LITMIR.BIZ

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if he was thinking along the same lines as her. No doubt, he didn’t want anyone poking around, either.

      “But?” she asked, prodding him on.

      “I bet his family would go bonkers if we brought law enforcement out here. And the last thing this ranch needs is more craziness from the locals.” He frowned. “We are just trying to fit in here. We don’t want to draw unnecessary scrutiny from our new neighbors.”

      “Well, if you think that the Cusslers would appreciate us not—”

      “Yes, I’m sure they would want to keep this a family issue.” Trevor sounded sold on the idea.

      She wanted to point out the possibility that the other members of the Cussler clan may be lying dead somewhere out in the timber as well. Otherwise wouldn’t they have already buried their brother’s body?

      Yet she didn’t want to press the issue. Not if it meant there was a possibility he would change his mind and call the police. Not that he would. She had the definite feeling he wanted to sweep this man’s death under the rug just as much as she did.

      “I’m going to go back in and take a look around,” he said.

      “Why?” she asked, before thinking.

      He looked at her as though he was trying to decide how much he should open up to her. “If we’re not going to call someone out here, we need to make sure that this isn’t the work of some serial killer or something. You know what I mean?”

      “You think he was murdered?” she asked, trying to play up the innocent and naive angle.

      “My hope is that this is nothing more than a suicide. I just need to make sure.”

      She doubted that was really why he was going back in. He was probably looking for something more, something that would guarantee they wouldn’t find themselves in deeper trouble if any of this ever came to light.

      “You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

      She grimaced. He hadn’t really just tried to tell her what to do, had he? If he thought she was some kind of chattel that he could just order around, he had another think coming.

      “Okay.” She sighed as she tried to calmly remind herself he wasn’t bossing her around out of some need for control; rather, it was his need to protect. “But be careful in there. If I know one thing about these kind of recluses, it’s that they have a reputation for hating outsiders. They may have set up some kind of booby trap.”

      He stared at her like he was trying to figure her out. The look made her uncomfortable. “Got it, but I promise you have nothing to worry about when it comes to my safety. I have experience with this kind of thing.”

      His alleged role in peacekeeping and his family’s Blackwater-type company was known, but she was surprised he was admitting any of it to her. Maybe her investigation wouldn’t be as difficult as she had thought. Hell, if things went her way she could have all the answers she needed in a matter of days.

      Then again, things would have to go her way, and life hadn’t been playing nicely with her lately.

      Trevor slipped back to the shack, holding up his phone as a flashlight as he made his way back inside.

      She moved quietly after him. Maybe she could see something that he would miss, something that would prove the brother’s death was nothing more than a suicide so they could put this all to rest.

      As she walked toward the shack, she stopped. No. She couldn’t pry. She couldn’t get any more involved with this. If she went in there and did find something, there was a high probability that she would slip up and say something that would give away her background. He couldn’t know anything about her position in the FBI.

      She walked around to the back of the shack to where an old push lawn mower sat. There, on the ground beside it, was a puddle of dried blood. Pine needles had collected at the edges, making the pool look like some kind of macabre artwork.

      She opened her mouth to call out to Trevor, but stopped. No. She couldn’t tell him.

      From the state of the body in the house, there was little possibility this blood belonged to the dead man. If someone had shot him out here and moved him, there would have been drag marks or some indication that the body had been staged. Though she hadn’t spent long in the room with the dead man, she had noticed the blood leaking out of the wound at his temple. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the trail as it twisted down his ravaged features and leaked onto his dirty collar, staining it a ruddy brown. He couldn’t have been moved postmortem. No, the blood pattern didn’t match.

      Which meant this blood had to belong to another person. And based on the volume of it on the ground, they were possibly dealing with more than a single death.

      Crap.

      She stared at the dried blood. Kneeling down, she scooped up a handful of the sharp, dried pine needles that were scattered around. What she was about to do could end up going all kinds of ass-backwards, but it had to be done for her, for her investigation and for her chance at getting her future back. There was nothing she wanted more than to rise in the ranks, and sometimes that meant that sacrifices had to be made.

      She threw the needles atop the blood and stepped onto them. She kicked away at the dried blood, earth and needles until there was nothing.

      It felt wrong to destroy evidence, but at the same time a sensation of freedom filled her. It was refreshing to break the rules and to make her own in name of the greater good.

      Walking around to the door of the shack, she poked her head inside. Trevor took a step deeper into the shadows around the dead body. He knelt down and moved aside a piece of discarded cloth on the floor. He chuckled.

      As he stood up, she saw a gun in his hand. He wiped the grip and the barrel down with his shirt, as though he was stripping it of any possible fingerprints.

      There was only one reason he’d wipe the gun down—he was trying to protect the person who had pulled the trigger. Maybe that person was him.

      Hell, he had probably come in here and killed the brothers in an attempt to get rid of them once and for all. Then he had waited for her to arrive before he rode up on his Harley like some kind of badass playboy.

      He’d probably wanted her to see the man’s body first. He’d wanted to come off as innocent. He’d wanted to take her in his arms and act the hero.

      And she had allowed the bastard to set her up.

       Chapter Three

      Trevor walked up the front steps of the ranch house and waited as Sabrina parked her car and made her way over to him. He had told her that she could have the rest of the day off. She didn’t need to come back to the main house with him—she could return to the old foreman’s place, which was hers now—but she hadn’t accepted his offer. Instead, she had only said that she had work to do.

      Actually, it was the only thing she had said. The words had rung in his ears the entire ride back to the main house. There had been something in her sharp inflection that told him she was angry about something, something he was missing—and that there was danger afoot—but for the life of him, he didn’t understand.

      It was like he was married all over again, his life awash with unspoken anger and resentment. The memory of standing at the front door of his apartment, watching as his wife bedded another man on their once-pristine leather sofa, made a sickening knot rise in his belly.

      Once again, just like before, he was forced to be an unwilling participant in things unspoken.

      Hopefully this time he would be able to stop his life from falling to pieces in front of him.

      She came to a stop beside him, but she was putting off a distinct “don’t touch me” vibe.

      He

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