J.P. managed the various enterprises ownership entailed, including mineral rights and several thousand head of cattle.

Eli didn’t slow down as he passed the spacious ranch house, a long, low structure of brick and wood, where J.P. lived alone, except for his dog, Trooper.

He was waiting at the base of his paved driveway, behind the wheel of the ancient white pickup truck he used strictly for ranch work, Trooper riding shotgun, and as soon as Eli and Melba passed him in the SUV, he pulled out behind them.

J.P. wasn’t a cop, but he’d had Eli’s back for as long as he could remember, as had Cord, and it was good to have him around.

Once they left the ranch road for the glorified cow path that led toward the original homestead, and the barn, the going was teeth-rattling rough.

“Sorry,” Eli said, glancing at Melba.

She jutted out her chin. “Worry about yourself, Sheriff. I’m fine.”

“You do realize that we’re on the same side, right?”

Melba sighed. “I’m still mad at Dan,” she confessed.

“Why?”

“Because he’s so damn smart.”

“You’d rather he was stupid?”

“No, I’d rather he was the slightest bit humble.”

Eli gave a loud guffaw at that.

A good thing, because it would be a while before he laughed again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE BODY SWAYED gently between shadow and light, surrounded by shimmering dust motes. The scents of mildewed hay, mice and death mingled in the cold air inside the old barn.

Eli swore, and Melba released a small cry of startled dismay.

“Shit,” J.P. said, standing behind them.

“You have a knife in your truck?” Eli heard himself ask, as the initial shock of finding another body—the second in as many days—began to subside. “Get it.”

While J.P. ran for his truck, Eli slipped on a pair of gloves from his pocket and looked for something to stand on.

The rafters in that barn were high, and the rope was long, though not long enough to be accessible to a man standing on the ground. A pillowcase covered the head like a mask, but Eli knew who this was.

It was Melba who located a dusty trunk sheathed in cobwebs, pushed up against a far wall; the two of them hauled it into the center of the space as J.P. rushed back in with the requested knife.

Before Eli could scramble onto the trunk, J.P. did it. He moved with the practiced ease of a rancher’s kid all grown up.

As the body turned in slow half circles, he swore. Almost lost his balance on the trunk, which threatened to splinter beneath his weight.

With a few slashes of his hunting blade, a relic of his time in the armed forces, J.P. cut the body down.