“That’s not even funny.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I agreed. “But since he had one, it doesn’t matter.”

She looked away, her face tight, her mouth muttering, “That’s just whacked, totally whacked, and Mick knows it.”

I was surprised at her defense of her brother but I wasn’t surprised at her reaction to his news. Everyone felt the same way. More evidence that Curt was in some way responsible for Anna Maxwell’s death and, in being so, the fact that Macho Mountain Man Max didn’t exact retribution then meant he was unlikely to do it now.

Before I could reply, the door opened and Max and Linda walked in.

“I’ll be givin’ Mick Shaughnessy a piece of my mind for this, make no mistake,” Linda declared upon entry.

“What happened?” Max asked me.

“Since Kami explained things to me before we let Mick interview her, obviously she explained things to Mick and answered all his queries. He just needs to check their validity and we can move on,” I told him.

“Thanks, Nina, for helpin’ out,” Linda expressed the gratitude Kami not surprisingly had not.

“Not a problem,” I murmured then offered, “Maybe Max and I can go get some coffees? Would you all like a coffee while we’re waiting?”

“That’d be nice, thanks,” Linda replied.

“Knock yourself out,” Kami muttered.

Max opened his mouth, possibly to protest at leaving his sister or to give Kami a piece of his mind for her attitude but I gave him a look, got up, shrugged on my coat, grabbed my purse and moved to the door. Max read my look and followed.

I waited until we were out of the Station and on the boarded sidewalk before I spoke.

“You should know something,” I whispered, squeezing his hand as he’d taken mine when we left the Station.

“I’m guessin’ this is somethin’ I should know that I won’t like,” Max remarked and I stopped and looked up at him.

Deciding to get it out, I did. “It was Shauna who talked Kami into buying that gun and it was Shauna who needed the money Kami borrowed on the house.”

He stared at me a minute, his jaw tense, his eyes hard then he looked away and muttered, “Fuck.”

I tugged at his hand until he looked back at me then I said, “Okay, now I’m getting into possible slander here but… what if Shauna knew that Curt had made changes to his will around the time she told him she was pregnant?”

“What?”

“She didn’t know that Curt knew he didn’t father her child. What she knew was that there was a possibility he didn’t since she wasn’t exactly faithful to him. Kami said that they’ve turned off her cable and she was close to having the utilities stopped at her house. She needed money, Max, badly, especially having no insurance and a baby on the way. If she knew that he changed the will, she could speculate he changed it in her favor. She was smug before the reading, she thought she’d come out on top. But also she knew if she had the baby and he demanded a DNA test, she would lose everything she worked for. Which would mean she’d need him dead to collect before the truth came out.”

“She doesn’t have any money, Duchess, how’s she gonna pay a contract killer?”

“She had twenty-five thousand dollars of Kami’s money, Max,” I reminded him. “And anyway, men do stupid stuff for women who are good with their mouths. We have no idea who she’s been associating with.”

Max, being a man, nodded curtly to the veracity of this statement then he pointed out, “She was in the house when Curt was killed.”

“She made the call after Curt was killed saying she was in the house when he was killed and time had elapsed between the killing and the call, she even admitted that.” Max just stared at me so I went on, “There’s a break in, you hear something, even if you’re with a man and he goes to check on it, wouldn’t you call the police?”

“Not if you don’t want anyone knowin’ you’re there,” Max pointed out.

I nodded for this was true but suggested, “She could have done what she needed to do with this PI guy then gone back to Curt’s knowing what was going to happen there, made the call and said she was there when she wasn’t. Or she could have set the whole thing up to happen when she was in the house, knowing what was happening with the PI. Either way, she was giving herself an alibi.”

“So who killed the PI?” Max asked.

“Someone else she scammed?” I proposed. “Or someone in on it, a partner.”

“So, you’re sayin’ she set Kami up?”

“How close are they?”

“For Kami, close. For Shauna, who knows? She’s never demonstrated she’s felt a genuine emotion since I’ve known her.”

“Then yes, I think it isn’t coincidence that on a girl’s weekend to Denver, Shauna talked Kami into buying a gun and then borrowed an extraordinary amount of money from her. To come current on utilities and credit cards, who needs twenty-five thousand dollars?”

“Shauna, like Kami, lives large.”

