“Everyone?”
Another of the men stepped up. “I’m Lee Cho,” he told Sloan. “I was in the barn the other day when he came in swearing about the man who owned Desert Diamonds. Grant Winston. He said that Winston was—” He paused, clearing his throat as he fixed his gaze on Jane.
“Please, repeat what he said. I’m a federal agent, Mr. Cho. I’ve heard some pretty nasty language in my time,” Jane said.
“Mr. Hough was saying that Mr. Winston was a grade-A, motherfucking stupid asshole who had no appreciation for the fact that without his ranch, Lily was a godforsaken dust pool,” Lee Cho said, staring at the ground as he spoke.
The third man cleared his throat, as well. “He hated the theater, too. The Gilded Lily. He was ranting and raving about Henri Coque being a womanizing—” he paused, but continued quickly “—a womanizing small-peckered fuck-face,” he said. “I don’t know what his fight was with Mr. Coque. He never said. Mr. Hough didn’t mind ranting in front of us, but he didn’t consider us his friends. We kept our mouths shut.”
Sloan felt a tap on his shoulder. It was one of the emergency med techs. “We’re ready to roll, Sheriff.”
Sloan turned to Declan and the county officers. “You’ll get statements from these men?”
He received solemn nods in reply.
“And we’ll get the crime-scene folks out here, too,” Johnson said. “This is the busiest they’ve been in a hell of a long time!”
“You ready to go?” Sloan asked Jane.
“Ready,” she said.
Only one of them could ride in the ambulance, and Jane felt it should be him. “I’ll drive behind in your patrol car,” she said.
“No, you get in there,” he insisted. “You were diagnosed with a concussion a little while ago. I’ll drive the car. Stay with them for me.”
She didn’t argue. As he followed, he realized she was just about the perfect agent. She was a listener, not butting in when others were questioning people, responding when she needed to respond and keeping quiet when something more might be learned.
She was a talented artist, too. He had the feeling that she worked well with her Krewe, handling the street work and the action, as well as the office work.
She’d never leave her job.
But what about him?
He hadn’t known how much Lily, his home, meant to him until someone had brought murder to it.
Not something to think about now, he told himself.
But he felt numb, like someone other than himself. So much had happened in Lily, and so fast. Lily, Arizona—where all the violence had been in the past.
Until they’d found Sage McCormick’s skull.
*
In the hospital, Jane dozed off, exhaustion taking its toll while they sat waiting. She woke with a start when Sloan nudged her; she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.
“I’m going in. They said I could go in,” he muttered. He sounded weary. Beyond weary.
She nodded. “I’ll be here.”
He smiled briefly and joined the doctor, who was allowing him to see the patients. She started when her phone rang. Logan. She winced; she should have reported in already. Glancing at her watch, she realized it was almost 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast.
“News services have picked up reports about a second murder in Lily,” he told her.
She reported in on the day, glossing over her own experience in the basement of the theater. When she’d explained it all, she paused.
Sloan seemed fine working with the county police. She didn’t know what his concern seemed to be when it came to his own people—other than that they were all from Lily.
“Sloan thinks that everything’s connected. And I believe it’s more than possible. He also doesn’t seem to trust his own people....”
“Sloan is probably right about a connection. And if Lily is the source of all these crimes, he might just figure that his own people are too close to too many of the players,” Logan said.
It wasn’t her place, but she decided she should make the suggestion, anyway. “Maybe you and Kelsey could head out here.”
“I’ll talk to Sloan,” Logan said. “See if he’ll issue an invitation.”
“Jay Berman crossed state lines to get murdered here,” Jane pointed out.
“We’ll see.” He must have been sitting at the computer. “We can catch an 8:00 a.m. direct flight that’ll get us out there at about eleven tomorrow. Do you think the facial reconstruction started all this?” he asked.
“No.” She thought for a minute. “I think it started before the skull showed up on the wig rack. Something major has to be going on. Two men don’t die out in the desert—one shot, one with his throat slit—because of some minor disagreement. Men who shouldn’t even have known each other. And now we have three people hospitalized—Jennie in a coma from head trauma, and Hough’s son and wife with carbon monoxide poisoning.”