Outlaw Lawman by Delores Fossen Page B

lane. Harlan was more than a little fed up with those—especially the ones that involved Caitlyn. And her apparent need to screw over his family any chance she got.
    “I figured this is the last place the Rangers would look for you,” Slade explained. Except he always sounded as if he were picking a fight when he spoke. “Besides, it’s vacant, and Joelle gave me the keys.”
    Joelle, their sister-in-law who’d once honchoed the investigation when it was still in the inquiry stage. That was why Joelle had the keys in the first place. Well, it sure as heck was past that inquiry stage now with the Rangers trying to arrest Caitlyn and him.
    “Rudy Simmons, the caretaker, is away on a trip,” Slade added. “So we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
    “Jeez.” Caitlyn forced out several breaths and pressed her hand over her heart. “If I’d known we were coming here, I would have had a shot of tequila or something.”
    Again Harlan agreed. The redbrick building was practically pristine. Grounds, too. Ironic that it looked so welcoming, but if someone had asked him to paint a picture of hell, it’d be Rocky Creek.
    “It doesn’t exactly have good memories for any of us,” Harlan mumbled. Slade added a grunt of agreement.
    Caitlyn mimicked that grunt. “You never did tell me how you ended up here,” she added, glancing at Harlan.
    “Bad luck.” That was Harlan’s usual answer when it came up in conversation. Which wasn’t very often. But Caitlyn already knew that bad luck had played into everyone’s stay at the hellhole. “My mom cut out when I was three, and I lived with my grandmother until she passed away.”
    “How old were you?” She sounded truly interested or maybe she just wanted the distraction. Harlan wouldn’t have minded one either, but he also didn’t want conversation to distract him from keeping them safe.
    “Twelve.” He looked around, trying to see if there were any threats. “By then I was a big kid, and I think that intimidated any potential foster parents. Guess they figured I’d beat them to a pulp or something.”
    “Yeah.” She hesitated, nibbled some more on her bottom lip. “I got the same attitude. The piercings and hair color didn’t help.”
    “All those fights probably didn’t either,” Slade growled, and Caitlyn mumbled an agreement. His phone dinged, and he glanced at the screen before he passed it to Harlan.
    “The background checks on Curtis and Devin,” Harlan relayed.
    That got the worried look off Caitlyn’s face, and she scooted closer to him so she could see. Not that she had to scoot far. They were all sharing the single seat in Slade’s truck and were already way too close. The maneuver put them hip to hip.
    Harlan ignored it.
    Okay, he tried.
    And he focused on the summary that his brother Clayton had done on Curtis Newell. The basics were all there. Age thirty-seven, no criminal history. He had an MBA, and from the looks of it, he’d sunk nearly every penny of his inheritance from his grandmother into the private equity business that he and Sherry had started three years earlier.
    No red flags.
    The business wasn’t exactly thriving, but there were no signs that it was about to go bust either. The only thing that seemed marginally suspect was that even before Sherry’s disappearance, Curtis had been making the bulk of the business decisions despite the fact that she was the majority owner. That could be explained simply because Sherry had delegated that responsibility to him. Of course, it could also mean that Curtis had a lot to gain if Sherry died. He would become the sole owner of their company. People had murdered for a lot less.
    Harlan moved on to the next report, for Devin Mathis.
    “Whoa,” Caitlyn said just seconds into the record.
    Definitely a whoa. “According to the San Antonio cops, Devin initially was a suspect in Tiffany’s car accident, ” Harlan said so that Slade would be in on this. “Several of Tiffany’s friends have