“From what Harry intimated at The Rooster, she’s also had help living large, fleecing Harry and maybe even Curtis and, who knows, maybe even that Robert guy she was with at the restaurant.”

Max stared at me again then he muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

“Max –”

Max cut me off. “What d’you think we should do with this shit?”

“I think you need to look out for your sister and let Mick find the trail of breadcrumbs.”

“That trail is leadin’ him to my sister.”

I got closer to him and advised, “You have to trust the truth will out. If not, you have to trust that I’ll do what I can to help your sister.”

“Babe –”

“Watch out for Kami, that’s it. Just look out for her, I’ll do the rest.”

I knew this was asking a lot of an action man to stand by and do nothing, I could tell by the internal struggle I saw him waging behind his eyes.

Finally, he said, “Let’s get my sister a coffee.”

I leaned up and kissed his jaw before I agreed, “All right.”

***

Coffees consumed, Kami was texting Shauna for the fiftieth time on her phone.

Shauna who, by her own report, was going to have a rough day due to her beloved Curtis being put in the earth and thus needed her friend at her side, had somehow disappeared in Kami’s hour of need if Kami’s unsuccessful attempts to contact her through fifty texts (maybe a slight exaggeration) and five phone calls (not an exaggeration) over the last hour.

I knew she hit send when I heard the beep, she flipped her phone shut and Max started, “Kami –”

“Don’t, Max, just… don’t,” Kami muttered, staring at the wall.

The door opened, Mick walked in, shutting it behind him and we all looked to him.

“Found your gun, Kami, right where you said it would be, never fired, not loaded,” Mick stated.

“Is that surprising?” Linda snapped, her eyes fierce on Mick’s face, her bearing proving true what she said that morning, a mother loves her children, maybe not the same way but the same amount. She was deep in Lioness Mode.

“No, Lins, it isn’t surprising,” Mick said to her and then looked back at Kami. “Though Shauna doesn’t have a deposit of twenty-five thousand in her account.”

We all straightened and Linda and Kami grew pale.

“What?” Kami asked.

Mick pressed his lips together then he went on, “Your bank reports that you made a check to a Robert Winston for twenty-five thousand dollars, your check was cashed the day you wrote it but not deposited in his account, nor was any money deposited in Shauna’s that day or since, except for a monthly deposit we’ve tracked to Dodd’s business account.”

“Holy crap,” Linda muttered.

“Wh… what?” Kami stammered, her hand flat on the table, her face bleached white.

I kept quiet as I processed the news that Curtis was giving Shauna money through his business account. Not good.

“You know Robert Winston?” Mick asked.

“He… he’s a… a friend of Shauna’s,” Kami answered instantly if stiltedly. “He lives in Chantelle, moved there, I don’t know, not long ago. He has a house in one of Curt’s developments. I think he’s been around three months, maybe four. Shauna knew him from Aspen. She didn’t want anyone to know about the money, you know, even the tellers talk, so she asked me to make it out to him, he was going to give it to her.”

“Unless she’s sittin’ on the cash or she blew it as cash, she never got it,” Mick told her, “least, not in a way that leaves a trail.”

Kami shook her head, visibly stunned at this news then she asked, “What about her bills?”

“Ain’t my place to tell you but I’m doin’ it all the same,” Mick said to Kami. “Shauna’s fully current on all her bills, never been in arrears. Far’s we can tell, for at least seven months, Harry’s been payin’ ‘em.”

“Holy crap,” Linda snapped on a near shout.

“He’s also been payin’ her doctor bills,” Mick went on.

She had Curt giving her money and Harry paying her bills. She was being kept by two men. Now she had none, except, perhaps, this Robert character.

I looked at Max and resisted the urge to run to him, tackle him to the ground and sit on him. He looked ready to explode.

“It’s worse,” Mick announced and the room, already tense, became suffocating.

“What?” Kami whispered.

“Not too long ago, Shauna sold her house. She closed about a month ago, paid rent to the new owners to stick around.”

“I don’t believe it,” Kami was still whispering.

“She’s closed her accounts,” Mick finished. “Closed ‘em yesterday. She’s also put orders in to shut down gas, water, electricity, phone and cable, startin’ first of May.”

Kami wasn’t letting this information sink in. “But, if she sold her house, she’d have hundreds of thousands of dollars. She owned it outright. Why would she ask me for money?”