Page 2 of September’s Cowboy Travis

“I know you’re saying that.”

I looked up. “You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that either.”

Those blue-gray eyes stayed on me, sharp and annoyingly unreadable. She wasn’t accusing me, but she also didn’t seem inclined to believe me.

Kaycee pulled another sheet from the folder. This one was a copy of an old handwritten page, the edges dark and uneven.

“The parcel reference is what caught my attention. Seventeen-B is part of the hundred and sixty acres you currently lease from the Kincaids.”

“Correct.”

“And nobody has ever called that land Cedar Draw?”

“No.”

“No side agreement attached to the lease? Grazing arrangement? Shared access?”

I shook my head. “I pay the Kincaids for the land. I run cattle on it. That’s the entire arrangement.”

She made a note in the margin.

I leaned closer to the old page. One line had been enlarged enough to read.

Cedar Draw account — Walker to continue until Margaret’s line is established.

I’d heard about the notebook after the mess with Evie Mercer—hell, everyone in town had—but seeing the words in front of me was different.

“Margaret Whitaker?” I glanced up at Kaycee.

She nodded. “They found her in the historical records once they knew who they were looking for. She was raised under the Whitaker name. That part isn’t especially mysterious anymore.”

“So what is?”

“The money.” She placed the old notation next to my transaction. “Boone Whitaker wrote about Cedar Draw stock being held for Margaret and a Cedar Draw account that the Walkers were supposed to continue. Nobody knows exactly what that arrangement was, how long it lasted, or what he meant by Margaret’s line being established.”

I glanced at the deposit. “And now somebody sends money to me using the same name.”

“Exactly.”

A bad feeling settled between my shoulder blades. “Is it actually from the old account?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does the account even still exist?”

“I don’t know that either.”

My lip curled up, and I glared at her. “What do you know?”

She put her glasses back on. “Sorry. You’re going to hear that answer a lot until I have evidence for a better one.”

I didn’t like it, but her answer was fair enough. For now.

She tapped the memo line with her pen. “What I do know is that someone deliberately connected three things: Cedar Draw, the land you lease, and your ranch account. I need to find out whether the money is genuinely part of that old financial trail or whether somebody is using the name to make it look that way.”

“How many other deposits are there?”