Free The Outrage - Edge Series 3 by George G. Gilman

between the warehouses and the cotton processing plant.
    ‘No, it’s all right, Mr Edge. I’m sorry to have troubled you. Here is Mr Quinn now. I’ll go speak to him personally.’ Devlin was almost joyful with relief as he spun around and quickly moved away. But he slowed down after he stepped down off the sidewalk and started across the intersection.
    Then Edge’s attention was drawn along River Road: to where a familiar horse and rider were much closer than the gleaming, new-looking buggy Devlin had said was being driven by Nicholas Quinn. And sensed again, just as in the blacksmith forge earlier, that Sarah Farmer was more than merely idly curious about him as she approached astride the newly shod roan mare.
    But despite this he allowed his attention to be diverted from the good looking redhead with the enquiring green eyed gaze and watched as Quinn’s buggy came to a halt midway between the start of the trail and the intersection. Then saw the man climb unsteadily down from the rig and stumble in his haste to enter a building on the south side of the street. And registered that Devlin quickened his pace, like he was anxious not to miss any part of whatever was to occur within the building where the apparently drunken man had gone from sight.
    ‘Have you yet made up your mind whether you’ll be staying on in our fair town?’ Sarah Farmer asked as she reined in her mount level with where Edge stood.
    ‘I’ve just now arranged to leave on the Austin stage next Wednesday.’ He tipped his hat.
    She twisted in the saddle and by accident or design showed her slender but pronouncedly curved upper body in erotic profile as she peered along Texas Avenue. ‘Isn’t that the Quinns’ new buggy parked out front of Jed Winter’s place?’
    ‘Quinn got out of it and if that’s the undertaker’s parlour then – ‘
    She cut in scornfully: ‘And there goes Andrew Devlin. Just can’t wait to tie up the details of his financial cut of this awful business.’
    ‘It’s Quinn’s lawyer sure enough, lady.’
    She shot a fleeting glance of irritation toward Edge but quickly displaced it with a neutral expression as he met her gaze. Then she showed the shadow of a smile and accused: ‘You’re a man who does not readily commit himself, I think?’
    He inclined his head, set down his gear and took out the makings. ‘Until I know all that I can about what I’m committing myself to, I’m usually that kind of man, lady.’
    She nodded sagely, took up her reins and said lightly: ‘I’m the impulsive, devil-may-care type myself. It runs in the family. Perhaps we’ll – ‘
    A gunshot cut her off in mid-sentence. The report had a muffled quality in the midafternoon quiet of the small town: its source easy to identify when the horse in the shafts of Quinn’s buggy reared in snorting fright, clattered down and dragged the rig a dozen feet on its brake locked wheels.
    ‘Was that what I think it was?’ The stage depot man had appeared in his open doorway, wiping chocolate stains off his chin with the back of a hand as he made the harsh toned demand.
    Sarah Farmer said curtly: ‘It certainly was not a firecracker, Mr Conway.’
    The law office door was wrenched open by Lacy with Meeker close behind him and it was the tall and broad, square faced deputy who demanded:
    ‘Where’d that shot come from?’
    The woman astride the horse started to point, Edge opened his mouth to speak and then Devlin lunged out of the undertaker’s premises, saw the group at the intersection and raised both cupped hands to his mouth to amplify his voice.
    ‘Sheriff, you best get down here! And have someone get Jim Sullivan! Nick Quinn has shot himself!’
    Meeker barked an order to Lacy and both men lunged away in opposite directions. Conway said hoarsely: ‘My God, if he’s dead that’s the entire family wiped out in one day.’

    Sarah Farmer clucked her horse into a walk then murmured grimly: ‘Which doesn’t leave many mourners to