“Okay, then you love me more today, but tomorrow I will love you more. Mama, guess what Kate brought me?” She fished the candy from the bag and went down the hall in her famous run-everywhere mode.

Kate went to her bedroom and changed into dry clothing, then sat down in the rocking chair and hit the speed dial for her mother.

“I told you this was going to turn into a nightmare before it was over. That’s the reason I wanted you to be out of town for a while,” Teresa said without so much as a hello or hey.

“And here I thought you wanted me to be rested in December when I took over your office,” Kate said.

“Don’t you get sassy with me! Have you seen the Dallas newspaper?”

“No, I have not. Here in the hinterlands we use smoke signals—they tell me we might get the Pony Express to deliver newspapers to us pretty soon,” Kate answered.

“This is not a laughing matter.” Teresa’s voice hit a brand-new high.

“Okay, Mother, what does it say?” Kate sighed.

“Third page. Upper half. A columnist is talking about the murder and he’s gotten all kinds of information from somewhere, like all of Conrad’s aliases, his real name, and that he was a polygamist, and he lists his three wives at the time of his death. And your name and the fact that you are an oil heiress is right there in black and white.”

“Did it say anything about Gracie?” Kate gasped.

“Who the hell is Gracie? Another wife?”

“No, she’s Jamie’s . . . Conrad’s . . . daughter. I’ve told you about her,” Kate whispered.

“Nothing about a Gracie, but there is something about an Iris, and he says that you three should be behind bars. Do you have any idea what that is doing to your reputation?”

“Maybe we should sell the whole company before that happens,” Kate said.

Total silence. For a minute she thought maybe she’d caused her mother to go into acute cardiac arrest at even suggesting such a thing. She held the phone out from her ear to be sure she hadn’t lost the connection and then yelled, “Mother!” into it.

“Have you lost your mind?” Teresa finally said.

“Maybe I have, but if there’s a dark cloud hanging over me, then it wouldn’t take long for the company to go down the tank. People don’t trust multi-million-dollar business deals to women who may or may not have murdered their husbands.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Haven’t had a drink yet, but I’m planning on having half a bottle of wine before I go to bed, so I might be willing to give the company away about midnight,” Kate answered. “You know that several bigger companies have been sniffing around us for years. Talk to them and get a backup plan before this gets any bigger.”

“God almighty,” Teresa fumed. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest such a thing.”

“If anyone had told me six weeks ago that I would think about selling out, I would have thought they’d lost their marbles, but . . .” Kate let the sentence hang.

“But that was before you got labeled a murderess in the Dallas newspaper,” Teresa said.

“That’s right. Think about what I said. We’ll talk later. Right now I need to have an important conversation with Jamie.”

“More important than your future? Maybe what I should do is stay in my office, weather the storm, and send you to a country where they won’t extradite you back here to stand trial,” Teresa said.

“Buy four tickets if you do. Good night, Mother,” Kate said, hit the “End” button, and headed for the kitchen.

“Hey, Gracie said there was wine, and it’s even cold.” Jamie already had the glasses on the table.

Amanda came from the hallway into the kitchen. “And I hear you bought Diet Coke for me. Thank you.”

“You are both welcome.”

“And you are spoiling Gracie, but we both love it,” Jamie said.

“I’m enjoying every minute of it. To Gracie.” Kate poured the wine and then held up her glass to clink it with Jamie’s.

“Wait. I want to toast, too, if it’s to Gracie. She and I have so much fun when Jamie lets me keep her.” Amanda hurriedly filled a glass with ice and Diet Coke. She touched it with the other two, and they all sipped at the same time.

“We made the Dallas newspaper,” Kate said and went on to tell them what her mother had said.

“Well, shit!” Jamie said. “I wonder what that will do for my teaching job there.”

“Probably put you on the fired list there and might get you an award here.” Kate giggled.

“It’s not funny,” Jamie fumed.

“Did they mention names?” Amanda went pale.

“Oh, yes, and probably even where we are all from. I didn’t ask, but we could pull up today’s paper on the Internet and read the column,” Kate answered.

“I looked into that banking job. They couldn’t hire a suspected murderess,” Amanda said.

“There’s a job at the school that you could do,” Jamie said. “They haven’t hired a secretary yet. And if they aren’t going to throw my application in the trash, then they’d probably consider you for that job. Thank God, Victor is on the school board.”

“Wow!” Amanda slumped down into a chair. “That would be an amazing job. I’d be off when my child was out of school and during the summer. Thank you, Jamie.”

“You are welcome.” Jamie poured more wine into the glasses. “Was your mother angry, Kate? I remember her from the funeral, and she looked pretty fierce to me.”

“Oh, yeah, she furious, but not at the paper or the columnist.”

“At you? We’re innocent. Why can’t people believe that?” Amanda wailed.

“It’s not the guilt or lack of it that is the problem. It’s the taint it leaves behind. Who is going to trust me if they even think I might have had a hand in this? Trust is what our business is built on. It’s our image. We do multimillion-dollar deals.”

And right now I wish that I was a plain old dirt farmer.

“Crazy, ain’t it, but the only place we might be welcome is right here in Bootleg,” Jamie said. “This settles it. I’m putting in my application for the job tomorrow. Want me to get the paperwork for you to apply for the office job, Amanda?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“Reckon I could be a janitor? I’ve learned how to run a tractor. I bet I could master a floor buffer in no time,” Kate teased. “On another note, listen to Gracie giggling back there as she talks to her dolls. That is the sweetest sound in the world.”

Jamie smiled. “This is going to sound hinky, but like Amanda said earlier, I think Iris likes us being here. It’s like her spirit needed to find rest. You found the letters, Kate. Gracie is bringing a little girl’s laughter back into the cabin.”

“I believe that spirits linger until things are settled,” Amanda said. “It’s taken a long time, but maybe us being here is bringing Iris and Darcy closure, and if it sounds crazy then so be it. I read those letters today and they are so sad that they made me cry.”

“I’ve got a couple more things to tell you while Gracie is out of earshot.” Kate told them they were still on the suspect list and then asked what they thought about the ranch day for the kids. “If they don’t win the fishing contest, it wouldn’t be such a big blow to their little egos.”

“Yes,” Amanda and Jamie said at the same time.

“Then that’s settled,” Kate said. “I’ll tell Waylon that it’s a date.”

“There’s nothing we can do but pray that the real killers do something stupid and get caught,” Amanda said. “I know I didn’t kill him. I also know that neither of you did. The cops just have to figure out the rest, and we’ll sit right here in Bootleg until they do. We’re protected here. I can feel it.”

Jamie stretched up her hand, and Amanda gave her a high five.

“I’m going up to Wichita Falls tomorrow, so I’ll be gone all day. Aunt Ellie and I are having supper together after she gets off work. I’ll try to be home by dark so I’ll be back in my safe place.” Amanda giggled.