“She doesn’t have any money, Duchess, how’s she gonna pay a contract killer?”

“She had twenty-five thousand dollars of Kami’s money, Max,” I reminded him. “And anyway, men do stupid stuff for women who are good with their mouths. We have no idea who she’s been associating with.”

Max, being a man, nodded curtly to the veracity of this statement then he pointed out, “She was in the house when Curt was killed.”

“She made the call after Curt was killed saying she was in the house when he was killed and time had elapsed between the killing and the call, she even admitted that.” Max just stared at me so I went on, “There’s a break in, you hear something, even if you’re with a man and he goes to check on it, wouldn’t you call the police?”

“Not if you don’t want anyone knowin’ you’re there,” Max pointed out.

I nodded for this was true but suggested, “She could have done what she needed to do with this PI guy then gone back to Curt’s knowing what was going to happen there, made the call and said she was there when she wasn’t. Or she could have set the whole thing up to happen when she was in the house, knowing what was happening with the PI. Either way, she was giving herself an alibi.”

“So who killed the PI?” Max asked.

“Someone else she scammed?” I proposed. “Or someone in on it, a partner.”

“So, you’re sayin’ she set Kami up?”

“How close are they?”

“For Kami, close. For Shauna, who knows? She’s never demonstrated she’s felt a genuine emotion since I’ve known her.”

“Then yes, I think it isn’t coincidence that on a girl’s weekend to Denver, Shauna talked Kami into buying a gun and then borrowed an extraordinary amount of money from her. To come current on utilities and credit cards, who needs twenty-five thousand dollars?”

“Shauna, like Kami, lives large.”

“From what Harry intimated at The Rooster, she’s also had help living large, fleecing Harry and maybe even Curtis and, who knows, maybe even that Robert guy she was with at the restaurant.”

Max stared at me again then he muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

“Max –”

Max cut me off. “What d’you think we should do with this shit?”

“I think you need to look out for your sister and let Mick find the trail of breadcrumbs.”

“That trail is leadin’ him to my sister.”

I got closer to him and advised, “You have to trust the truth will out. If not, you have to trust that I’ll do what I can to help your sister.”

“Babe –”

“Watch out for Kami, that’s it. Just look out for her, I’ll do the rest.”

I knew this was asking a lot of an action man to stand by and do nothing, I could tell by the internal struggle I saw him waging behind his eyes.

Finally, he said, “Let’s get my sister a coffee.”

I leaned up and kissed his jaw before I agreed, “All right.”

* * * * *

Coffees consumed, Kami was texting Shauna for the fiftieth time on her phone.

Shauna who, by her own report, was going to have a rough day due to her beloved Curtis being put in the earth and thus needed her friend at her side, had somehow disappeared in Kami’s hour of need if Kami’s unsuccessful attempts to contact her through fifty texts (maybe a slight exaggeration) and five phone calls (not an exaggeration) over the last hour.

I knew she hit send when I heard the beep, she flipped her phone shut and Max started, “Kami –”

“Don’t, Max, just… don’t,” Kami muttered, staring at the wall.

The door opened, Mick walked in, shutting it behind him and we all looked to him.

“Found your gun, Kami, right where you said it would be, never fired, not loaded,” Mick stated.

“Is that surprising?” Linda snapped, her eyes fierce on Mick’s face, her bearing proving true what she said that morning, a mother loves her children, maybe not the same way but the same amount. She was deep in Lioness Mode.

“No, Lins, it isn’t surprising,” Mick said to her and then looked back at Kami. “Though Shauna doesn’t have a deposit of twenty-five thousand in her account.”

We all straightened and Linda and Kami grew pale.

“What?” Kami asked.

Mick pressed his lips together then he went on, “Your bank reports that you made a check to a Robert Winston for twenty-five thousand dollars, your check was cashed the day you wrote it but not deposited in his account, nor was any money deposited in Shauna’s that day or since, except for a monthly deposit we’ve tracked to Dodd’s business account.”

“Holy crap,” Linda muttered.

“Wh… what?” Kami stammered, her hand flat on the table, her face bleached white.

I kept quiet as I processed the news that Curtis was giving Shauna money through his business account. Not good.

“You know Robert Winston?” Mick asked.

“He… he’s a… a friend of Shauna’s,” Kami answered instantly if stiltedly. “He lives in Chantelle, moved there, I don’t know, not long ago. He has a house in one of Curt’s developments. I think he’s been around three months, maybe four. Shauna knew him from Aspen. She didn’t want anyone to know about the money, you know, even the tellers talk, so she asked me to make it out to him, he was going to give it to her.”

“Unless she’s sittin’ on the cash or she blew it as cash, she never got it,” Mick told her, “least, not in a way that leaves a trail.”

Kami shook her head, visibly stunned at this news then she asked, “What about her bills?”

“Ain’t my place to tell you but I’m doin’ it all the same,” Mick said to Kami. “Shauna’s fully current on all her bills, never been in arrears. Far’s we can tell, for at least seven months, Harry’s been payin’ ‘em.”

“Holy crap,” Linda snapped on a near shout.

“He’s also been payin’ her doctor bills,” Mick went on.

She had Curt giving her money and Harry paying her bills. She was being kept by two men. Now she had none, except, perhaps, this Robert character.

I looked at Max and resisted the urge to run to him, tackle him to the ground and sit on him. He looked ready to explode.

“It’s worse,” Mick announced and the room, already tense, became suffocating.