Warrior Son. Rita Herron
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Название: Warrior Son
Автор: Rita Herron
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
isbn: 9781474039635
isbn:
By the time he reached The Silver Bullet, he was sweating just thinking about seeing Megan again. He spotted her in a booth to the side when he entered. Country music blared from the speakers, smoke clogged the room and footsteps pounded from the line dance on the dance floor.
Megan looked up at him, one hand clenching a wineglass, her eyes worried. He ordered a beer and joined her. She’d secured her hair in that bun again, she wore no makeup and her clothes were nondescript. Once again it struck him that she downplayed her looks. He wondered why.
She could wear a damn feed sack and she’d still be the prettiest girl he’d ever met. And he knew what she looked like with that hair down, her body naked, her lips trailing kisses down his chest.
“Megan,” he said as he slipped into the booth across from her.
“Thank you for coming.” She licked her lips, drawing his eyes to her mouth. He took a sip of beer to stall and wrangle his libido.
“You said it was important.” Please spit it out so I can go home and forget about you.
Not that he ever had. But he was trying.
“Roan, I may be jumping the gun, but I had to talk to someone about this.”
The worry in her voice sounded serious. He straightened. “What is it?”
She looked down in her glass. “When I performed Joe McCullen’s autopsy the first time, I...thought I saw something suspicious in his tox report.”
Roan’s heart jumped.
“With all that’s happened at Horseshoe Creek recently,” Megan continued, “and with that Lowman woman and her son, and those fires...it made me think of that report.”
“I don’t understand,” Roan said. “What was it that bothered you?”
She inhaled a deep breath, then glanced around the room warily, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear their conversation. His instincts roared to life. She’d said she didn’t feel comfortable talking on the phone.
“Megan, tell me,” he said.
“I don’t think Joe McCullen died of natural causes.” She leaned closer, her voice low. “I think he was murdered.”
Megan’s words reverberated in Roan’s ears. Joe McCullen was murdered.
“How?”
“Poison. Cyanide.”
“Are you sure?”
Megan winced. “Not exactly, but—”
“But what?” He leaned across the table, speaking in a hushed tone. “Why did you come to me if you don’t know?”
She fiddled with a strand of hair, tucking it back in that bun. He wanted to unknot it and run his fingers through it.
But he had to focus.
“I know what I saw in that initial report. But Dr. Cumberland made me question my results and ran it again. That’s when it came back normal.”
“So you have one bad test and one normal one?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
She fidgeted with her little round glasses, pushing them up on her nose. “I talked to the lab tech and he’s meticulous with details. He didn’t think he mixed up the reports like Dr. Cumberland said.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Roan said.
“I know.” Megan took a sip of her wine. “But I’ve seen this guy’s work. He’s OCD. He checks things at least three times.”
Roan didn’t know how to respond.
If Megan was right, that meant Joe had been murdered.
But they couldn’t make accusations without something more concrete. That would only cause more trouble for the McCullens.
If she was right, though, then someone had gotten away with killing Joe—his father. And he couldn’t let that happen.
“Anyway, I talked to the lab tech,” Megan said. “I preserved a sample and he’s going to retest it.”
Roan gave a clipped nod. “When will you have the results?”
“Probably tomorrow. I asked him to keep it quiet.”
“Good.” His gaze met hers. “Don’t tell anyone else about this, Megan. You don’t want to create panic if there’s nothing to it.”
A wary look flashed in those dark brown eyes. “Of course I won’t say anything. But if it’s true, someone needs to find out who poisoned Joe McCullen.”
“And how they did it,” Roan muttered. “It would have been difficult with Dr. Cumberland monitoring his health.” And there was no way he could accuse the good doctor of foul play. Roan knew Cumberland personally. He was the most compassionate man Roan had ever met. He’d donated time to the res when they needed a Western doctor.
He’d even treated Roan’s mother. For God’s sake, he’d held her hand and comforted her before she passed.
But Joe could have had visitors. Someone could have slipped something to him when nobody was watching.
“What if Barbara or her son, Bobby, did it?” Megan said. “You know Barbara got tired of waiting on Joe to marry her. Maybe she decided to kill him and get what was owed her.”
Roan frowned. “True. But if he was sick anyway, why kill him? Why not wait until the disease got the best of him?”
* * *
MEGAN CONSIDERED ROAN’S STATEMENT. Why would someone go to the trouble to kill a man who was already dying?
“Megan?”
His gruff voice always turned her inside out. When she looked up at him, he was watching her with an intensity that sent a tingle through her.
“I don’t know.” Barbara and Bobby resented the fact that Joe kept them a secret. Part of her understood their animosity. “Maybe Barbara knew that Joe had included her in the will. But what if he’d decided to change it recently? Maybe he was going to cut them out for some reason.”
“And one or both of them decided to kill him before he could,” Roan finished.
She nodded. “That would make sense.”
Roan’s wide jaw snapped tight. “If that’s the case, I need proof. I doubt either one of the Lowmans are going to СКАЧАТЬ