“Good, I want to show you something first, then if you agree, I’d like to interview you.”
“Am I in any trouble?”
“No, I have some questions. I’m sure Agent Manchester told you something, I know him, and he never ever leaves a stone unturned.” She turned to him with a grin. “Am I right?”
“You are.” Duane grinned.
“What do you want to ask me?”
“First, I need to tell you that Duane called me and gave me the suggestion of serving a warrant on you. It was all fake, and I was able to get all of your things from the list he gave me. In your vehicle, is your purse, your cash, clothes, important papers, everything you mentioned from the rooms you showed Duane. We put everything back so nothing looked out of place.”
“Thank you, did you run into any problems?”
Instead of answering her she looked around, and sighed. “I take it if I want to question you, all thosemen outside have to be present?”
“Yes,” Duane said, and nodded as a truck pulled in, parked, and four men emerged.
“Who are they?”
“The guy leading is Jake Cogburn, he’s the head of Brotherhood Protectors out of Fool’s Gold.” He smirked at Yvonne. “They are all former military, and they work for Hank Patterson.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, and those guys that you had to show your ID to when you arrived?”
“Yes, what about them?”
“Former SEALs.”
“Shit,” she said again as she shook her head. It wasn’t long before others started arriving, and Duane directed them over to what Myrna knew as the meeting room. By the time they settled there were almost fifty people present.
Yvonne looked at Duane. “Do you always act like this?”
“Yep,” a woman said. She walked over and held out her left hand, and that’s when Yvonne noticed her right one was missing. They shook, and she only raised a brow at her.
“Erin Riceman, owner of Erin’s Way.”
“And everything else,” Clark said, and shook his head at Erin. “It’s true.”
“Be that as it may, this is about keeping Myrnasafe, as a family, that’s why we’re here. What can you tell us about her case?”
Yvonne liked the no-nonsense way Erin talked, and she saw respect on everyone’s face. As she did, she wondered if her team looked at her that way, but she shook her head because this wasn’t about her, it was about Myrna Trenton and her current case. Myrna.
“Before we discuss anything else,” Myrna began, “Where’s my purse?”
One of the men standing in the back of the room went outside and he was back with the item she requested. Myrna sighed in relief as she started digging through it right there. She nodded as she pulled two items from deep in its depths.
“I’m not trying to stall you, but before we get into what you did and or found out, I have a couple of questions for you. It might help with your investigation, or it might not.”
“What are your trying to say?” Pedro asked when everyone looked at her in confusion.
Myrna turned to him, and spoke to only him as she held out the two items she had dug from her purse.
“Remember when you came home from work, and I explained about my bed?”
“Yes, what about it?”
She handed him a prescription bottle. “This is what the doctor prescribes to me for the pain.” Shethen turned to look at the others. “I have arthritis in my hips. I take these powerful pain pills when I need them, otherwise, I take over-the-counter arthritis pain meds. Anyway, the day Pedro found me, I had been riding Sally, bareback, for three days. She came up lame, and we walked for another two days. I think, it’s all a blur right now. Anyway, I had just decided that I was going to remove Sally’s halter, slap her on the ass, to let her go, and I was going to lie down and not get up again.” She saw the shock on everyone’s faces and held up her hand.
