“What’s it say? Is it a threat?”
Clint swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Kind of, although it’s not the sort of thing I would expect from a real criminal.”
He cleared his throat and read:
“To all struggling ranchers: Funny how the Lone Star Cowboy League spends tons of money putting on a fancy event for themselves but doesn’t seem to have enough to help those who are really in need.
“Jerks. Whatever. If they won’t help, we will.”
“That doesn’t bode well for members of the Cowboy League.” Olivia frowned.
“For any of us, really,” Clint agreed, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “I don’t like the sound of it. I’m not a member of the league, but the Everharts are. I’m not convinced my presence on their land is enough to keep the Everharts from becoming a target. They don’t have a large ranch, but it’s relatively prosperous, and other comparable ranches have been hit. The thief might have started with the richest ranches in town, but they’re working their way down. It’s only a matter of time before they run out of league ranches and start robbing everyone else.”
She reached for Clint’s hand. He scowled at the Sweetheart Wall.
“We’ve got to find this guy,” he growled. “And sooner rather than later.”
“Guys,” Olivia corrected, noting the worry lines creasing his face. He was clearly genuinely concerned about his foster parents. In Olivia’s opinion, how a man treated his folks said a lot about him. That Libby and James were Clint’s foster parents and not his biological ones made it even more touching.
“What?” He arched his blond eyebrows.
“The note says we’ll help. Plural. Do you see what I’m saying? Clint, there’s more than one thief out there.” Her logical deduction did not make her feel any better. More thieves meant more opportunities for crimes to be committed. “Did the handwriting look familiar to you?”
The corner of Clint’s jaw ticked. “Afraid not. It’s typewritten.”
Carson Thorn, the president of the Cowboy League, pressed his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly over the uproar of the crowd. Folks immediately stopped talking and turned their attention to him.
“Can I get the remainder of the members of the league board and the investigation team over here? The rest of you can go back to the party and enjoy yourselves.” He gestured for the band to strike up another tune. “No sense having this low-down criminal ruin the day for everyone. Don’t worry, folks. The board and the sheriff’s department are on it.”
“And the posse,” added thirty-something Amanda Jones with a frown.
Olivia chuckled under her breath at the name the group had given themselves. Right out of an old Western movie, where the sheriff “deputized” the good guys and they rode in to save the day.
In a sense, she supposed, the Lone Star Cowboy League was the good guys, providing much-needed support and services to struggling ranches around the area. They’d even developed special programs for the youth.
Her great-grandmother Lula May had been the only female founding member of the Little Horn chapter of the Lone Star Cowboy League, but Olivia hadn’t been asked to join the investigatory group, possibly because her ranch was inconsequential compared to the ones that had been robbed, not to mention that she was a widow busy raising three young boys. She was struggling just to keep her twenty acres above water and even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, she didn’t have time to put into chasing local thieves.
Clint had just said he wasn’t a member of the league, so he personally had no more at stake in catching the thieves than she did, but when their gazes locked and he arched a golden eyebrow, she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. They both wanted to know what was going on—firsthand.
The intentions of the thieves’ movements were shifting, and it was anybody’s guess where they were going next.
Clint reached for Olivia’s hand and drew her to her feet, tucking her arm into the crook of his elbow. He glanced down, concern evident in his eyes. Maybe he still thought she was ready to swoon like an actress in an old-time film, but she was made of sterner stuff than that.
She smiled up at him. He nodded briefly and stepped into the rapidly forming group as if he belonged there. As if they belonged there.
“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” Byron McKay growled. “Lucy, when are you going to do your job and bring this thief to justice? I want him behind bars and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Byron, middle-aged and portly, was the vice president of the league and by far the richest land owner in the county. He was also the one who complained the loudest. Olivia supposed she couldn’t completely blame him. He was the only rancher in the area to have been hit twice. Even so, his annoying blustering wasn’t helping matters. Folks needed to remain calm and levelheaded if they were going to get anywhere with this.
“Thieves.” Clint spoke up, his voice strong and steady. “Olivia was the one who first noticed this. Look here,” he said, pointing to the typewritten missive. “These guys wrote ‘we will,’ not ‘I will.’ It appears we’re looking for more than one criminal here.”
She tightened her grip on Clint’s forearm and he laid his hand over hers. As if one thief wasn’t bad enough.
“There’s something else in the wording of the letter that strikes me,” Lucy said thoughtfully, curling her short blond hair behind her ears and peering at the thieves’ card through her fringe of bangs. “The way it’s written sounds...juvenile. Like teenagers. It’s possible our profile is off and we need to adjust the age range of our thieves.”
“I don’t care how young they are,” Byron bellowed, snorting like an angry bull. “Juvenile delinquents or hardened criminals. What difference does it make? It’s your job to catch them and put them away for good.”
Carson held up a hand. “We all want them caught, Byron. As you well know, we’ve got every rancher in town on high alert. Most of us have installed security cameras, and our wranglers are on the lookout for anything suspicious. Everyone is doing the best they can to find the culprits, both officially and off the books.”
“Well, it’s not enough.”
That didn’t seem fair. Olivia frowned. Sheriff Benson was working overtime on the case. She looked so drawn out and tired that Olivia felt sorry for her.
What more could Byron ask than her best effort? But then again, that was the way the McKays operated. Just because they had money they thought they were entitled to everything being handed to them on a platter.
Including, apparently, the Robin Hood—Hoods.
Only this time, it wasn’t quite so simple.
Her gaze shifted to Byron’s teenage fraternal twin sons, Gareth and Winston, expecting them to have the same snooty expressions on their faces as their father did. To her surprise, they looked embarrassed, maybe even a little angry that their dad was spouting off his mouth.
She didn’t blame them. She’d be embarrassed, too, if Byron was her father. The man didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. Hopefully, Byron’s boys would grow up wiser and kinder than their father, taking a better path and becoming cooperative members of the Little Horn community.
To her credit, despite the personal attack on her capabilities as sheriff, Lucy ignored Byron’s raging and focused on the typewritten missive. “It’s too bad the note isn’t handwritten,” she remarked, intensely studying the veiled threat. “Someone might have recognized the print. As it is, I think we’ve made good strides today in further developing our working profile of the thief—er, thieves.”
Carson