Rugged Defender. B.J. Daniels

the bridge railing making it clear that she was done. “I’ll walk you back.”

      “Don’t bother. I know the way.” Nici brushed past her but turned before exiting the bridge. “Seriously, why stick your neck out like this? Why stir this all back up? I can tell you right now Bert Calhoun isn’t going to like it—not to mention Justin. So I’m not sure who you think you’re going to make points with—”

      “Hasn’t there been a time when you did something just because it felt like the right thing to do?” Chloe asked her.

      “Whatever,” Nici said with a shake of her head before turning and leaving.

      Chloe stood for a few moments longer on the bridge, looking down at the frozen river. Fall leaves had gotten stuck in the ice making strange dark patterns. She thought of what Nici had told her. She heard her grandmother’s voice in her ear.

       Best be ready for the consequences when you go poking a porcupine with a stick, missy. Someone’s bound to get hurt and it won’t be the porcupine.

      * * *

      JUSTIN’S CELL PHONE rang as he was headed into town from the Rogers Ranch. He’d spent part of the morning having breakfast and visiting with Dawson’s mother, Wilhelmina. Willie was a tall, wiry ranch woman with a true heart of gold. She’d taken him in and fed him more times than he could remember.

      He’d always had the feeling that she would have loved to have given his father a piece of her mind. But had hesitated because she feared that Bert would take it out on him.

      He saw it was Nici calling and picked up. “Hey,” he said.

      “I thought I should give you a heads-up,” she said. “Chloe Clementine.”

      Justin felt his chest tighten. “What about her?”

      “You know she’s an investigative reporter, right? Well, guess what she’s investigating?” She didn’t give him time to guess, even if he had been about to. “Drew’s death.”

      Justin swore under his breath. “How do you know this?”

      “I just went for a walk with her. She wanted to know who hated Drew enough to want him dead.”

      He could see the outskirts of town ahead. “What did you tell her?”

      “I thought about not giving her anything,” Nici said. “But then I thought, it’s her funeral. So I gave her some names.”

      He swore again. “Who?”

      “Monte Decker, Al Duncan and Pete Ferris.”

      “Why is Chloe doing this?” He hadn’t realized he’d asked the question aloud until Nici answered.

      “She says all she’s after is the truth and that it’s the right thing to do. Some BS like that. But I can tell she’s doing it for you.”

      He swore. That was the last thing he wanted.

      “I thought the sheriff ruled Drew’s death an accident?” Nici said.

      “She did.”

      “So why is Chloe—She said that someone threatened her if she kept looking into Drew’s death.”

      “It wasn’t you, was it?” He had to ask.

      She laughed. “No, maybe if I’d thought of it and known she was looking into Drew’s death. So you didn’t know.”

      “No, but I’ll make a point of asking her what she thinks she’d doing when I see her. Thanks.” He disconnected as he entered Whitehorse and headed for the house where Chloe and her sisters had grown up.

      * * *

      CHLOE WALKED INTO Monte Decker’s office at the bank and closed the door. Monte was a forty-something rangy former Eastern Montana farm boy with a small bald spot in his short dark hair. He wasn’t bad looking in his expensive suit, although as he tugged at the neck of his shirt she got the feeling he wasn’t comfortable with his position. Or maybe she just had that effect on men, because he had a strangled look when he glanced up from the paperwork on his desk and saw her.

      “You probably don’t know me,” she said as she took a seat. Other than papers strewn across his desk, there was a framed photo of Monte holding a huge walleye. From the background, it seemed he’d caught it at Nelson Reservoir. Why it caught her attention was because it was the only framed photo on his desk. No wife and kids. No favorite old dog. Just Monte and a fish.

      “I’m Chloe Clementine.”

      “Clementine? Frannie’s...”

      “Granddaughter. I’m an investigative reporter.”

      Before that, he’d looked as if he’d expected her to ask for a loan. Now though, he leaned back and took her in, clearly speculating on why she was sitting in his office.

      “What was your relationship with Drew Calhoun?”

      The question startled him. He glanced out through the glass partitions that formed his office as if worried about who was watching them.

      Monte began to perspire. He tugged at his collar. “What kind of question is that?”

      “I know you played poker with him, that you caught him cheating and that you lost a lot of money to him.”

      Monte looked around as if he wanted to run. “I don’t know where you got your information but I really don’t have time for this. Drew is dead. Why are you asking questions about him?”

      “Because I believe he was murdered and not by Justin Calhoun.”

      Monte opened his mouth, closed it and opened it again. “I—I thought it was an accident.”

      “You must have been angry when you caught him cheating,” she said.

      Realizing there was no place to run, he took a deep breath and said, “This really isn’t the place to talk about this.”

      Chloe reached back and closed the door of the small glassed-in office. “Help me out here. You had reason to want Drew dead if you lost a lot of money to him and then realized he’d been cheating.”