Sheppard was the last to arrive at Judge Harrison’s office, but he came bearing sweets from Marla’s Cafe, Willow Gap’s only restaurant.

“On the house,” he announced, setting them on Harrison’s desk. “Marla heard I was heading on over to see you, Steve, and insisted I bring some over.”

Sheppard descended into a throaty chuckle then lobbed a wink at the judge. “Sweets for the Sweet, I think.”

Harrison grumbled and pushed the box away. “She’s trying to get enough extra pounds on me so I’m too slow to run away. I’m lucky she never learned how to rope.”

Seeing how Cross eyed the box of sweetbreads and cupcakes, Harrison pushed it closer to him.

“Do help yourself, everyone. No reason this can’t be a pleasant visit.”

Cross dove into the box, grabbed a thick slice of zucchini bread a placed it on a blank sheet of paper. Barrett and Quinn declined with a wave and a polite smile.

Leaning back in his chair, Harrison glanced at his pocket watch then nodded at Barrett. “Seeing as your mouth is empty and you set up this little meeting, you might as well start talking…”

He paused then dipped his head toward Quinn. “Unless Miss Whitaker planned on addressing the issues.”

Except for Barrett, she smiled at each man in turn, starting with the judge, then Sheppard and, less warmly, Cross.

“Barrett has a far better grasp of the issues we wanted to discuss today,” she demurred, her voice pure sunshine without sounding saccharine.

She had dressed the part, too. Siobhan had brought both pants and blouses plus a navy skirt with a pretty floral print. Quinn had chosen the skirt and a fluttery white blouse. She had also used a very light hand with the makeup Siobhan had added to the haul.

Judge Harrison nodded with approval, his gaze flicking to Barrett.

“Shep,” Barrett started. “I’ve looked over how Jester tied up the land if the State gets it. Seems to me, all the State will benefit is an annual payment from the cellular company for the tower’s placement. Unlike the provisions covering Miss Whitaker’s possession of the land, the State can’t transfer the land, can only cull timber for fire management, can’t lease it for anything.”

Sheppard swallowed a bite of frosted lemon cake before agreeing.

“On top of that,” Barrett continued. “The State will have to do fire management, which will cost you as much or more than that cell tower brings in.”

Seeing the bullet point on Barrett’s notes earlier, Quinn had worried about her own fire-related duties. He had explained the same rules didn’t apply to private owners. She would check into the issue just the same, but that was a panic attack for some future day. First, she needed to gain title to the property.

“True,” Sheppard agreed, folding the cupcake paper. “Jester’s gift to the State was anything but. Although the hundred years prohibition won’t hold up.”

Harrison scratched a note on a nearby pad of paper. “Still, land is easily tied up for at least a couple of decades.”

“Certainly not decades,” Cross tried to intervene.

Harrison and Barrett shot the attorney a hard look. The man returned to dissecting his zucchini bread.

Barrett directed the second prong of his argument at Judge Harrison.

“Now, I don’t know much beyond how to be a halfway decent cowboy and how to jump out of planes and fight fires, but I don’t figure the law is so inflexible that it would actually work against what Jasper wanted.”

Nodding, Harrison took another glance at his pocket watch.

“It’s clear,” Barrett continued, “that Jester wanted Quinn on the land long enough she might decide to stay in the county, maybe live on the land itself, and become a part of our community. The only person he intended to benefit was Quinn. Not the State and not any other relatives. He specifically wrote them out of his will.”

“He did,” Cross agreed. “All others in general, and two of them specifically by name. Those were the only two living relatives he knew of.”

“My mother and half-sister,” Quinn noted before resuming her passive role in the discussion, her hands calmly folded in her lap, her entire exterior a charade to hide the tension gripping her insides.

“And now one of those relatives cut out of the will has tried to thwart Jester’s wishes,” Barrett said, his tone growing harsh. “Sheriff Gamble has already identified the arsonist as Quinn’s half-sister Naomi.”

Harrison made a few more scratches on his notepad, a scowl darkening his features.

Quinn offered up a silent prayer that the scowl was for her half-sister and not a bad sign of her own chances of resolving her claim to Jester’s land.

“So I figure,” Barrett said, ignoring Cross once more and focusing his attention on Sheppard and the judge, “that Quinn and the State can come to some agreement.”

