Dragon Moon Read Online Free

look.”
     
    Talon shrugged. Since he’d found the buried money, he’d realized that it wasn’t far from an old dirt road that ran through the forest.
     
    “Do you want to duplicate my original route on foot? Or do you want to drive?” he asked.
     
    “Drive,” Eckert said immediately.
     
    Before they could suggest he ride in the back of the cruiser, he said, “I’ll lead you.”
     
    He backed his four-wheel-drive hybrid out of the garage, reversed direction, and angled around the cop car before starting down his drive.
     
    After leading them onto the two-lane highway in front of his property, he slowed down to find the track through the woods. It was badly rutted, and he wondered what it was doing to the cops’ suspension, but that wasn’t his problem.
     
    Fifteen minutes after they’d started, he pulled to a stop near the place where he’d found the box.
     
    The two officers followed him into the woods, where they all gathered at the place where Talon had dug up the box.
     
    “Right there.” He pointed.
     
    Milner squatted down and ran his hand over the leaves. “I can’t see anything.”
     
    “I put it back the way it’s supposed to be.”
     
    “Uh-huh.”
     
    He kept from clenching his fists, because he didn’t want to look like he was guilty of anything. He wasn’t, unless you counted being a nonhuman monster.
     
    “And you found this—how?” Eckert asked, watching him carefully.
     
    He’d already answered that question when the cops first arrived, but he went through it again. “The forest floor didn’t look natural.”
     
    “You must have good eyes.”
     
    He shrugged. “I’m good at reading the natural environment. That’s my job.”
     
    Both cops nodded.
     
    Eckert kept his gaze on Talon. “And what motivated you to turn in the money?”
     
    Ah. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
     
    “Good citizenship,” he snapped. “I assume you got an inventory from the bank, and the cash was all there.”
     
    “How do you know it was from a bank?”
     
    “I don’t! I was making an assumption.”
     
    “Yeah, we traced the serial numbers to a Phoenix National branch. And thirty thousand bucks were missing.”
     
    “What are you suggesting?”
     
    This time it was the cop who shrugged. “The guy who buried the box could have held some out.”
     
    “I didn’t keep any of the money,” Talon said. “Did you find my fingerprints on it?”
     
    “No.”
     
    So what were these guys really thinking? That he and someone else had pulled off a bank job in Arizona, and now he was trying to make sure he didn’t get nailed for the crime? Or that he had killed his partner?
     
    If so, why would he have turned in the loot? It didn’t make sense, but maybe cops were constitutionally suspicious. He wanted to ask if they’d checked his schedule for the day of the holdup, but he figured the less he said, the better.
     
    “Anything else I can help you with?” he asked, making an effort to keep his voice conversational.
     
    “We just needed to have a look at the crime scene,” Eckert answered.
     
    And get my reaction to the missing money, Talon silently added.
     
    “Okay. I’m going back to work now. Just continue up the road. It comes out on the highway a couple of miles from where we entered the woods.”
     
    Before either of them could answer, he climbed back into his four-wheeler and started the engine, wishing he’d never found the damn box, because he had the feeling that it was going to cause him more trouble.
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    KENNA HAD BEEN to the private quarters of the master only a few times before. As she followed Wendon through a stone arch, the walls changed abruptly from mud blocks to narrow wooden boards, nailed together, painted with a variety of scenes and illuminated by candles set into iron brackets fixed to the wall. Some of the decorations were just designs of swirling colors. Others depicted people and animals. She walked