Ambushed At Christmas

“Jogging.” His voice was incredulous.

Of course, everyone feared a serial killer in the making but a next-day attack would have been unlikely in this scenario. Seasoned serial killers took time to bake.

The lead investigator happened to be her ex and although she’d believed the split was amicable—it had been a long time coming—Charles Dougherty had been short with her ever since. Six months had passed now. With his attitude, she was beginning to question whether or not he’d agreed with her assessment or if he’d been playing along so she wouldn’t realize how much the breakup actually had hurt.

She’d overheard a fellow officer refer to her as Cold-Fish Cordon when she’d walked past the men’s locker room. Charles had laughed, not defended her.

And that was just the beginning of the cold-shoulder treatment she’d been getting from him ever since.

“Any other reason you’re out here tonight, Kevin?” she asked.

“Other than my nightly run? No,” he said with a quizzical look.

A good investigator asked every question, and especially the ones she thought she knew the answers to. Because every once in a while a witness answered wrong and gave her the leverage she needed to keep digging.

Chapter Three (#u5080b7bf-93e4-55f8-9c9a-2755f8d30fe4)

Kevin Lee was innocent. All Leah had needed was five minutes to assess his guilt or innocence. Her years of experience had honed her instincts. As much as she trusted them, she never took them for granted. But the man was as clean as Sunday’s sheets on a freshly made bed.

An officer had arrived, followed shortly after by paramedics. The scene bustled with activity. Between the detour with Deacon Kent and the injured jogger, it was getting late. Leah checked her watch. She should’ve been home fifteen minutes ago to relieve her sitter. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem but tensions were running high.

“Excuse me, I need to make a phone call,” she said to Deacon.

“Someone expecting you at home?” he asked. An emotion flickered behind his gray-blue eyes that she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“Sort of,” she admitted for reasons she had yet to pick apart. The question had caught her off guard. She walked out of earshot in order to make the call to her babysitter.

Riley answered on the first ring. The soft hum of the TV that was on in the background comforted Leah.

“Everything okay?” Riley immediately asked. Her next-door neighbor was great about coming over after Connor had gone to sleep so that Leah could get in her run. Leah would miss that next fall when Riley left for college.

“I’m giving a statement to police right now about a jogger being hurt on the trail,” Leah informed her.

“Another one?” Riley’s tone was ominous. Her voice dropped as she asked, “Are you okay?”

“This was an accident. It’s not related,” Leah said quickly. Too quickly.

“Oh.” Riley must’ve picked up on it. Everyone’s nerves were on edge following the attack.

“How’s Connor?” Leah wanted an update on her son but she also wanted to redirect Riley.

“Hasn’t budged an inch since I got here,” Riley reported. “In fact, he hasn’t made a peep but I checked on him fifteen minutes ago, anyway.”

“His preschool teacher said they spent a lot of time outdoors today and that the class should sleep well tonight.” Leah couldn’t remember what a good night’s sleep was anymore. To sleep like an innocent child again. What would that be like?

Either way, Leah was grateful for her high school neighbor, who was close to the back half of her senior year. Riley’s job was basically to make sure Connor didn’t wake or need anything. The high schooler brought her laptop computer and Leah figured had knocked out most of her college applications while sitting on her couch. It was mutually beneficial because Riley complained about her brothers, twins, who were star football players on the middle school team. She said there wasn’t a safe place in the house with those two running, shouting and throwing the ball just about everywhere. There were always a few of their friends on hand, and since Riley’s room was directly across the hall from the twins’, she couldn’t get a minute of peace.

Since Leah offered money, going to her house was certainly cheaper than going to a coffeehouse and dropping five bucks on a latte every time she wanted to use the free Wi-Fi.

The arrangement worked out well for both of them. Since Leah didn’t get off work until six o’clock most nights, she barely had a pair of hours to spend with Connor before his bedtime. Rather than sit inside the house and stare at four walls after he was tucked into bed, Leah had made the proposition to Riley a year ago and the arrangement seemed to be working out for them both.

“I should be home soon,” Leah promised.

“Take your time. Seriously. I have nowhere else to go but home.” Leah almost smiled because she could practically hear Riley rolling her eyes.

Leah couldn’t feel guilty about being later than usual with an attitude like that. Her place was a refuge for Riley and Leah didn’t mind helping out the girl. Riley seemed to think it was cute that strangers thought they were sisters and had mentioned more than once that she wished it were true.

“I won’t be too late,” Leah promised. She wasn’t ready to leave the scene just yet. She needed to remind the handsome rancher that he had no business digging around a crime scene and that he could end up a suspect if he refused to listen to her.

She figured that would go over about as well as whipped cream on a taco.

“TELL ME MORE about the case,” Deacon said to the detective once the jogger had been carried away by the paramedics, Kevin Lee’s statement had been given and the scene had quieted down.

The detective shot him a look that left no question as to what she thought about his request. “I can’t.”

“I’m not telling you to give away your family’s barbecue recipe. I’d like to know who I’m looking for, if you have a description of the suspect. It’ll help us on the ranch as we guard our herd and we might actually be of some help if he returns,” Deacon said. He could ask the same information from his cousin Zach, but the detective might have an inside track.

“We don’t have one,” she admitted. “And I’m not the lead on this case, so I have no authority whatsoever to dig deeper. All we’re doing that I know of is watching the trail and pretty much everywhere else for another attack.”

“There were no witnesses and you have no leads,” he summarized.

“Just like the newspaper said,” she stated.

“Excuse me if I don’t believe everything I read,” he countered.

“Your cousin. He’s the sheriff, right?” she asked.

“Yes.” Deacon wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

“Explains why you know how to conduct yourself during an investigation.” She locked on to his gaze and he ignored the power that one look held. He also saw a repeat of that split-second vulnerability that got all his protective instincts fired up. A glance at her finger had said she didn’t wear a wedding band. But that call home had thrown him off balance at first until he heard bits and pieces of her conversation. “Also tells me that you won’t mind me reminding you that I’m not privileged to share information with you. Even if I had access to it, which I don’t.”

There were ways to get around that but he didn’t want to push her.

“Want to grab a cup of coffee?” he asked, noticing she’d started shivering. The temperature had dropped another ten degrees. He could feel it through his jacket. Christmas was around the corner, so there was no shock that the weather had turned.

“No, thank you.” Her words were curt. “But I will share another piece of advice if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest.” He folded his arms across his chest.

“If you go crawling around a crime scene, you might just leave your DNA for someone to discover and end up on the wrong side here. Why not leave this to law enforcement.”

“My cousin has no authority in Fort Worth. I have no idea if these cases are connected but have every intention of finding out before any more of my cattle suffer and heaven forbid another person if that’s what’s happening here. I’ll give you that I acted on impulse coming here. Doesn’t mean I regret my actions and especially not if I can help in any way.” Getting away from the ranch for a few hours had proven to be the distraction he needed. While his brothers seemed to have settled into their birthright, Deacon still wasn’t comfortable. He’d been restless since losing his parents and leaving his small but thriving Dallas-based custom millwork company. He’d sold the business to his partner not without regret.

Leah examined him and he noticed that her eyes darkened when she skimmed his torso.

“Maybe you shouldn’t act on impulse next time.” She pointed her finger at his chest.

“What are you not telling me?” The detective was holding back. He couldn’t say he was surprised given the circumstances. The statement caught her off guard enough for him to know he’d hit the nail on the head.