“Can you spare three or four hours?” Sandy asked, sounding hopeful.

“It depends. Where are we going?”

“Can you ride a horse?”

Mercy snorted. “I was born on a ranch. Hell yes I can ride.”

But Mercy hadn’t ridden a horse since she’d left Eagle’s Nest at the age of eighteen.

As she followed Sandy’s Explorer to Bree’s ranch, she wondered if it would be as easy as riding a bike again. The body never forgets how to move with the motions of the horse. Right? She crossed her fingers it was so.

Mercy didn’t know when she’d learned to ride; it’d always been a part of her life. All her siblings had ridden. As kids they’d hold competitions to see who could ride backward and bareback the longest, who could best guide a horse through a complicated course without a bridle, and who could run and vault up over the horse’s hind end to land in a sitting position on its back.

That only worked on one of the small, older geldings. He didn’t care what the kids did. They could hang upside down under his belly and it didn’t faze him.

Any other horse would have freaked.

Memories flooded her. Her siblings, the ranch animals, the diverse nature around her home where she and her siblings found their daily entertainment. No handheld screens to constantly stare at.

I had a good childhood.

She’d thought it was horrible and suffocating—and parts of it had been, but she’d had a breadth of experience that the kids of her coworkers in Portland would never have.

I can see that now.

She parked beside Sandy at Bree’s barn, the home in her rearview mirror. It looked like a happy place to live. Well maintained, with a few feminine touches of country decor.

It felt like a facade.

Mercy had been inside the house and seen the bloody kitchen. She was aware of the crime scene investigation’s findings, which hadn’t amounted to much. They desperately needed more evidence from Bree’s attack. The battered red truck had been their best lead.

I’ll look at every red truck in the state if I have to.

Sandy waited for her at the barn door. “Feels too quiet, doesn’t it?” she said with a glance at the home.

“It does. Are you sure this is the only way to get where we’re going?”

“I’m positive. Unless you can scale tall, perfectly vertical cliffs. There are no roads to where we’re going, just horse paths.”

A chain and combination lock held Bree’s two barn doors together. Sandy spun the combination. “Bree added it after her stalls were marked up.”

Mercy didn’t say anything. A good pair of bolt cutters would make fast work of the chain.

Throwing her weight against one of the doors, Sandy slid it to the side.

Mercy inhaled. Hay. Horse. Manure. Her mouth stretched into a wide smile.

“What?” asked Sandy.

“The scents of my childhood.”

“Are they good memories?”

“Yeah, they are. At one time I would have said no, but looking back now, I know they are.”

The barn lit up inside as Sandy hit a light switch. When Sandy opened the main door, shadowed heads had appeared over the stall doors, but now Mercy saw the alert ears and dark eyes fixed on her.

God, I’ve missed this.

Sandy immediately opened one of the stalls and led out a bay mare. She crosstied her in the center aisle. The horse rotated its ears toward Mercy, and its nostrils widened as it inhaled, searching for her scent. “This is my Abby,” Sandy said with a fond rub on the mare’s head. “I think Justin would be a good mount for you.” She pointed at a chestnut with a wide white stripe down his face. “He’s unflappable and solid. I know you said you can ride, but I assume it’s been a while?” Sandy raised a brow at her.

“It has,” Mercy admitted. “Show me his tack, and I’ll get him started.”

It was like riding a bike.

Her muscles remembered the movements to lift the heavy western saddle and settle it on the gelding’s back. How to tighten the cinch and knot it. How to slip the bit between the teeth and manipulate the soft ears to slide the headpiece behind them.

She’d traded her shoes and slacks for the hiking boots and heavy-duty black pants from her SUV’s clothing stash. After adding a light jacket she was ready to go. Sandy surprised her by tying a shovel to each of their saddles. “We’ll be digging?” Mercy asked. The long shovel handle was parallel to Mercy’s back. She had an urge to fasten a flag to the top as if she were in a parade.

“Maybe.”

I will expect a clear answer before I go much farther.

The pensive look in Sandy’s eyes, and the constant stress in her jaw, kept Mercy from pressing the issue as they saddled the horses.

Minutes later, she was on horseback and following Sandy across a field. Her thighs immediately complained about the unusual position, and Mercy knew she’d be sore tomorrow. Sandy was right about Justin. He didn’t care a whit about the shovel or when Mercy adjusted the length of her stirrups three times. He simply plodded forward.

