“Marj would like you to come back and stay at the house,” he said.

I blew out a breath of air. “As much as I love it at your house, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Marj is going to help me find an apartment. In fact, she was supposed to look today, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”

“She was pretty busy today helping Joe. His secretary called in sick, so he asked her to fill in. He had a bunch of filing that had to be done with the Secretary of State.”

That explained why she hadn’t called yet. “No problem. I’ll scan the paper tomorrow morning and maybe look at some places over my lunch hour.”

“I wish you’d come back to the house.”

I shook my head. “Believe me, I thought about it. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Sometimes I couldn’t believe the things that came out of his mouth. “Because you kicked me out in no uncertain terms three short days ago.”

He stood, gathering his boxers and jeans and putting them on quickly. His gorgeous torso was still bare, still glistening with perspiration from our encounter. He was so beautiful. When I looked at him, when I saw through his invisible walls, I wanted nothing more than to hold him, to take all this pain away. Before I could do that, though, I needed to know what the pain was and why he was so closed off from everyone. I didn’t know how to find that out. Marj didn’t know, and if Jonah and Ryan did, they certainly weren’t talking.

“I shouldn’t have kicked you out like that,” he said.

“But you did, Talon, and you had a reason at the time. Tell me something. Does that reason still exist?”

He didn’t speak, only bit his lower lip slightly and let it go.

“I deserve an answer.”

He raked his fingers through his thick head of dark hair. “You know, I saw a gray hair in the mirror this morning.”

What did that have to do with anything? He was thirty-five. Of course he had a gray hair or two. Jonah had more than a few at his temples. It looked good.

“Please don’t change the subject. This is too important to me.”

“Maybe my gray hair is important to me.”

I shook my head, stood, grabbed my shorts and tank, and threw them on without my bra and underpants. “Leave, please.”

He widened his eyes. Did he truly have no idea why I was asking him to leave?

“You hurt me,” I said.

He swallowed visibly, put on his shirt, and left my hotel room.

The next morning, I sat at my desk, scanning the local paper for possible apartments. The only one within walking distance to work was a room over the local beauty shop, and I didn’t relish smelling perm fumes all day. There were a couple of cute one-bedrooms on the outskirts of town, but until I had a car, that wouldn’t be feasible. So the beauty shop it was. I called Sarah, the shop owner, and arranged to take a look at the apartment over my lunch hour. Then I went back to work, opening the last folder of the stack Larry had given me yesterday.

The first few documents were still more bank accounts. Sheesh, these people had a lot of cash. Still, from what I could tell, all the deposits and withdrawals seemed legitimate—until something stood out at me almost as if it had been written in glaring red.

Twenty-five years ago, a withdrawal of five million dollars had been made from one of the operating accounts. I couldn’t tell from the bank account to whom the payment had been made. I would need to go through a bunch of documentation to find out where it had gone and why. Such a large amount of money had to go somewhere.

I hastily went through the rest of the documents in the last folder, but nothing stood out as important.

A few minutes later, Larry walked into my office. “Any luck?”

“As you probably know, all these folders that you gave me yesterday are mostly bank accounts. Honestly, I didn’t see anything that looked untoward until this morning.”

He came closer and sat down in one of the chairs opposite my desk. “What’s that?”

I pushed the requisite paper in front of him. “See that withdrawal of five million? It’s an incredible sum of money, much more than any of these other withdrawals. It just seemed to stand out to me. I wonder what it was for.”

“That is worthy of note.” He shoved a piece of paper with more private log-ins and passwords written on it. “I’m giving you full access to all databases in the state of Colorado. See what you can find.” He smiled and exited my office, leaving the door open.

I didn’t know where to start. I doubted I had access to any bank files, so how would I find out? I couldn’t ask any of the Steels. Heck, Marj had barely been born and the guys had been kids when this happened. They wouldn’t be any help at all. Their father was dead, and as far as I knew, they never had anyone else working around the ranch who would have had access to their accounts. But maybe… Steel Acres was a multi-million-dollar enterprise. Surely they didn’t handle all the money themselves. But how would I find out who had been handling it twenty-five years ago? Asking the Steels wasn’t an option. I couldn’t exactly tell them that my boss, the city attorney, had asked me to investigate them, nor could I tell them I had my own reasons for doing the detective work.

What happened twenty-five years ago? That’s what I needed to know.

I looked through the old newspaper archives and so far had come up with dead ends, when the alarm on my phone beeped. Time to go meet Sarah at the beauty shop and look at the apartment. I grabbed my purse, told Michelle I was leaving for lunch, and headed out.

The shop was two blocks over on Headley Avenue. I walked in.

The manicurist looked up from her station. “Hey there, can I help you?”

“Yeah, hi. I’m here to see Sarah about the apartment upstairs.”

“Awesome sauce.” The manicurist flashed a scarlet-lipped grin. “She’s in the back. I’ll go get her.”

She left her client. Within a few minutes, she was back with a middle-aged woman, slightly plump but pretty, her blond—clearly colored—hair pulled back in a ponytail.

The older woman held out her hand. “I’m Sarah Carter. You must be Jade.”

“Yes, I am. Great to meet you.”

“I only have a few minutes. I have a client processing. But the place is small.” She laughed. “It won’t take too long for me to show it to you. Come on back.”