Chuckling, Sheppard reached into the briefcase he’d brought to the meeting. “I thought we might be heading this way, so I talked to our legal department.”

He pulled out a thick stack of papers held together with a binder clip. Removing the clip, he peeled off half of the papers and handed them to Judge Harrison.

Starting to pass the second half to Quinn, he pulled back when Cross reached for the papers.

“Now, aren’t you the estate’s attorney, Mr. Cross? If so, I don’t think there’s anything for you to do here but listen.”

“Well, Miss Whitaker will need assistance in reviewing—”

“Conflict of interest,” Harrison grunted as he read through the pages. “Miss Whitaker, you are certainly within your rights to get the assistance of another attorney, but this is drafted in plain language. As I read it, you would agree to limited development on the land for the first ten years. During that time, you can build a primary residence on the original home site and add a second hunting lodge not to exceed the size of the new primary residence. You can lease access for up to two cellular towers and harvest up to ten percent of the timber in addition to timber removed for fire management purposes. That’s all for the first ten years. After that, you would be free to do with the property as you wish. If you must sell in those ten years, the buyer is subject to the same restrictions for the remainder of the ten-year term and the State has the right of first refusal…”

Seeing the question on Quinn’s face, the judge explained.

“If you want to sell, the State gets to make an offer at reasonable market rates if they wish and you’d have to accept that offer.”

Grinning at Cross, Sheppard handed Quinn her copy of the agreement. Together, she and Barrett quickly read through it.

Meeting Quinn’s gaze when she finished, Barrett offered a faint smile and an approving nod.

“May I borrow a pen from one of you gentlemen?” she asked.

Sheppard and Judge Harrison reached for a pen.

Finished with his bread, Cross reached for a lemon cupcake.

* * *

Gamble called as Barrett and Quinn were pulling away from the courthouse.

“Got you on speaker,” Barrett warned, handing his phone to Quinn.

“Hi, Sheriff,” she said. “We are heading over to your office now.”

“Good, I need to pick your brain, Miss Whitaker. That tip you gave us about Western Union paid off, sort of.”

“Sort of?” Barrett asked, turning the corner and pulling onto the main street through Willow Gap.

“We found out she was due to receive money at one of the offices in Billings. They agreed to stall her until officers got there, but she went ballistic at the delay. Knocked over a bunch of displays and threatened to give the clerk an acid bath.”

“The clerk shouldn’t ignore the threat, but I don’t think Naomi will return to that location,” Quinn advised. “If she has enough gas, or money to get gas, she will probably drive across the state border and use a Western Union there.”

“Clerk said they appeared to have been sleeping in the car they were in.”

“So they’re down to their last few dollars,” Quinn suggested. “Well, my sister is an accomplished thief. She may lift a high-ticket item and take it straight to a pawnshop. She’s done that before.”

Quinn kept the frown out of her voice and away from her face. Before Naomi became adept at stealing from stores, she had stolen from Quinn. Jewelry, laptops, even CDs and DVDs. Anything that would give Naomi more and leave Quinn with less.

“I’ll coordinate with the Billings police. They can have the local pawnshops be on the lookout. Most of the owners will play along in trying to stall her. The rest should at least kick her out.”

“You still want us to come over?” Barrett asked.

“Yeah. I need a signature on the witness statement identifying Naomi.”

“Okay, see you in about five,” Barrett advised, taking his phone back.

Catching Barrett’s glance at her, Quinn stopped chewing at her lip and smiled.

Reaching across the cab, he took her hand in his and squeezed. “They’ll catch her.”

Quinn hoped so. Telling Barrett that morning that she loved him didn’t solve anything. Getting the State to waive its rights to the land didn’t do anything more than help her financial situation.

Last night’s despair had been driven by the danger Naomi would continue to present as long as she was free to roam and mete out her special brand of hate and chaos. Until her half-sister was in jail, Quinn couldn’t risk endangering Barrett and his family.

Sighing, she slid her hand from his, pulled out her phone and opened up a web browser. From there, she checked on the name availability for the type of businesses that could be found in Billings. Next she checked whether the web domain was taken. Finding it free, she created a Gmail account for “rhinestonesandrodeos” then sent an email to her old business account, the one she had stopped logging into after Naomi’s last boy soldier had hacked it.

