Free Unraveled by Maggie Sefton

Kelly could knit more than two tight stitches.
    “I always forget how fast you can move when you want to,” Kelly said, hoping to deflect Jennifer’s train of thought. “You could join our team as a base runner. Someone else could bat and you’d run the bases. What do you think?”
    “Nah, the key in that sentence is when I ‘want’ to. Running around bases and sweating in the hot sun isn’t my thing.”
    Confident she’d deflected Jennifer’s train of thought, Kelly returned to the recycled silk, trying to loosen the stitches so the needle could slide beneath them.
    No such luck. With the needles or the conversation.
    “Would you talk to him if Steve apologized?”
    Kelly threw back her head. “ Arrrgh! Enough about Steve, already! Tell him he should have apologized six months ago.”
    Jennifer didn’t miss a beat. Still focusing on her needles. “He knows that. That’s the main reason he’s so depressed. He knows he screwed it up good between the two of you.”
    “Yeah, he did,” Kelly shot back, trying to force the needle beneath another stitch. She didn’t want to think about it.
    “And he doesn’t know how to make it better,” Jennifer said quietly, watching Kelly’s face.
    Kelly didn’t say a word. She didn’t want to. She had nothing to suggest. Maybe it was too late for Steve and her. They had their time, and now it was over.
    Just then, a familiar presence blew into the Lambspun shop, spotted Kelly and Jennifer, and headed toward them. “Hey, I couldn’t have planned it better. I was hoping to find you two here,” Jayleen declared as she charged into the room.
    “Hey, Jayleen, how’re you doing?” Kelly greeted the alpaca rancher cheerfully, glad for the interruption.
    Jayleen grabbed a chair and straddled it backward in her Colorado Cowgirl fashion. She dropped her Stetson onto the table and fixed Kelly with a serious look. “I’m fair to middling. But I’m not here to talk about me. I hear that last Saturday you two went up to that Poudre Canyon property and found Fred Turner dead.”
    Kelly recalled yesterday’s local newspaper article reporting Turner’s death. “Well, not too much to say, Jayleen. Jennifer and I went up to the property to look around and found Turner shot dead, lying on the floor. Not pleasant.”
    “That’s an understatement,” Jennifer agreed, needles moving faster. “I think Kelly and I create bad juju when we drive into the canyons. People die and we find them. Awful.” She shivered.
    “Eustace told Curt and me. Says that Turner shot himself. Is that right?”
    “Yeah. Gun was lying beside his hand on the floor. He shot himself in the head. Did you know him, Jayleen?”
    “Yeah, I knew him. I’ve known both Fred and Renee Turner for years. Renee’s a close friend of mine. I met her when I first moved up here from Colorado Springs.” She shook her head. “Damn, I can’t picture Turner killing himself.”
    “I’m sorry you lost your friend,” Kelly started to offer sympathy.
    Jayleen cut her off with a wave of her hand. “Hell, I’m not sorry that bastard is dead. He was nothing but a crook. Even Curt says so. And you know, Curt doesn’t bad-mouth anyone unless it’s true. Turner cheated lots of folks out of their land. No-good conniving so-and-so. He was miserable to Renee when they were married and had been trying to cheat her in the divorce. It had gotten real ugly.” Jayleen made a face. “Turner was hiding assets from her. Shifting money into other accounts, trying to hide property transactions, all sorts of stuff.”
    Jennifer let her knitting sit in her lap. “Renee came up to Turner’s office one time when I was there, and she looked furious. She started yelling at him and accusing him of all that same stuff. It was ugly. I got out of there fast.”
    Jayleen nodded. “Yeah, Renee had watched Fred cheat other people out of their land and money, so she knew he’d try to cheat her, too. Even more so. He even sold off a piece