But, then, they did not know the whole story, Elias reminded himself. Only Willow did and she had kept his secrets.
“What makes you so sure Barrett is not involved?” he asked.
“I told you my logic,” Judson said evenly. “If Gideon had gone after the stone, he would have been a lot more subtle about it, and it’s a good bet that he would have been successful. But we’ve got the geode.”
Elias grunted.
Judson’s coldly determined expression was all too familiar, Elias thought. Every time he complained to Willow that none of his three offspring seemed interested in taking over the helm of Coppersmith, Inc., she reminded him that each of them had inherited not only his savvy intelligence and his feel for rocks and crystals but also his titanium-strong, mile-wide stubborn streak. None of them could work with you for more than five minutes, Willow always said. You will have to step down before one of them will step up to take your place.
But he couldn’t step down, Elias thought. Not yet, not until he had made certain that Coppersmith, Inc., and his family were safe from Hank Barrett. Should have gotten rid of him the old-fashioned way all those years ago and buried him out in the desert. No one would have found the body, and I wouldn’t be dealing with this problem today.
But a neat, tidy solution had been impossible. Willow had forbidden it. And when you got right down to it, how did you go about killing a man who had saved your ass more than once in the middle of a firefight and whose ass you had saved, in turn? Some lines could not be crossed. There was a rule about it somewhere.
“You can’t know for sure that Barrett’s not involved,” he insisted.
But his own logic was flawed and he knew it. Judson was right. Wilby was a small town. If Gideon Barrett had come here to get the stone, he would have found it and taken it.
Gwen spoke up from her chair.
“I don’t know anything more about the Barretts or Helicon Stone than what Judson has told me,” she said, “but I do know a considerable amount about Evelyn Ballinger and the circumstances here in Wilby. I agree with Judson. I very much doubt that Evelyn was murdered by outsiders. This was local and it was personal.”
“Yeah?” Elias rounded on her. He was aware that he was in what Willow called his bristling mode, but that was too damn bad. The situation was serious. “And just how would you know that, Ms. Frazier? Are you a trained investigator?”
“No, but I’m capable of applying common sense to a problem,” Gwen said coolly. “I find that approach so much more helpful than allowing an obsession with an old grudge to mess up my thinking.”
Elias raised his brows. Didn’t see that coming, he thought. He regarded Gwen with fresh interest and some curiosity. Very few people outside his family had the nerve to put him in his place. Willow told him that he intimidated most folks. That was fine with him. Intimidation was useful.
But Gwen Frazier looked anything but intimidated. She sat there in the big reading chair, one leg crossed over the other, radiating a calm poise that matched the You don’t scare me message in her eyes.
He caught the brief, amused smile that edged Judson’s mouth. That startled him even more than discovering that Gwen had claws. Everyone in the family knew that Judson hadn’t smiled much since he had returned from the island job. He had, in fact, been ducking them all, hiding out in a little town on the Oregon coast, licking his wounds.
Elias understood. A man needed time to recover from betrayal and a close brush with death. He was pretty sure that the explosion inside the cave had done some unseen damage, as well. The family had agreed to give Judson some space. But now it was starting to look like Gwen Frazier and a small-time murder investigation were exactly what the doctor should have ordered.
Nick let out a crack of laughter and reached for the last sandwich.
“Welcome to my world,” he said to Gwen. He popped the dainty sandwich into his mouth and brushed crumbs from his hands. “I had to listen to Wyatt Earp, here, carry on about those badass Barretts the whole trip down from Seattle. It gets old.”
Judson looked at him. “You’re bored after a few hours of listening to him obsess about Hank Barrett and son? Try listening to him harp on the subject your entire life. When we were growing up, Mom had to institute a No Barrett rule at the dinner table and on family vacations.”
“No kidding?” Nick said with what appeared to be an utter lack of interest. “I can sure see how having your old man lecture you about your future business competition might ruin a trip to Disneyland, all right. Bummer.”
But his air of monumental unconcern was belied by the look that he exchanged with Gwen. Their eyes met for no more than an instant, but Elias was pretty sure he could read the message that had passed between them. If these two had any memories of conversations around the family dinner table or vacations to Disneyland, they were not good ones.
“Speaking of business,” Elias said, “let’s get back to it.” He beetled his brows at Judson. “Tell me what you found in Ballinger’s house.”
“It had the feel of a planned hit,” Judson said. “I think the murder was done to silence a potential witness, someone who had discovered something the killer did not want her to know.”
“Huh.” Elias turned back to the window. “Got to admit killing an unarmed woman doesn’t sound like Barrett. But I’m telling you that geode is a damn good motive for murder.”
“I know,” Judson said. “But there are others. Gwen and I are looking into the possibility that Ballinger’s death is linked to something that happened here in Wilby a couple of years ago.”
Gwen and I are looking.
Elias studied his son intently for a few beats. What was going on here? If there was a term that could be used to describe Judson’s working style, that term was lone wolf. The trait had manifested itself early on. It had been clear from the start that of his three children Judson was the least likely to take over the family empire. Judson almost always worked alone.
Now it was Gwen and I are looking into the possibility.
It dawned on Elias that he had been so obsessed with the theory that Hank Barrett was involved in whatever was going down in Wilby that he hadn’t been paying nearly as much attention as he should have to the energy that was crackling in the air between Judson and Gwen Frazier.
He glanced toward the open door that connected the two rooms. The sense of intimacy in the space was unmistakable.
Well, well, well, so that’s how it is, he thought. Nothing like a woman to take a man’s mind off a few bad memories. But he’d never been aware of this kind of intimate heat between Judson and any of his other lady friends. Gwen was different from the other women who had come and gone in Judson’s life. It was as if she not only understood the dark side of Judson’s moody, driven nature but also was okay with it.