She’d faced dangerous situations before…

She had no idea what was still to come.

Lindsay Engle became a CPS social worker to improve lives—not get people killed. But after a horrifying string of murders connected to Lindsay’s caseload, Detective Daniel Deperro will do whatever it takes to find the murderer. Lindsay won’t back down from the investigation, even as Daniel fears she’s the next target. But will his twenty-four-hour protection enrage the serial killer further—or expose Daniel’s true feelings for Lindsay?

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

An author of more than ninety books for children and adults with more than seventy-five for Mills & Boon, JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes about love and family, and pens books of gripping romantic suspense. A USA TODAY bestselling author and an eight-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.

Also by Janice Kay Johnson

Hide the Child

Trusting the Sheriff

Within Range

Brace for Impact

A Hometown Boy

Anything for Her

Where It May Lead

From This Day On

One Frosty Night

More Than Neighbours

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Hunting Season

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90523-1

THE HUNTING SEASON

© 2020 Janice Kay Johnson

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Note to Readers

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

 Change of font size and line height

 Change of background and font colours

 Change of font

 Change justification

 Text to speech

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Lindsay Engle set down the phone very carefully. If she’d given into her emotions, she’d have slammed it into the cradle and potentially shattered it.

The balding man who’d been chatting with another caseworker made his way between desks until he reached hers. Glenn Wilson, mentor and friend—and well able to read her, even when she was stone-faced. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

Quiet had stolen over the room, she realized. Glancing around, she saw that her coworkers’ heads had all turned, too. She’d have sworn she hadn’t raised her voice.

“I removed a boy from his home two weeks ago.”

Nods all around; too often, as employees of Oregon State Child Protective Services, they had no choice.

“I placed him with his uncle, who sounded disgusted with his brother. Shane liked his uncle.” Her jaw clenched so hard she wasn’t sure she’d be able to relax it enough to say another word.

Glenn laid a hand on her shoulder. “Is the boy badly injured?” he asked, voice gruff but also gentle.

Lindsay shook her head, swallowed and said, “No, thank heavens. He collapsed trying to get on the school bus. The driver called 9-1-1, and Shane was transported to the hospital. That was the ER doc calling. Shane managed to tell them that his uncle Martin hurt him.” More like beat him to within an inch of his life, from the sound of it.

She opened a desk drawer and took out her handbag. “I need to get to the hospital.”

Ashley Sheldon, who sat behind the next desk, murmured, “That poor kid.”

“Apparently, brutality runs in the family,” Lindsay said bitterly.

“The cops arrest the creep?” Glenn asked.

“He’s conveniently not home. I don’t know whether he realized he’d gone too far, or whether he thought Shane would make an excuse and he’d skate.”

“He fell down the stairs,” suggested Matt Grudin, tone acid.

“Had a dirt bike accident,” Ray Hammond, another coworker, added.

Dark humor was common in their profession, but all Lindsay could summon was a pathetic smile before she said, “I’m off.”

As she walked away, behind her Glenn growled, “There’s a reason I took early retirement.”

She fully understood. Social workers, especially those on the front lines, burned out all too fast. Maybe she was getting to the point where she should do something else for a living. Something one step removed from children with purple bruises, black eyes and teeth knocked out by a fist, or girls who carried terrible secrets. How Glenn had stood it all those years, she couldn’t imagine. She admired him and was grateful that since his retirement he still stopped by the office regularly to say hi and lend his support to anyone who was especially frustrated or down.

At the small community hospital, she went straight to the emergency room, where she was allowed in Shane’s cubicle. As many times as she’d seen battered children and teenagers, she never got over the shock. His face was so swollen and discolored, she wouldn’t have been able to recognize him as the boy who, despite his wariness, was still capable of offering an irresistibly merry smile.

Maybe she should say, had been capable.

The one eye he could open fastened on her. “Ms. Engle?”

At least, that’s what she thought he’d said.

“Shane.” At his bedside, she reached for his hand, but pulled hers back when she saw that his was heavily wrapped. “I’m so sorry. I never dreamed—”

“My fault,” he mumbled through misshapen lips. “I thought—” He, too, broke off, but she had no trouble finishing the sentence. Shane had believed his uncle was a good guy.

“Can you tell me what happened? In ten words or less?”

The fourteen-year-old, tall for his age but skinny, tried to smile, then groaned.

