LITMIR.BIZ

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Bates, from the bank,” Sage said. “He also met with the town council and talked to several landowners, but I’m not certain which ones or how far he got with them.”

      “I’ll start with Bates.” Dugan stuck the envelope of IDs inside his rawhide jacket.

      Sage followed him to the door. “Are you going to the sheriff with this?”

      Dugan shook his head. “I don’t think he’d like me nosing into this, and I don’t trust him to find the truth.”

      “I agree.” Sage rubbed her hands up and down her arms, as if to warm herself. The temptation to comfort her pulled at Dugan.

      God, she was beautiful. He’d admired her from afar ever since the first time he laid eyes on her. But he’d known then that she was too good for a jaded man like him. She and her little boy deserved a good man who’d take care of them.

      And that man wasn’t him.

      But just because he couldn’t have her for himself didn’t mean that he wouldn’t do right by her. He would take this case.

      Because there was the possibility that Benji was alive.

      Dugan wouldn’t rest until he found him and Sage knew the truth about what had happened two years ago.

      Sage caught his arm as he started to leave the room. “Dugan, promise me one thing.”

      He studied her solemn face. Hated the pain in her eyes. “What?”

      “That you won’t keep things from me. No matter what you find, I want—I need—to know the truth. I’ve been lied to too many times already.”

      He cradled her hand in his and squeezed it, ignoring the heat that shot through him at her touch. “I promise, Sage.”

      Hell, he wanted to promise more.

      But he hurried down the steps to keep himself from becoming like Lewis and telling her what she wanted to hear instead of the truth.

      Because the truth was that he had no idea what answers he would find.

      * * *

      SAGE WATCHED DUGAN LEAVE, a sense of trepidation filling her.

      At least he was willing to help her look for the answers. But the phony drivers’ licenses had shocked her to the core.

      How could she have been so gullible when Ron was obviously a professional liar? And now that she knew Ron Lewis wasn’t his real name, who was he?

      Had he planned to marry her and take care of her and Benji?

      No...everything about the man was probably false. He’d obviously fabricated a story to fit his agenda.

      But why use her? To worm his way into the town and make residents believe he cared about them, that he was part of them?

      Devious. But it made sense in a twisted kind of way.

      She straightened the flooring in the closet, then went to Benji’s room. Benji had loved jungle animals, so she’d painted a mural of a jungle scene on one wall and painted the other walls a bright blue. She walked over to the shelf above his bed and ran her finger over each of his stuffed animals. His friends, he’d called them.

      At night he’d pile them all in bed around him, so she could barely find him when she went to tuck him in. His blankie, the one she’d crocheted before he was born, was folded neatly on his pillow, still waiting for his return.

      Where was her son? If he’d survived, was he being taken care of? Had someone given him a blanket to sleep with at night and animal friends to comfort him in bed?

      She thought she’d cried all her tears, but more slipped down her cheeks, her emotions as raw as they were the day she’d discovered that Benji was gone.

      The news usually ran stories about missing children. For a few weeks after the car crash, they carried the story about Ron and her son. Although the implication was that both had died in the fire, a request had been made for any information regarding the accident. They’d hoped to find a witness who’d seen the wreck, someone who could tell them if another car had been involved.

      But no word had come and eventually other stories had replaced Benji’s on the front page. With this new development, maybe she could arouse the media’s interest again.

      She hurried downstairs to the kitchen and retrieved the scrapbook with clippings she’d morbidly kept of the crash and the coverage afterward. Why she’d kept them, she didn’t know. Maybe she’d hoped one day she’d find something in them that might explain what had happened to Benji.

      The small town of Cobra Creek wasn’t big enough for a newspaper, but a reporter from Laredo had interviewed her and covered the investigation. At least, what little investigation Sheriff Gandt had instigated.

      She noted the reporter’s name on the story. Ashlynn Fontaine.

      Hoping that the reporter might revive the story and the public’s interest, now that Ron’s body had been found and that his death was considered a homicide, she decided to call the paper the next morning and speak to Ashlynn.

      * * *

      DUGAN DROVE TO the bank the next day to speak with George Bates, the president. One woman sat at a desk to the left, and a teller was perched behind her station, at a computer.

      He paused by the first woman and asked for Bates, and she escorted him to an office down a hallway. A tall, middle-aged man with wiry hair and a suit that looked ten years old shook his hand. “George Bates. You here to open an account?”

      Dugan shook his head. “No, sir, I need to ask you some questions about Ron Lewis.”

      Bates’s pudgy face broke into a scowl. “What about him? He’s been dead for two years.”

      “True,” Dugan said. “I don’t know if you heard, but his body was discovered this morning at Cobra Creek. It turns out he didn’t die in that car crash or fire. He was murdered.”

      Bates’s eyes widened. “What?”

      “Yes, he was shot.”

      Bates rolled his shoulders back in a defensive gesture. “You think I know something about that?”

      “That’s not what I meant to imply,” Dugan said, using a low voice to calm the man. “But the fact that Ms. Freeport’s little boy wasn’t with him raises questions about where he is. Ms. Freeport asked me to look into his disappearance. Learning who killed Lewis might lead us to that innocent little boy.” Dugan paused. “You do want to help find that child, don’t you?”

      His comment seemed to steal the wind out of Bates’s sails. “Well, yes, of course.”

      “Then tell me everything you can about Ron Lewis.”

      Bates tugged at his suit jacket, then motioned for Dugan to take a seat.

      “Lewis came in here with all kinds of plans for the town,” Bates said. “He had sketches of how he wanted to renovate the downtown area, parks that would be added, housing developments, a giant equestrian center and a dude ranch, along with an outlet mall and new storefronts for the downtown area.”

      “Did he have backing?” Dugan asked.

      Bates scratched his chin. “Well, that was the sketchy part. At first he said he did. Then, when it got down to it, he approached me to invest. I think he may have hit on some others around town. Especially Lloyd Riley and Ken Canter. They own a lot of land in the prime spots for the equestrian center and dude ranch.”

      “He made them offers?”

      “You’d have to talk to them about it,” Bates said. “Neither one wanted to tell me any specifics. But I think Riley signed something with him and so did Canter.”

      So, what had happened to those deals?

      “Were

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