Royal Protector. Laura Gordon
his resolve restored and firmly in place, he finished his overdone steak, then leaned back in his chair and fell into the deep sleep of a man who’d put in a long, frustrating day.
A cold wet canine nose nudged Lucas awake hours later. “Hey, Rocky,” he mumbled as he stretched his back and frowned at the realization that he’d spent the night in his chair. “Thanks for the wake-up call, old man.”
It was still dark when Lucas opened the back door to let Rocky out, but the sun had turned the cloudless morning sky a pale white by the time he’d showered and dressed.
As he poured his first cup of coffee, he mentally ticked off the course the investigation would take today. The ongoing search for tracks or any kind of evidence around the murder scene would be his first priority. But of almost equal importance was his next conversation with Lexie Dale.
His mind was so fully focused on the subject of his rumination that when the phone rang, he almost expected to hear her voice.
“Sorry to bother you so early, Lucas,” Eli Ferguson apologized, “but I figured you’d want to have this information ASAP.”
“No problem, Eli. What’s up?”
“We still don’t have a positive ID on yesterday’s murder victim.”
Lucas frowned as he listened to his deputy explain.
“There’s no such address as the one listed on the Illinois driver’s license he was carrying, and there’s no record of anyone by the name of Hugh Miller residing in Cook County.”
“What about the vehicle registration in his car?”
“As bogus as the driver’s license,” Eli declared. “The registration lists the same information as the license and the plates don’t match the car’s make and model.”
“Stolen?”
“Maybe. But they could have been lifted from a junkyard. The plates were traced to a 1968 Chevy that was totaled and junked twenty years ago.”
“It seems reasonable to suspect the car is stolen, too.” Lucas frowned. A stolen car was one thing, but going to such lengths to create a false identity added a new and disturbing dimension to what was already a complex case.
“Probably,” Eli agreed. “But we can’t confirm that until we hear back from the Illinois State Police. I sent the prints off to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, but it could be two or three weeks before we hear back from them.”
Before he’d left for home last night, Lucas had directed Eli to over-night a set of Miller’s fingerprints to the CBI headquarters in Denver where they’d be compared to catalogued prints on file.
“Or longer,” Lucas grumbled more to himself than to his deputy. All his thoughts focused on Lexie Dale. The woman with the intriguing eyes that hinted at a heart full of secrets.
“Looks like we’re a long way from getting a positive identification,” Eli said.
“Maybe not as far as you think, Eli,” Lucas said before he hung up the phone, reached for his hat and his car keys and headed out the door. Maybe only as far as Destiny Canyon Ranch and one very beautiful witness.
Chapter Three
The hills that ringed the valley around the ranch house seemed to glow with reflected sunshine, but the beauty of the mountain sunrise was lost on Lucas. He was a man on a mission. Outside, the breeze blew cool, but inside the kitchen the air was warm and deliciously thick with the aroma of bacon, coffee and cinnamon.
Mo was standing at the stove with her back to Lucas when he walked in. In spite of the early hour, Tucker Oates was seated at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and poring over the pages of a tabloid newspaper, The Exposé.
“Morning, Lucas.” He tipped back in his chair and ran his hand over his grizzled jaw. “Since you hadn’t been around to interrogate me, I figured I’d stop by here and save you the trouble of tracking me down.”
“As if you’d be so hard to find,” Mo said sardonically.
“I get around.” Tucker hooked his thumbs through the red suspenders he always wore to keep his blue jeans attached to his scrawny frame. “You’d be surprised, Mo.”
“Huh! Like anything you could do would surprise me.”
“Wait and see.” Tucker chuckled to himself. “Someday you might just find out there’s more to old Tucker than you’ve ever allowed.”
Mo glanced at Lucas over her shoulder then wiped her hands on a dishtowel and reached for an earthenware coffee mug on the counter beside her.
“I figured you’d be by early,” she said as she filled the mug with steaming brew and held it out to him. “Cal should be down in a minute.”
Lucas eyed the pan of fresh, warm cinnamon rolls sitting on a trivet on the countertop.
“Help yourself,” Mo said. “I was just getting ready to put the eggs on. What’ll it be, one or two?”
“Thanks, but none for me. I just swung by to pick up Miss Dale.” He glanced out the window across the expanse of green meadow at the four guest cabins in the distance, situated on the southwest edge of the Garrett property. “I don’t suppose she’s made an appearance yet this morning?”
Mo shook her head. “Not yet, poor thing. I doubt she’s even awake. She was still on the phone, talking to her family when I turned in last night. Seemed real upset, too, not that it’s any wonder, given what she’s been through. I’m just glad I talked her into staying in the guest room last night.”
“She stayed here at the house?”
“I insisted on it!” Mo informed him. “She said she’d be fine in her cabin, but I wouldn’t hear of it, not with that maniac still on the loose! You haven’t caught him, have you?”
Lucas shook his head.
“Hmm. Well, then I’m glad I made her stay here. Although I don’t think she slept much. I got up to check on Pop around two this morning and noticed the light in her room was still on.”
Mo offered to warm up his coffee, but Lucas refused. “You could at least sit down and have a cinnamon roll while you’re waiting for her.”
Mo’s cinnamon rolls were legendary, but this morning Lucas wasn’t even tempted. It was all he could do to keep from charging up the stairs and dragging Lexie Dale out of bed. “Thanks, but I’ll grab something later in town.”
“I’ll have some of those cinnamon rolls,” Tucker volunteered.
“There’s another big surprise,” Mo said as she placed the pan in the middle of the long, pine table. “I’m surprised you manage to survive on what passes for food down at The Timbers. Why, sometimes I swear I can taste the grease just walking past the front door of that place.”
Cal walked into the kitchen and nodded a greeting toward Lucas and Tucker. “What’s wrong with The Timbers?” he asked as he reached for a mug and filled it with coffee.
“Yeah,” Tucker said as he swallowed a bite of cinnamon roll. “I’m healthy enough, and I eat most all my meals there.”
Mo snorted. “Well, I suppose the food at The Timbers is good enough for a man with beef jerky for taste buds and a brain the size of a pinto bean.”
“I’d be happy to make some other arrangement,” Tucker offered. “You know, Mo, I’ve always said you were the best cook in Bluff County.”
“Not in your wildest dreams.” She slammed a cast-iron skillet onto the stovetop and began cracking eggs into it. “You’re doggone lucky there’s a place like The Timbers for the likes of you. No woman in her right mind would agree to sign on to cook and clean up after you, old