Seized by guilt, Lindsay exclaimed, “I’m sorry! Forget it! We can wait until you don’t hurt so much.”

He gave his head the tiniest of shakes. “S’posed to clean the kitchen last night, and I didn’t. He dragged me out of bed and…” He made an abortive gesture. “You know.”

“I gather you talked to a police officer.”

“Kinda.”

“Okay. Did you have the MRI?”

She thought that was a nod.

“Has the doctor talked to you yet?”

“Waiting for you.”

“Oh. Okay.” She smoothed sandy blond, shaggy hair back from Shane’s battered face. “You know this isn’t your fault.”

His face twisted slightly and one shoulder jerked in a shrug she had no trouble interpreting. Did Shane even believe the cruelty he’d lived through from his father was anything but normal? As with most abused children, he wouldn’t have talked about it to his friends. For all he knew, the same crap might be going on behind closed doors in their homes. Now, having the uncle Shane had liked and trusted react so violently to his minor offense had to make him think men were always this violent…or else there was something about him that caused both his father and uncle to lose it.

Neither interpretation was healthy.

The original call regarding Shane had been referred to another caseworker, Emmett Harper. Emmett had thought Shane would respond better to a woman and transferred his case to Lindsay. Whether Emmett was right or not, Lindsay had never had any trouble with the boy, and thought he trusted her as much as he could trust anyone.

She hated that his ability to trust had taken another blow.

Lindsay hid a wince. Bad pun.

“I say it’s not your fault,” she told him, but saw his disbelief.

AN HOUR LATER, she’d talked to the doctor, a gray-haired, reassuring man who said Shane had suffered a concussion, two broken ribs, a broken cheekbone, three broken fingers, probably from blocking a punch, and a great deal of soft tissue damage. Nothing permanent, but he’d be in significant pain for weeks to months as the broken bones healed.

Shane was admitted for the night because of the head injuries, which gave Lindsay almost twenty-four hours to find him a new placement.

She also talked to the Sadler police officer who had responded to the call from the bus driver and who had driven to Martin Ramsey’s house on the outskirts of town. They used a small room off the ER to talk.

“Shane says, after his uncle beat the crap out of him, he told him to take a shower and get ready for school. Sent the kid out the door to catch the bus.”

“Did he really think nobody would notice Shane’s face?” Lindsay said incredulously.

Middle-aged and seemingly steady, Officer Joe Capek shook his head. “If he did, he’s delusional.”

“Do you think he took off?”

Sounding doubtful, he said, “If he’d been afraid of trouble with authorities, he could have kept the kid home from school for a few days. Threatened Shane with what would happen if he told anyone.”

Lindsay thought the same. “When do you plan to go back to the house?”

“I gather he works as a handyman?”

“More like he does remodels, but yes, he said he takes small jobs, too.”

Capek shrugged. “Figured I’d try five thirty, before my shift ends.”

“I’ll meet you there,” she said, rising to her feet.

“Is that smart?” he asked.

“I want to look him in the eye when you cuff him,” she said grimly.

His mouth twitched into an almost smile. “Let’s meet there, then.”

By the time Lindsay drove to the old farmhouse on the outskirts of Sadler, a headache had begun climbing the back of her neck. She could feel the pitons being pounded in.

Unfortunately, Martin Ramsey did not appear to be home. As Officer Capek circled the house to knock on the back door, Lindsay peered into a dusty, small-paned window on the side of the outbuilding that appeared to serve as a garage. She spotted a lawn mower and a flatbed trailer, but no car or pickup truck.

They met back at their own vehicles.

“I can send a unit around later,” he told her, and she nodded. Truthfully, there was no huge urgency to get their hands on Martin. He had no other children in the home who might be potential victims.

The next morning, she drove Shane to a receiving home, intended to be temporary. Late afternoon, she called Capek to learn he’d had a family emergency. Sadler was one of the larger towns in eastern Oregon, which meant only that it had a handful of traffic lights downtown and an array of essential businesses as well as a bunch of churches and taverns. The police department consisted of seventeen officers as well as a chief and captain. The resources weren’t unlimited, and the county sheriff’s department was stretched even thinner patrolling lonely miles of rural roads and highways. Lindsay had always found both agencies to be cooperative to the extent of their capabilities. This time, though, it appeared that in the absence of Officer Capek, nobody else had made any effort to catch up to Shane’s uncle.