The email, complete with a few intentional typos from the fake sender, sought to confirm that Quinn would be able to make their five o’clock appointment to discuss her designing the store’s site in advance of the grand opening. It also referenced an earlier, nonexistent, email from Quinn mentioning the fire and offering condolences.

“What’s that about,” Barrett asked, reading over her shoulder after he finished parking in front of the sheriff’s office.

“Hopefully, I’m setting a trap,” Quinn answered. “There are way too many pawn shops for them to have much of a chance catching her at one. And, if she’s already on her way out of Billings, this could draw her back.”

“You’re not going to Billings,” he mumbled, getting out of the truck and coming around to her side. “At least you’re not going without me.”

Quinn slid from her seat into his arms. Clinging to him, she buried her face against his chest.

“I can’t have her out there, can’t be around anyone I care about while she’s free to set another fire or pull some other crazy, deadly stunt.”

Barrett snorted, but didn’t argue. Threading his fingers through hers, he tugged Quinn toward the building.

“Let’s get your signature on that paper first. Then we’ll worry about what’s next.”

Sheriff Gamble greeted them at the front desk, his lean face looking slightly embarrassed as he pushed the paper across the counter.

“Can’t believe I forgot to get you to sign these. This time of year, things are so slow everyone starts making rookie mistakes.”

“Everyone but the rookies,” Siobhan laughed, leaving her desk where she monitored the chatter on the patrol radios and took emergency calls to the station.”

Gamble rolled his eyes and handed Quinn a pen.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

“Bait taken,” she murmured. Turning her phone around, she showed the three of them the fake Rhinestone query she had sent in the truck, and then the reply that had just come in from Naomi posing as Quinn.

FROM: Quinn Whitaker

TO: Rhinestones and Rodeos

SUBJECT: Appointment confirmation

Rae, can we move to four-thirty? Still dealing with fallout from the fire and have a five-thirty appointment re: that mess.

“I’ve never heard of Rhinestones and Rodeos,” Siobhan said.

Barrett threw a proud wink at Quinn. “That’s because she made the business up on the fly on the drive from the courthouse.”

“Naomi has hacked all of my accounts at one time or another, so I expected her to be monitoring the old one.”

She hooked Gamble’s gaze.

“Question is, if she decides to go to the fake interview, where do I send her?”

The sheriff pulled out his phone. “Can you stall?”

“I think she’ll definitely wait for my reply for at least an hour, maybe longer.”

“Shouldn’t take that long,” he said, gesturing for them to wait at the front desk while he went into his office.

Siobhan propped her elbows on the counter and clasped her hands together like she was praying. “Please let me go, too.”

“You realize it’s not an actual store?” Barrett teased.

“Duh. I told you I wanted to bust that psycho juvenile delinquent.” Taking a step back, she bounced her hip in their direction. “And, as you both failed to notice, I get to pack heat now.”

“Not if I hear you saying that,” Gamble cautioned, returning from his office.

“Got you on speakerphone, Jim. Miss Whitaker, Barrett Turk and…” Pausing, Gamble rolled his eyes at his armed dispatcher. “Siobhan Turk are listening in. This is Detective Jim Barnes with the Billings Police Department. He’s the one who coordinating with Western Union and the pawn shops.”

“Hey folks, always sorry to have to meet people for official business, especially when its gotten nasty like this.”

“We really appreciate your help,” Quinn assured the man. “Oh, and this is Quinn…Whitaker.”

“Thank you, Miss Whitaker. Jude says you need an address. I have an empty unit at a strip mall, nothing inside and there’s paper covering the windows. That sounds like it might work depending on what you’ve already messaged your suspect.”

“Just the store name and time, I can pretty much work anything into the next email,” she assured the detective.

“Good, here’s the address.”

He rattled off the street and suite number, Siobhan writing it all down in a tight, clean script.

“Now,” he warned, “I can’t bring a civilian into this as far as putting you on the property or in the store, especially without higher authorization given the RAP sheet I’m looking at on your sister and this guy she’s rolling with.”

No one had told Quinn the man’s name yet and she didn’t want to know. She just wanted her sister removed as a threat.