She gave him a squeeze with her calves and clucked her tongue, moving him even with Sandy and Abby. “Start talking,” she ordered the other woman.

Sandy took a large breath. “Seven years ago, my business was about to go under. Hospitality is not an easy game. I had no funds for a website for guests to find me, my roof needed to be replaced, and two of my refrigerators were close to death. The stress had me nearly pulling out my hair.

“Bree knew I was sinking. She saw the anxiety was affecting my health. I couldn’t sleep, I could barely get out of bed, and I suddenly had no joy in my work.” She shrugged. “Who would? No one likes to see their dreams circling the drain.”

“I’m sorry, Sandy.”

The redhead gave her a weak smile. “It’s water under the bridge now.”

“What happened?” Mercy had a feeling she knew what Sandy was about to say.

“Bree gave me a stack of cash.”

Bingo.

“I refused to take it, convinced she was giving away her life savings. She was a widowed mother with a growing son. She had to need the money.”

“But she didn’t.”

“No. She told me Hollis’s death had left her money from a huge life insurance policy, and her investments had nearly doubled the amount in the eight years he’d been gone. I still didn’t want to take it, but I felt like my life was about to implode. I finally swore I’d pay her back, and she agreed. When you and Truman interviewed me after Lionel’s attack, it struck me as odd when you said her bank records looked normal for a single working person. You didn’t mention a huge investment account.”

“I didn’t find one.”

“And you said that Bree might know one of the thieves from the Gamble-Helmet Heist.” Sandy turned clear eyes on Mercy. “That stuck in my head. Bree doesn’t seem the type to hide cash in her mattress, but a thick wad of cash was exactly what she gave me.”

“You think she has money from the robbery.”

“Maybe . . . and maybe someone else who knows about the money wants it. Enough to cut her fingers off to get her to talk.” Her voice went ragged as she spoke.

“Are we going to dig up that money?”

“There’s a place I want to look.” Sandy took a deep breath. “I could be totally off base, but Bree and I have ridden to one particular ridge at least a dozen times. She calls it her happy spot, but it’s called Horse’s Head Rock. As you can guess, it’s a huge rock that looks like a horse’s head. A few weeks ago we were up there, and she dug a gorgeous crystal out of the dirt.”

“The dirt? Like, found it randomly?”

“No. She knew exactly where it was. It was in a little tin box not far from the horse.”

“That’s really weird. Why hide a crystal?”

“That’s what I asked her, and she laughed and said she hid it next to the horse for good luck—like an offering of some sort, I guess, but she tucked it in her pocket. I don’t think it was worth any money, but I could tell it was special to her. She said she’d originally found it on one of her rides.”

“And you think she might have buried something else—like money,” stated Mercy. “I can see that. It’s worth taking a look, but it’s a long shot.”

“I know. That’s why we could be wasting our time. But repeating ‘buried’ and ‘bury me’ has to mean something.”

“Bree also said ‘killed him’ when she woke,” Mercy pointed out.

“I don’t know what to think about that.” Sandy met Mercy’s gaze. “Do you think she killed someone because of this money?”

Mercy thought of Ellis Mull’s skull with its bullet holes. “Hard to say. We don’t know for certain that the money exists.”

Sandy blanched. “Maybe she killed and buried someone up there?”

“I hope not,” Mercy said firmly.

What are we going to find?

They rode in silence for a few minutes, following a faint trail through rocks and sage that steadily led upward toward a pine forest. Sandy’s mount pulled ahead as the trail narrowed.

“How far is it?”

“At least another hour or so.”

Mercy pulled out her phone, grateful to see she had service. “I need to make some calls.”

“Do it now,” Sandy said over her shoulder. “There’s no reception near the ridge.”

Dialing Truman while sitting on a horse in the middle of nowhere made her smile. A collision of two eras.

His voice mail answered.

“Hey, Truman. I’m calling you from horseback.” She grinned. “I’m with Sandy. We’re riding from Bree’s ranch, and we’re headed to a place called Horse’s Head Rock. Sandy has a theory about Bree that we’re going to check out.”

I can’t explain Sandy’s idea in a voice mail.