Just Pretending. Myrna Mackenzie

“Why do you say that?”

      She shook her head, strands of her hair catching on her lips. She carelessly freed it and gave him a look. “Lyle’s another distant relative, isn’t he? Another Kincaid, a grandson of Garrett Kincaid’s, and a member of the country club set I’m sure you belong to.” She wanted to apologize for what had to sound like an accusation, but she had to place all her cards on the table.

      “You could have mentioned those things to Rafe yesterday.”

      “Rafe knows what I know. It’s obviously not a problem for him.”

      “And for you?”

      She studied him, a small frown between her eyes. “It’s just something that needed mentioning.”

      “No need to apologize,” he said, even though she hadn’t done that. “You’re right. It needed mentioning. I suppose that’s why Rafe put you in charge. You don’t avoid the tough questions even though it would be easier to do so.”

      “No, I don’t, but I do try to be fair.” It was the best she could do. He needed to know that she would still be cautious, but that she would trust him as far as she could, given the circumstances.

      “I’m beginning to see that, and I agree that you need to know more of my background. The fact is that Lyle and I don’t share martinis at the country club. We come from two different sides of the family and until very recently, long after I moved away, Lyle’s side lived completely in western Montana. I don’t really know the man.”

      Gretchen gave him a nod. He supposed that meant that she trusted him a little bit anyway. Or maybe it merely meant that she didn’t see any point in arguing about what she couldn’t change.

      He stared at her, trying to decipher that almost unreadable expression she worked so hard at maintaining.

      “All right,” he said. “So Lyle is heavily involved in the resort/casino deal and then a skeleton shows up when they begin to dig the hotel site. I’ve heard that much and also that there was a bullet lodged in the rib bone. The bones belong to Raven Hunter, a Native American who went missing from the reservation thirty years ago.”

      “A man who had made Jeremiah Kincaid angry by falling in love with Jeremiah’s sister, Blanche,” she added.

      “You didn’t add the obvious—that Blanche was my aunt and she died in child birth. The baby she gave birth to is my cousin, Summer. It’s an old story, one the Kincaids don’t talk about too much. And now there’s a body and an old murder to solve. Anything I should know that wasn’t in the file?” David asked.

      She shook her head. “We’ve already inter viewed those people in the area who might have had a link to Raven in any way. Old friends, your mother, your aunt, people on the rez who came in contact with him. It’s all there in black and white, what little there is. Right now the case is more or less on hold while we wait for Jackson Hawk, the tribal attorney, to locate Storm Hunter, Raven’s brother. We need to find out if Storm knows any more than we do about what happened all those years ago. But Storm’s been gone from the area almost as long as Raven has.”

      David blew out a deep breath. “With the passage of time and the two principals both deceased, this case will be a challenge. And Peter Cook?”

      “A construction worker,” she explained. “It appears that he slipped and fell into the hole he’d dug. Until we know more, excavation has ceased completely.”

      “Any new leads coming in?”

      She had to smile at that one. “Every day. Ghosts. Aliens. People who claim they were out walking their dog in the middle of nowhere and they heard a rustle in the bushes.”

      His smile indicated a knowledge of what she was talking about. He’d been doing this for a long time, too. “Any likely leads, I guess I should have said.”

      “Not yet.”

      But at that moment, the radio crackled and the dispatcher came on. An armed robbery in progress. Just outside of town on a road they’d passed minutes ago.

      Gretchen spun the car around and headed for the scene.

      A hundred yards from their destination, she slowed and David got out of the car. As she came around the side, he pinioned her with a look. “I’ll go in through the back door,” he said, his voice barely stirring the air. “Stay outside the front in case someone tries to make a run out that door.” He moved silently back into the trees and toward the house.

      Gretchen blinked. Obviously there was a problem here with chain of command. But David was already moving and she would not risk his life by stopping to stamp her foot and assert her authority.

      At least not this moment.

      She pulled out her weapon and approached the house.

      Chapter Two

      It was broad daylight but the shades on the little cottage had been pulled, blocking out most of the sunshine. David slid up to the kitchen window and peered in, but the curtains covering the windows were too thick to see inside.

      “Don’t touch those. Go away from here. Leave me and my things alone,” he heard an elderly woman plead.

      The sound of shoes shuffling on a bare floor drifted out, followed by a loud cracking sound and a grunt.

      The woman squealed and David shoved against the thin wood of the door, which fell open beneath his weight. His gun was drawn as he bulleted through the entrance. He hoped that Gretchen was armed and ready as he got his first glimpse of the big, beefy man whirling toward the front door where she would be waiting.

      “Freeze. Police,” David ordered.

      The man spun around, hands high, his eyes rolling back in his head.

      “Don’t shoot,” the man called as Gretchen came through the front door, holding him in the sights of her 9 mm.

      “Thank goodness you’re here,” the elderly woman said. “I didn’t know what to do when I heard someone in the house.”

      “Mr. Adkins?” Gretchen asked, slowly lowering her gun to her side.

      The man hung his head. David looked at Gretchen. She motioned for him to put his gun away.

      “He was stealing cookies I made for the church bake sale,” the woman declared. “I had to slap his hands to make him drop them.”

      David looked down at the red prints on the man’s wrists.

      “I wasn’t stealing anything,” the old man said.

      “You’re in my house, aren’t you?” the woman demanded. “And you’re armed. You’ve got a big rock in your pocket. I saw you studying it like you were going to throw it at me.”

      Her words jarred something in David’s memory. “Mr. Adkins? Earnest Adkins?”

      When the man didn’t answer, David looked to Gretchen, who nodded.

      David let out a sigh. He gazed at the man he’d once known rather well. Time had made changes.

      “That rock in your pocket,” David said, moving in closer. “I don’t suppose you had a particularly good reason for carrying it around, did you?”

      The man looked up, his eyes not quite recovered from the fear of having two guns trained on him. He nodded slightly. “Of course I did. A man carries rocks for a reason. Good reason, too. Just look at this. Isn’t it a beaut?” he asked, pulling the rock from his pocket.

      David gazed down at what really was a fine specimen of milky dolomite. “Mr. Adkins used to teach science at the high school. He studies geology,” David explained.

      “He was still stealing my cookies,” the lady mumbled.

      “He came into your house?” Gretchen asked gently.

      “Yes,”