A Lawman's Justice (Sweetwater Ranch Book 8) by Delores Fossen Page B

It’s obvious someone tried to set me up to take the fall for this.”
    “And why would someone do that?” she asked.
    Hance lifted his shoulders. “I have motive because of the bad blood between us. But ask yourself this.” He tipped his head to Seth without taking his attention off her. “If I’d wanted to get back at you, then why would I have involved him in this?”
    Shelby wanted to believe there was a reason, but she couldn’t readily think of one. The masks didn’t help, either, because this didn’t seem connected to Hance but rather her father’s murder. And Hance didn’t have any links to that. He had been just a teenager when Jewell had killed Whitt.
    “I’m not sure what’s going on with you and Agent Calder,” Hance continued, aiming his words at her. “But keep me out of it. I don’t want to be in the middle of whatever games you’re playing to have Agent Calder’s mother convicted.”
    Shelby huffed. “You think I’m responsible for that anonymous call you supposedly got? Well, I’m not.”
    “I don’t care,” Hance snapped. “Just don’t involve me or you’ll find yourself slapped with a restraining order of your own.”
    He’d hardly finished that idiotic threat when Shelby heard the siren. It didn’t take long for the Sweetwater Springs cruiser to pull to a stop in front of her house. Colt stepped out.
    “Marvin Hance?” Colt asked, already taking out handcuffs.
    Hance nodded and extended his hands in surrender. “My lawyers are already on the way to the sheriff’s office,” he said to no one in particular. “While there, they’ll file a complaint against Shelby and then begin a lawsuit against your department to stop this harassment.”
    Colt ignored all of that, cuffed him and led Hance to the rear seat of the cruiser. He locked the door but didn’t get in with Hance. Instead, Colt walked toward Seth and her. At first Shelby thought it was for a tongue-lashing about all the trouble she was causing the McKinnons. But his expression said otherwise.
    “We got an ID on the dead woman wearing the mask of your face,” Colt said. “Her name’s Claudia Ford. Like Boutwell, she had a record for petty stuff. Any chance you knew her?”
    Shelby shook her head. Seth did, too, several moments later. “Does she have a connection to Boutwell?” Seth asked.
    “None that immediately popped up, but we did get something else on Boutwell.” Colt paused and then took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it before showing it to them.
    It was a copy of a bank statement.
    Boutwell wasn’t exactly a rich man. The money seemed to go out as quickly as it came in to the account, and the deposits were well under five hundred dollars.
    Except for one.
    It was for three grand. A small fortune for a man like Boutwell.
    “Notice the date,” Colt instructed.
    Seth took the bank statement, and together Shelby and he had a closer look. It didn’t take long for her to see the date of the deposit.
    And to know what it meant.
    Or possibly could mean.
    “My father’s bone fragments,” she managed to say around the sudden lump in her throat. “That’s the date the fragments were found.” Shelby immediately shook her head. “This doesn’t mean anything.”
    She hoped.
    “There’s more,” Colt said, taking out another piece of paper. “Boutwell got a speeding ticket that same day. Deputy Pete Nichols was the one who pulled him over.”
    “Nichols,” Seth repeated. Colt nodded. “Boutwell was in Sweetwater Springs the morning the bone fragments were discovered. And Pete pulled him over less than a mile from the Braddock cabin where Whitt was supposedly murdered.”
    Shelby felt as if someone had slugged her in the stomach.
    If Boutwell had indeed been paid to put those bones near the cabin, then who had hired him to plant evidence that would ensure Jewell’s conviction for murder? And how had that person gotten the bones in the first place?
    Only one answer came to mind.
    A