoken in a foreign language.
"The one you always kept locked in the cabinet."
He glanced at the gun cabinet. "I see you found the key."
"You've hidden it in the same place since I was nine." She waited. He seemed to be stalling. "The .38?"
"Why do you want the .38?"
"Are you going to tell me where it is or not?" she said, fear making a hard knot in her stomach.
"I don't know where it is. Wasn't it in the cabinet?"
Her father had never been a good liar. "Dad, are you telling me you don't have it?" She could well imagine what Hud was going to think about that.
"Why do you care? It wasn't like it was worth anything."
She shook her head. "Do I have to remind you that Ginger Adams was killed with a .38 and her remains were found on our property?"
All the color drained from his face in an instant. "Ginger?" He fumbled behind him, feeling for a chair and finding one, dropped into it. "Ginger?"
His shock was real. Also his surprise. He hadn't known it was Ginger in the well. "They're sure it's Ginger?" he asked, looking up at her.
She nodded. Had her father really cared about the woman? "Dad, you know Hud will want to see a .38 owned by someone with a connection to Ginger."
"Well, I don't know where it is. I guess I lost it."
"That's it?" Dana said aghast, thinking what Hud would think.
Angus frowned and shrugged, but this time she saw something in his expression that made her wonder again what he was hiding from her. Was he protecting someone?
When she didn't say anything, he said, "I don't know what you want from me."
Her heart caught in her throat. She wanted him to tell her he was sorry for what he'd done. Splitting up their family. What she didn't want was for him to have killed Ginger Adams. Or be covering for someone else.
"I know that you and Jordan were both interested in Ginger," Dana said, the words coming hard.
His head jerked up in shock. "You knew?"
She'd found out quite by accident when she'd seen Jordan kissing a woman in the alley behind the building that would one day be Needles and Pins. Who could have missed Ginger Adams in that outfit she was wearing? The dress and shoes were bright red—just like her hair.
"It isn't what you think," her father said defensively. "I was never…" He waved a hand through the air. "You know. I can't speak for Jordan."
Like father like son. She shook her head in disgust as she sat in a chair next to him.
"Ginger was a nice