Nearly fifty close friends made their way from the ranch’s cemetery to return to their homes in and near Gray’s Falls, a small ranching and tourist community nearly half an hour from Aspen.
Now, still standing inside the wrought-iron fence surrounding the acre of land set aside twenty-four years before, Crowe Callahan stared at the wounded earth where Clyde lay, the icy purpose he didn’t bother hiding now filling his soul.
He was a weapon. Born and bred in the fires of hatred, trained in the killing fields of a war on terrorism, and honed in the brutal, soul-destroying second that he’d felt one small woman’s heart break.
“He was murdered.” Clyde’s only recognized blood relative, and one of two whom Crowe recognized, Rafer Benjamin Callahan spoke his suspicions aloud.
Lifting his gaze from the grave, Crowe stared back at him from beneath his lashes.
“I know,” Crowe agreed, meeting his cousin’s dark-blue eyes before he once again shifted his focus, surveying their surrounding with the intensity of someone who knew all the ways to kill a man.
He wasn’t unaware of the concern that filled Rafe and their cousin Logan.
“He called me last week,” Rafer revealed then, drawing Crowe’s gaze back to him. “He said he needed to see me as soon as possible. He claimed he’d uncovered something about the night our parents were killed.” Rafer gave his head a hard shake. “He was dead before I ever received the message.”
“Same here,” Logan revealed.
Both men turned to Crowe questioningly.
“I got the same call,” he said. “Like the two of you, I was completing my final mission before discharge.”
“Just after his message, Archer left his own message saying that they had found him dead,” Rafer bit out with an edge of fury.
Murdered.
Even Archer suspected Clyde had been murdered, though he’d been unable to find any proof. Still, Crowe had managed to get his hands on the report, and the fact that the sheriff wasn’t satisfied with the determination wasn’t lost on Crowe.
“So what do we do now?” Rafter asked, anger throbbing in his voice.
“Now we take back what’s ours,” Crowe stated, that icy purpose inside hardening further.”And God help anyone attempting to stop us.”
“He thought he knew who the Slasher was.” Logan’s statement had Crowe sliding him a thoughtful look.
“How do you know that?” Crowe asked, keeping his voice low.
He could feel the eyes on them, but he’d been feeling it since they arrived at the funeral, though he wasn’t certain if anyone was close enough to hear the conversation. He’d let it ride for now, but he’d go hunting later, he decided. Sometime when his cousins weren’t there to see.
“His message,” Logan said. “His message said he needed to talk to us, that he’d uncovered something about that night. Something that explained everything and to remember what we were searching for when we left.”
“We were looking for a possible tie between the Slasher and the person responsible for our parents’ deaths,” Rafe remembered as Crowe listened. “But we didn’t find one.”
They had searched hard enough over the years, though, relying fully on Clyde’s certainty that the tie existed.
“If we’re going on the supposition that Clyde was murdered, then based on the message he left Logan, we can assume he either found some evidence to support the theory of it, or had a suspect in mind,” Crowe murmured, keeping his head down, ensuring his lips couldn’t be read, nor their movement tracked.
“Then somehow the Slasher himself learned what Clyde had found.” Logan frowned at the thought. “If Clyde had actually suspected someone, wouldn’t he have left a clue to it somewhere?”
“We’ve torn apart every area of the house and property looking for the information we gathered ourselves before joining the marines,” Crowe reminded them, knowing someone would die for it eventually. “We can’t even find that, let alone anything else he left.”
“His killer could have found it,” Rafe pointed out.
The thought of that had the ice in Crowe’s veins solidifying.
There had been more in those files than simply what Clyde himself had gathered.
Thank God the file Amelia Sorenson had given Crowe that summer hadn’t been hidden with Clyde’s information. Clyde had known of it, and several of the files he’d put together himself had included information regarding the county attorney. Amelia wasn’t named in the notes placed in the boxes of information and evidence, either, but the possibility that someone could figure out that some of Clyde’s tips came from her was a concern.