“You didn’t really need to come in this morning, ma’am. It could have waited.”

“I take it there’s no sign of the man who attacked me?”

He shook his head, waiting for the diatribe on the incompetency of small-town police to begin. Marilee Jennings just looked sad, a little haunted maybe.

“I wouldn’t worry about him bothering you again,” he said. “He’s likely moved on to another town. Thieves tend to get skittish when they’ve come close to being caught.”

“If he was just a thief.”

Quinn tipped his head. “What do you mean?”

Mari took a deep breath, tightening her fingers into a knot in her lap. “I’m not sure he was there to rob me. I think he may have been looking for something in particular.”

“Such as?”

“I’m not sure.” He looked impatient and she rushed on before her courage could run out. “You know Lucy MacAdam’s house was broken into a few days after her death-”

“Vandals,” he said, moving his huge shoulders. “Sure I know about it. J. D. Rafferty called me out to have a look.”

“But what if it wasn’t vandals? Miller Daggrepont’s office was broken into not long after. Daggrepont was Lucy’s attorney. Don’t you find that strange?”

“Not especially.” He cut a glance at his brownies, unconsciously flicked his tongue across his lower lip, and looked back at Mari. He seemed to get larger and more intimidating the thinner his patience became. “It’s not unusual for a ranch house to get broken into when kids think there’s no one around to care or to catch them. I’m not saying it’s a common thing, but it happens. As for Daggrepont’s office, it’s just across the alley from the Hell and Gone. Gets broken into a couple times a year. I keep telling Miller to put a better lock on the door, but I guess he’d rather collect the insurance on that junk he claims is antique.”

“But now my hotel room has been broken into,” Mari pointed out, struggling to hold on to her own small scrap of patience. She was exhausted and her head was pounding. She wanted to take a couple of the painkillers Dr. Larimer had prescribed, climb into bed, and sleep for a week, but she had thought-hoped-she could arouse Quinn’s cop instincts first. If he saw anything in her suspicions, he might assign someone to check out the coincidences, and he might approach the case of her attack from a different angle.

He wasn’t looking aroused.

“Doesn’t that seem a little too coincidental?” she pressed on. “I was a friend of Lucy’s. She left all her stuff to me. What if she left me something someone wanted badly enough to commit a crime to get?”

“Did she?”

She closed her eyes against the frustration and the pain. He probably already thought she was a lunatic. Another “I don’t know” would seal her fate with him. “She left a letter for me in the event of her death-which in itself was strange. In the letter she mentioned a book-Martindale-Hubbell, it’s a directory of attorneys. There’s a set in her study, but one is missing.”

“If it’s missing and you think it’s what the thief was after, then why would he break into Miller’s office or into your room? He could have gotten it out of Miz MacAdam’s study when he broke in there.”

“Lucy might have hidden it. He might have thought she gave it to Daggrepont for safekeeping or that I had somehow managed to get ahold of it.”

“And why would she hide a directory of attorneys?”

“Maybe there’s something in it.”

“Such as?”

I don’t know. Three words guaranteed to jerk a cop’s chain. They were linear thinkers, cops. They liked evidence and logic and simple explanations. She could give Quinn none of those things. All she had was a matrix of ugly possibilities and hunches with Lucy at the center. If she told him she saw Judge MacDonald Townsend snorting cocaine at a party, he would likely ask her what she was on at the time.

Townsend was above reproach. She probably wouldn’t have believed it herself if she hadn’t seen it with her own two eyes, and if she hadn’t known about the judge and Lucy. Nor was Quinn liable to see anything strange about Ben Lucas representing Sheffield in the matter of Lucy’s death. Lucas was a prominent attorney with a license to practice in Montana. He ran in the same circles as Sheffield. So what if he had known Lucy back in Sacramento?

“I don’t mean to sound like a crackpot. But there are just some things about Lucy’s death that have bothered me from the first. Now this happens.”

“It was an open and shut case, Miz Jennings,” Quinn said tightly. “We got the man responsible.”

“Sheffield claimed he never saw Lucy.”

“I imagine he was lying about that. He shot a woman by mistake. When he realized what he’d done, he panicked.”

“Or someone else might have shot her.”

The sheriff blew out a gust of air. His brows plowed a deep V above the bridge of his crooked nose. The scar on his cheek was a vivid slash of red. “I suppose you have some idea who? I suppose you figure it was this mystery man who wants this mystery book you don’t really know anything about.”

“I’m only saying there are other possibilities. What about this hired hand of Lucy’s who disappeared after she was killed? Kendall Morton. By all accounts, he was a shady character.”

“That isn’t against the law in Montana, miss.”

“But did you check him out?” Mari badgered. “Did you at least check his criminal record?”

“I can’t divulge that kind of information,” Quinn said, color creeping up his thick neck into his face. “We did all that was necessary-”

“Necessary?” Mari scoffed, her hold on her temper slipping. “You hung a misdemeanor on a socialite and sent him back to Beverly Hills to liposuction the fat out of rich women’s butts. Did you even consider any other suspects? What about Del Rafferty? He took a shot at me yesterday!”

Quinn didn’t bat an eye. He went on as if people getting shot at was as ordinary as grass growing. “But he didn’t kill you, did he? If Del wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Maybe he wanted Lucy dead.”

“Because he wanted this directory of attorneys so he could hunt them all down and kill them too?”

“Don’t patronize me, Sheriff,” Mari snapped, leaning ahead in her chair. “Del Rafferty’s elevator stops well short of the top floor. He shot at me for coming into his territory. He might have thought he had reason to get rid of Lucy altogether.”

She felt like a traitor for saying it. Automatically she thought of J.D., of the way he protected and defended his uncle. She thought of Del. He had scared the hell out of her, but the look in his eyes kept coming back to her, tearing at her heart. Hell was his state of mind.

Quinn fixed her with a look of cold anger. “Listen, Miz Jennings: Del isn’t quite right in the head. Everybody knows that. But he don’t go around killing people. And if he somehow accidentally shot that woman-which is next to impossible-he would have ’fessed up. No Rafferty I ever knew would let an innocent man take the blame for something he did.”

Defeated, Mari held up a hand in surrender. Quinn would settle for nothing less than a smoking gun. He wasn’t about to make his life any harder by opening a case for which he already had a conviction. “Okay, I give up. I can see this is pointless.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said, rising to his full height, jaw set in affront. “I believe it is. I’m sorry your friend was killed. I’m sorry you were attacked. Believe me when I say I wish to God it hadn’t happened. I especially wish it hadn’t happened here.”

Which was his not-so-subtle way of saying he wished she and Lucy and all of their kind had never come to New Eden.

Mari stood slowly and looked Quinn square in the eye. “I wish that too, Sheriff. With all my heart.”

“What are you doin’ with that colt?” J.D. demanded.

Will, who was turning twelve that very day, was already in the saddle. The Appaloosa gelding was just two and wild as a cob. He’d run loose his whole life, had never felt the hand of man until Chaske ran him down from the hills three weeks before. J.D. had taken a shine to him instantly. The young horse had a fine way of carrying himself and a smart look in his eyes. He was a copper chestnut with white legs and blanket of snow white over his hindquarters. J.D. had been working him in the round pen with Chaske’s help, trying to get the colt used to people, then to a saddle. He hadn’t been ridden more than twice.