Diamond in the Rough (Diamond J #2) by Lori L. Robinett

as she worked at the screen, trying to figure out how to reach the photos that he’d taken, but the crunch of tires on gravel drew her gaze.
    A deputy sheriff’s patrol cruiser pulled into the lot.
    The kid snatched his phone back and vaulted over the fence.
    Lana hesitated a moment, looking after the kid, then glanced back at the patrol car that had pulled to a stop in front of the office. It was too risky to stick around. She walked across the lot, forcing herself to stroll as if she had all the time in the world. She reached her rig and climbed up, then wasted no time getting the rig rolling. She glanced in the rearview mirror as she pulled out of the lot and pointed the rig toward home.
    She needed to talk to Rondo, but she was pretty sure that their sweet deal at Rafferty’s stockyard had just turned sour.
    Lana pointed the big rig east and pursed her lips as she considered the situation. Their group had used the northern Missouri stockyard to move a lot of cattle over the past year, cattle they liberated from various ranches throughout Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. They’d even taken a couple of herds from Iowa and Nebraska there. Working in a no-brand state made their business less risky.
    The family had done well with Rondo leading them, but Lana turned the rustling enterprise into a well-oiled machine. They raised cattle of their own at the compound, so they could mix legitimate stock with stolen to raise less suspicion. Of course, they’d always stripped incoming animals of ear tags or any other identifying marks. Rebranding allowed her to exercise her creative juices. Over the last year or so, she’d turned it into an art form, utilizing their small collection of basic brands to cover existing brands.
    The Rafferty stockyard had been her idea. Bobby Rafferty was her contact. She was the one who cultivated him after she found out he forged certification documents for the cattle run through his barn. She was the one who brought him into the fold, after she found out his mother was a Saunders, a dogleg relative of Rondo’s mother.
    She chewed her lip as she considered the little prick with the phone. And the Deputy Sheriff. Maybe that was a coincidence, but she had a bad feeling.
    And she’d learned a long time ago to trust her gut.
    By the time she reached the Cardwell County line, she’d made up her mind. It was time to find a new contact. They couldn’t go back to the Rafferty stockyard, and she was pretty sure it would be a good idea to stay out of northern Missouri completely for a while. Maybe it was time to do a little recon and locate other outlets for their stolen stock.
    She turned off the interstate and wound south on a narrow blacktop road. Telephone poles flicked past. The corn crop looked good, with strong green stalks poking out of the soil.
    The family had tried growing crops but had no luck. Rondo said it wasn’t in their blood. Maybe he was right. Then again, the red dirt in their compound wasn’t good for growing much of anything, plant or animal.
    The unmarked gravel road appeared next to a break in the fence, largely hidden by a stand of pin oaks and scrub trees. She swung the semi wide to make the turn, then rumbled slowly along the road, which was little more than twin rocky ribbons separated by dirt, with grass and weeds trying to take over. There wasn’t enough traffic to keep the road clear, and the family was just fine with that.
    The scrub trees on either side of the road pushed in, grabbing for the rig. Signs of civilization disappeared as she drove. There were no telephone poles, no electric lines, and the strands of barbed wire strung between ancient posts sagged tiredly. A dozen or so cows, some black, some red, ignored the rumble of the semi as she rolled past. After a few miles, the trees opened and revealed a clearing where half a dozen mobile homes squatted in a semi circle.
    Home.
    She pulled the tractor-trailer up next to a tin-sided lean to that served as the main