“Not a chance.” Ellie cracked open her door and got out. Kade bit back a curse and followed.

His sheepskin jacket covered the pistol on his belt. In this kind of country, walking up to a man’s house with a gun in your hand could get you killed. In this case, going in without a weapon could get you just as dead.

As Kade neared the front porch, he pulled the Colt, and Ellie pulled her pistol, a Glock semiauto, she’d told him. She signaled that she was going around to the back and slipped off in that direction. With no way to call her back, Kade clenched his jaw, his tension ratcheting up another notch.

He eased up onto the wooden porch, knocked on the front door, and stepped to one side, his pistol in a two-handed grip pointed upward. He wasn’t a cop, but he knew how to use a firearm, and he was a damned good shot. His tension revved higher as he knocked again. Surprise hit him when the door moved a little, creaked, and slowly swung open.

Kade counted off the seconds. No one appeared. Careful not to make himself a target, he shoved the door with the toe of his boot. Through the windows next to the couch, sunlight poured into the living room. Catching no sign of movement, he stepped inside.

Kade froze. Frank Keller slumped in a plush, brown, overstuffed chair next to the sofa, legs thrust out in front of him, arms limp at his sides. Keller’s head lolled on his chest, and a black semiauto lay on the floor where it must have dropped from his hand.

Still armed, Kade eased toward the chair. Keller was dead, blood leaking down the side of his face from a bullet hole in his right temple, brain matter oozing from the exit wound on the other side. Kade looked up to see Ellie moving silently into the living room, weapon gripped in both hands. She shook her head. No one in the kitchen.

So far, no sign of Earl Dunstan.

Ellie spotted Keller. Her eyes flashed to Kade’s, and her face turned pale. Kade signaled toward the bedrooms, and Ellie nodded. They needed to be sure no one else was in the house.

It was quiet as he moved along the hall, just the muffled thud of his boots on the carpet and the tick of a clock on a nightstand he could see through the open bedroom door. He checked the closets and under the bed, moved along the hall to the other bedroom, then checked the bathroom.

“All clear,” he said, holstering the Colt as he returned to the living room. His gaze went to the body sprawled in the chair. Kade had no trouble recognizing the man who had briefly worked for him during the roundup. “Looks like Keller shot himself.”