Everybody except J.P., Cord and Eli himself, that is.

He’d herded the three of them back to the ranch house, read them the riot act, then called Cord’s grandparents and Eli’s mom and dad.

All that had happened when they were fifteen—before Reba had all but tanked their friendship—and Eli remembered it fondly, even though he’d caught hell from his folks, not just at home, but all the way there.

He’d missed baseball practice for two solid weeks, nearly losing his place on the team, and that, to his mind, had represented a personal apocalypse.

The end of the known world.

He sighed, shook his head.

Went back into the barn.

Sam, evidently nimble as well as brilliant, was perched astraddle of the rafter, examining the knot that had secured the rope.

“Is that necessary?” Eli asked Alec, in an undertone.

“Sam likes to get an overview,” Alec replied. “Let the kid do his thing. He’s smarter than you and I put together.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Eli admitted, turning his attention to the coroner, who was crouching beside Freddie’s body, wielding a pair of tweezers and dropping fibers, some of them minute, into an evidence bag.

“Too early for a conclusion?” Eli prompted, but carefully.

“I’m 99 percent sure it’s suicide,” Alex responded. “Sam checked his pockets. No note.”

Eli crouched opposite Alec, thrust out another heavy sigh. “You’re sure? Because I’ve got to pay a visit to Freddie’s folks pretty soon, and they’ll want to know exactly what happened.”

“Can’t blame them for that,” Alec sighed as well.

Sam shinnied down a support beam, agile and quick. He landed on the barn floor with a slap of his sneakered feet and hurried over to the cot. Threw back the old sleeping bag atop it.

“Sheriff,” he said, excited. “Guess what I just found?”

Eli, mildly annoyed, stood up and made his way over, along with J.P.

A snub-nosed .45 lay, cold and black, on the lining of the sleeping bag.

Eli silently berated himself for not checking out the cot right away. He’d seen that in Freddie’s pictures, as well as the backpack.

“Don’t touch it,” Sam said.

Eli gave him a look.

To his credit, Sam backed off slightly. “I’ll get more gloves and another evidence bag,” he said.

“You do that,” Eli practically growled.

Sam moved to one of the equipment bags, took out a pair of steel tongs and the promised bag. Brought them to Eli without meeting his gaze.

“Thanks,” Eli half barked, snapping on the gloves and lifting the gun carefully from its resting place.

The chamber was empty.

He sniffed the barrel. The weapon hadn’t been fired, not recently anyway.

He dropped the pistol into the evidence bag and handed the works over to Sam.

Then he shook out the sleeping bag, but there was nothing inside.