“But,” Barnes continued. “If you want to come down here, I can put you in a surveillance van.”

Siobhan’s eyes widened, her mouth dropping open and her hands resuming their pleading pose. Gamble cleared his throat and she immediately straightened up, offering her boss a contrite smile that was only slightly more convincing than the ones Quinn had seen Leah fake.

“The process will go faster if I can get you down here to confirm we grabbed the right person. It’s all pro forma, I mean, but the prosecutors like everything delivered with a gold bow on it.”

Quinn glanced at Barrett. He checked his watch and nodded.

“I’d like to see it, like to know for certain. There’s no ‘pro forma’ when it comes to my sister.”

“Great,” Barnes said. “I’m going to get it started on my end, you message her back. Sheriff Gamble will give you my direct number. When you get a reply, let me know so I can finalize having the resources in place.”

“Thanks, Jim,” Gamble said. “Hanging up now.”

“Bye,” the detective answered, beating Gamble to the disconnect button.

Quinn thought for a few seconds then drafted the reply email.

Four-thirty works for me. We haven’t begun moving stuff into the store and papers are still up on the window. If the door isn’t open, just knock. I look forward to seeing your design suggestions.

She added the address then showed it to Barrett, Gamble and Siobhan.

“She might expect a phone number. Add mine,” Siobhan suggested. “It won’t show my name if she tries it.”

Gamble and Barrett nodded their agreement. Quinn updated the email, her finger hesitating over the send button.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Okay,” they replied in unison.

She hit SEND, heart beating loud enough she was certain everyone else in the room, and maybe the lone prisoner or two in the holding cells, could hear it. As soon as the swoosh of mail being delivered sounded, Siobhan started to pace.

Barrett teased her for it. “Sure you’re cut out for this kind of work? Lots of waiting.”

She sniffed, stuck her nose in the air and waved away his concern.

“Lions pace.”

“Okay, Simba,” Gamble chuckled, his amusement turning the young woman’s cheeks a cherried pink.

Quinn’s phone vibrated. She checked the incoming message.

Great, look forward to it. Also, didn’t I already give you my main contact email? This one is old and I haven’t used it in a few weeks. Don’t want to miss any messages from you. :)

A broad grin ate at the corners of Quinn’s face.

“Wait, that’s bad, isn’t?” Siobhan asked.

“Nope, I made two emails on the way over.” Quinn’s fingers flew over the onscreen keyboard.

Right, sorry! I have same provider but QuinnWhitakerMT.

She hit send, Naomi’s new reply almost instant.

That’s right. See you at four-thirty!

“Now,” Quinn growled. “Let’s see if I’ve learned all my little sister’s tricks.”

She switched over to the MT email and waited. A minute later, a new message popped in spoofing the rhinestonesandrodeos email.

“Wow, she’s how old?” Gamble asked.

“Almost seventeen,” Quinn answered. “She picks up a few tricks from each guy she…uh…dates.”

She read the message out loud. “Quinn, I need to move appointment to six. If not possible, we will have to go with one of the designers we’ve already talked to.”

“So is she going to be there at four-thirty or six?” Barrett asked.

Quinn shrugged. “My guess is she goes in and impersonates me at four-thirty then maybe lurks around until I show up at six.”

She chewed at her lips, reluctant to discuss past encounters with her sister.

“She can be violent,” she said after another second’s hesitation. “That’s why I think she’ll wait around until six.”

Gamble picked up his phone. “I’ll tell Barnes to plan for both.”

While Gamble called the detective, Quinn emailed back with an ingratiating, needy tone to her choice of words, confirming that she would absolutely be there at six and how much she was looking forward to showing them what she could do for their business.

Hitting send, Quinn slumped against Barrett. He wrapped both arms around her and rubbed lightly at her back. She soaked in his warmth and the soothing encouragement of his touch.

“Okay, Barnes is set.” Gamble pulled his hat on then fished his keys from his pocket. “You want to drive there in your own vehicle or with me?”

“We’ll get there in my truck,” Barrett confirmed.

Siobhan looked between her boss and her cousin.

“Chill out, rookie,” Gamble teased. “It’s your phone she might call. I very well can’t leave you here, can I?”