“The hundred k we found?” Alice spoke softly.
Her voice was so low Clint almost didn’t hear her. And yet, he had an overwhelming urge to cross the room and place a hand on her shoulder. A reminder that he was there if she needed him. That was the more acceptable behavior. What he really wanted was to hold her hand, squeeze it, reassure her, or better yet, wrap his arms around her and protect her from all this nasty business.
The sheriff nodded. “That’s my guess.”
Carson shook his head. “Except based on our math from the sold cattle, the sold equipment, lumber, etc., there has to be a helluva lot more money than that.”
“You think he spent the rest?” Her spine straight again, Alice was frowning.
Marvelous. Now Clint wanted to run his thumb across the pleats in her forehead and make her worries go away. Clearly, he’d lost his mind.
“There has to be more somewhere.” Kade pressed his lips tightly together and Cassie gently rubbed his shoulders.
“Cameras show anything?” the sheriff asked.
Both Kade and Carson shook their heads.
“I guess,” Kade looked to his brother, “that would explain why we found remnants of someone digging.”
“Either Ray was here looking for his loot, or one of the others.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Alice leaned forward. “I mean, maybe the hands, but not Ray. He’d have to know where he hid the money.”
“Unless,” the sheriff turned to face her, “he found it there and simply didn’t have time to put things back the way he found them.”
Alice shook her head. “Everything in me screams that whoever was digging, didn’t find what they were looking for.”
Clint’s gut was telling him the same thing.
Hands on the arms of his chair, the sheriff pushed to his feet. “I do have some good news. With the four of your hands in custody, if we don’t have a case against anyone, the DA will probably release your money in a few weeks.”
“So he believes it’s ours?” Carson asked.
Nodding, the sheriff reached for his hat. “Based on what those two yahoos said, yes, he believes it’s most likely yours, but he still has to go through the process and bureaucracy is a lot of things, expedient ain’t one of them.”
No one moved, and Cassie hopped up from her perch on her husband’s chair. “Let me walk you to the door, sheriff.”
Smiling, the man nodded, and tipped his hat at Alice. “I’ll reach out if we learn anything else from those yahoos.”
“Thanks, sheriff.”
He dipped his head in a silent your welcome and followed Cassie out of the room.
“So,” Kade’s eyes narrowed, “who wants to bet if those two hands are back sniffing around, Ray can’t be far.”
Carson shook his head. “No point in borrowing trouble. For all we know, it was those hands who were digging for gold, so to speak, and not Ray.”
“Well, I can’t do much about it. Josh and I have to be back on base Monday morning.”
“We can handle it.” Carson nodded this time. “You protect the rest of the world. We’ll watch out for the ranch.”
Clint wanted to speak up, to reassure Kade that he was constantly vigilant and as of this minute, he was going to be much more vigilant. Especially where Alice Sweet was concerned. Ray might have gotten the better of the Sweetsbefore, but he was not going to let that happen again anytime soon. Or ever.
“Do you think we need more cameras?” Alice asked. From what Clint could see, the question seemed to come more from a surveillance standpoint than from a position of fear.
Of course that made perfect sense. He’d yet to see Alice Sweet afraid of anything.
“With your permission, first thing in the morning, I’m going to head out to check more of the line shacks. See if there are any more hidden loot that we need to know about.”
