LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Three

      “Let’s sit.” Russ gestured to the table and took a gulp of coffee.

      Brad topped off his mug. Instead of sitting, he leaned back against the counter.

      His actions didn’t surprise Margot. Cowboys were an independent breed who didn’t like to be told what to do.

      Russ took a seat at the table. He was a good-looking guy: around six foot two with broad shoulders, wavy brown hair and hazel eyes.

      Margot wondered if the detective had grown up in the area but couldn’t place him. Russ was older enough that if he had, she wouldn’t have known him.

      She remembered Brad because everyone knew the Crawfords. When Brad went off to college, she was still playing with dolls. By the time he was back, he was running with an older crowd and then he was married.

      She forced her thoughts from Brad and back to the question that Russ had just asked him.

      “Is it that you like hearing me repeat myself?” Brad frowned into his coffee before lifting his gaze. “We went through all of this right after Boyd left.”

      “Miss Sullivan wasn’t here then.” The detective slanted a smile in her direction. “I’d like to catch her up to speed. Perhaps she can shed some light on the situation.”

      “Please call me Margot,” she told Russ with a smile.

      “Margot, then. You can call me Russ.”

      Brad gave a snort of disgust. “Now that we’ve got that settled,” he said with a sarcastic drawl, “can we move this along? I have fences to mend.”

      Russ merely smiled and inclined his head, obviously an indication that the ball was still in Brad’s court.

      Margot watched him square his shoulders.

      “It was the Fourth of July. I went to the wedding—of Braden Traub and Jennifer MacCallum,” he clarified for Margot. “They had a reception in Rust Creek Falls Park. The usual barbecue and this wedding punch that lots of people couldn’t get enough of...including your father.”

      “Go on,” Russ prompted.

      “Several of us guys, including Boyd, ended up at the Ace in the Hole saloon. We played a little poker. Had some drinks.” Brad looked as Margot. “The bets were getting a little out of hand. Your father was really betting like crazy. For a while he was winning. Then his luck changed. He lost everything he’d won...and then all the money he had on him.”

      “My father was,” Margot paused and took a deep breath, “is an alcoholic. He quit drinking around the time he met my mother and had been sober ever since. After she died, he went to the bottle for comfort. It was as if he had nothing more to live for since she was gone.”

      “He had you,” Brad said quietly.

      “I guess he didn’t see it that way.” Margot tried to force a smile to her lips but it wouldn’t slip into place.

      “On that particular day, most of the town was drunk.” Russ jotted down some notes, glanced back up at Margot. “What about gambling? Was that an issue for him, too?”

      She thought for a moment. “I can’t say for certain. During my childhood, he never gambled. I remember my parents had friends who were always asking them to go to the casinos in Kalispell with them, but they’d never go.”

      Russ asked for their names and added their contact information to his growing notes. “I’ll check with them to see if a gambling addiction was ever mentioned.”

      Margot shifted her gaze to Brad. “You said he ran out of money. What happened then?”

      “The pot was large. Everyone seemed to think they held the winning hand, so it kept growing.” Brad shifted from one foot to the other. “Then it was just me and Boyd. He grew frantic when it was time for him to ante up. He had no more money and he didn’t want to drop out. He put up the deed to the ranch so he could stay in. Insisted upon it.”

      Margot raised a skeptical brow. “Insisted?”

      “Yes,” Brad said flatly. “You know how bullheaded your dad can be. I tried to talk him out of it, but let’s just say his, ah, response made it clear I was to mind my own.”

      It rang true. Margot had been on the receiving end of her father’s sharp tongue. When he was in one of his black moods, you couldn’t tell him a darn thing.

      She took a breath and exhaled. “So he lost the hand—” she added, more to neatly tie up the incident with a bow than because she had any doubt of the outcome “—and the ranch.”

      “The punch at the wedding was spiked,” Russ interjected.

      Clearly annoyed, Brad pinned the detective with his gaze. “I’ve admitted—numerous times—that while I may have had a few glasses, I wasn’t drunk. What I’ve told you is accurate.”

      Margot’s gaze turned speculative.

      “I had a full house,” Brad explained. “He had three queens. Normally a winning hand. Just not this time.”

      “You didn’t have to take it.” Even she could hear the recrimination in her tone. “The ranch, I mean.”

      “You think I wanted to take it? You know your dad. He shoved the deed in my face the next day.” Brad lifted his hands, let them drop. “Then he was gone. No one has seen him since.”

      “One-way ticket to New York City,” Russ confirmed.

      “He was out of money.” Margot’s head swam. None of this made any sense. “Yet he had enough to buy himself a train ticket all the way across the country?”

      Brad shrugged. “Apparently.”

      “We’re thinking someone bought him that ticket.” Russ cast a pointed glance at Brad.

      “I didn’t buy it,” Brad answered with a cold stare of his own. “I made that very clear.”

      “Who would do something like that?” Margot’s voice rose then broke. “Who would put a drunken old man on a train to New York City, a place where he doesn’t have any friends or family? Where someone could hurt him or—”

      She closed her eyes briefly and fought for control.

      “We initially assumed he’d gone to see his sister—”

      “Until you found out she lived in New Jersey, not New York, and has been dead almost two years.”

      “That’s right.” Russ looked surprised but his tone remained carefully controlled. “How did you know—?”

      “I told her,” Brad said. “And I also mentioned how we’ve been trying to track her down ever since Boyd disappeared.”

      “I’m sorry about that. I should have stayed in closer contact.”

      “Why didn’t you?” Russ asked bluntly, his shrewd hazel eyes fixed on her.

      Margot resisted the urge to squirm under that penetrating gaze. Instead she squared her shoulders. “We argued the last time I called.”

      Russ’s gaze narrowed on her face. He lifted his pencil over his notepad. “What about?”

      Out of the corner of her eye, Margot saw Brad pull out the chair and take a seat on her right. He wrapped both hands around his mug and leaned back.

      “About everything.” Margot gave a humorless laugh. “I told him I won second place in Cortez. He reminded me that ‘second place is the first loser.’ I could tell by how he was slurring his words he’d been drinking. I confronted him.”

      “What happened

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