“And you know how those feds are, always trying to take control. No, I assured him that I’m all right. We’ve got Brian Highsmith again...and it’s all good.”
“Until they find us all dead, of course?” Sloan asked.
“You’ve figured out the old story—you and your so-called artist. So, figure this out. When we’re done, it’ll look like you—the sheriff—and Agent Jane Everett got together and plotted to take the gold for yourselves. You were going to shoot Brian and me and the others, but we’re not idiots. We shot you first.”
“Seriously? Who the hell is going to believe that?”
“We have our story down pretty well,” Betty told him. “So, do you want to die alone or see your pretty agent one more time before you go?”
“Well, of course I’d like to say goodbye,” Sloan said. “And if we’re going to die, I think I’d like to hear how this all started. Brian wasn’t involved, was he? Cy, you were the one who put live bullets in the gun, but when Jane did her little charade in the street, you really had no choice but to go along with it. But why start this whole thing? Why kill people over gold when you didn’t even have it?”
“Caleb Hough found some of it. Didn’t you know? He had it—and he was acting like a big shot. He called in that enforcer of his to keep the rest of us in line. Can you believe that? Caleb knew Jay Berman and probably thought we’d all be afraid of him, that we’d keep our mouths shut and obey his every edict. But I think Caleb felt that his own enforcer got greedy—and that’s why he shot Jay Berman out in the desert. Then, well—”
“Shut up, Cy. Quit being such a dramatist!” Betty snapped. “Get him downstairs.”
“Not fair. Not fair if I don’t know the whole story. So, let me see—Caleb was holding out on you. That’s why he wound up dead?” Sloan asked.
“Get him moving!” Betty shouted.
“I’m moving, I’m moving.” Sloan turned, hands held high, and started walking toward the front of the room as Betty indicated. She had her gun trained on him.
“Go on. Go on!” Betty urged, nudging him with the muzzle.
“To the basement?”
“You got it, smart boy!”
He walked slowly. Betty might have stopped the county people from coming, but not Logan. Still, he didn’t want Logan taken by surprise—as he’d been.
He didn’t waste a lot of time cursing himself; he’d made a mistake. Now he had to fix it.
“Why were you out at the mines?” he asked.
“That bastard, Hough!” Cy said. “He had us all convinced the gold was in the mines. But it wasn’t. And he admitted it.”
“So, if you knew where it was, why didn’t you just get it and take off?” Sloan asked. “And, by the way, where is it?”
Silence was his answer.
He chuckled softly. “You still don’t know, do you? Let’s see, Caleb showed you a sample because he was going to need help getting it. He needed a cop on his side, so he got you, Betty. And then he created a little gang of thieves, but you were so afraid of being double-crossed that you did him in. Of course, he was trying to double-cross you, wasn’t he? He actually cared for his son, so that probably got in his way, didn’t it? And let’s see—one of you was supposed to torture the truth out of him, but you lost it. Or else he fought back and you had to kill him.”
“Get down those steps!” Betty yelled.
“Cy,” Sloan said. “Why you? Ah...you don’t really have what it takes. But you were dissatisfied and Caleb saw that in you. Betty, you, too. You hated playing second fiddle.”
“Shut up!” Betty shouted. “You think you’re so smart. You think you’re right about everything.”
“I’m sure I am right. You needed a cop for protection, and you needed the actors because...well, because, of course, you searched the mine shaft—no luck—and realized the theater was the most likely place. The gold—”
“Get down the stairs!”
“I’m going. I’m going!”
“Watch it!” someone called from below.
Jane was down there, just as they’d said. But she wasn’t alone.
“She’s in with the mannequins,” the voice said.
Damn! He’d never suspected.
“Heidi,” he called. “You weren’t making enough on the trail rides, huh? But working the trail rides, you were able to set up Jay Berman’s body with the corpse of poor Red Marston pointing at it. Caleb didn’t leave the body there. You dug it up and put it there so Caleb would know you weren’t just a bunch of country hicks. You left Red pointing at him to scare Caleb, but then you killed Caleb, anyway. This is really pathetic—because you still don’t know where the gold is.”
Sloan reached the bottom of the stairs. He tried to judge their firepower. They hadn’t taken his gun, and he’d seen to it that Betty’s was worthless; that was what his sleight of hand had been about. But Heidi and Cy were armed—and he didn’t know who else might be in the basement with them.