Too mad to wait, she decided to follow up herself. She wouldn’t make contact, just check to see if there were indications the man was home. The situation was beginning to strike her as really strange. Had he gotten home yesterday evening and not wondered at Shane’s absence? Or had he gotten nervous and gone to stay with a friend?

Or could he be at his brother’s empty home? Austin Ramsey was serving a disgracefully short jail sentence for what he’d done to his son. Knowing that, Martin might have thought he could stay there for a week or two with no one the wiser.

Martin’s own home first.

The aging house and barn and additional small outbuilding looked as deserted as they had yesterday. Even forlorn, Lindsay thought, although that was surely all in her head.

Disturbed, she turned her car around and went back out to the road.

Shane had grown up in a somewhat more modern rambler that was also set on two or three acres. As Lindsay turned into the long dirt driveway, she became uneasily aware that, without binoculars, the nearest neighbors wouldn’t see what was happening here.

Her foot went to the brake. Maybe coming out here alone wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. But after a brief hesitation, she made sure the car doors were locked and went ahead. Why would he be a danger to her? He probably thought he was fully justified in punishing his nephew.

She rolled to a stop in front of the house, which at first sight showed no sign of life. Here, a double garage could be hiding his pickup truck.

Lindsay turned her Subaru Outback around, so that all she had to do was stomp down on the accelerator to escape. Then she leaned on the horn and watched the front door and windows through her rearview mirror.

Wait. Was that a light on inside?

Her internal debate was brief. This was hardly the first time she’d gone alone to speak to an abusive parent. Assaulting her wouldn’t advance Martin’s cause. To the contrary, in fact. He still technically had visitation with his own children, albeit they lived with their mother and a stepfather in Pennsylvania. Given his poor impulse control, it probably hadn’t occurred to him that he had put that visitation in jeopardy by beating up his nephew.

Lindsay left the key in the ignition, her engine running and the driver side door open to facilitate a hasty escape. She wasn’t even sure why she felt so tentative as she climbed the two porch steps and approached the front door.

Ringing the doorbell produced a sound inside she’d call a gong. When nothing happened, she eased toward the large front window. The blinds were down, but slanted to allow her to peer in. The interior was dim, but a light was definitely on deeper in the house. The kitchen?

She dialed 9-1-1 and clutched her phone in her hand with her finger poised over the screen as she left the porch and went around the house to the back. On the way, she reasoned with herself. Austin might well have left a light or two on in the house to make it appear someone was home. He could even have lights on timers. Lindsay didn’t understand this instinct insisting that, all evidence to the contrary, someone was here.

The quiet seemed unnatural when the road wasn’t that far away. She stopped in the middle of the overgrown lawn and looked around. Movement in the trees caught her eye, chilling her despite the heat of the day. She stared. She’d been imagining things; no one was there. A few leaves quivered, probably because a bird had taken off from that branch.

Taking a deep breath, she turned to the back stoop, which was just that: a concrete pad with a small extension of the roof sheltering it. She was only a few feet away, about to take a last look over her shoulder, when she saw that the door stood open by an inch or two.

She froze, eyes fixed on the thin band of light. Her finger twitched, but…what if she called the police, and it turned out Austin just hadn’t latched the door when he left the house?

Somehow, Lindsay knew better and knew, too, that she was going to look inside. Her mouth was suddenly dry. She used her elbow to nudge the door. It swung silently inward, revealing a utility room with a bench for the owner to sit and remove boots. Two pairs had been neatly placed beneath the bench. Several coats hung on hooks on the wall. An empty plastic laundry basket sat atop the dryer. An open doorway led into the kitchen.

Lindsay tiptoed forward, straining to hear any faint sound. As she scanned the room, her nostrils flared at the sharp scent of something burning.

For a moment, she didn’t understand why two feet clad in white athletic socks were in such an odd position. She took one more step as she grappled with the question…and saw a man sprawled on the kitchen floor. At the sight of his head and the blood pooling on the floor, her stomach lurched.

Dear God, he was dead. Murdered. And…he was at least the same general size and shape as Martin Ramsey.

DETECTIVE DANIEL DEPERRO groaned as the canned voice on his cell phone assured him he could go the company website and discover a wealth of information, freeing him from any necessity of bothering an actual person. He’d listened to the lengthy spiel and the ensuing elevator music six times now.

Since waiting on hold was a chronic time-waster for all detectives, he was mostly inured, but his mood hadn’t been good today for no particular reason. His leg ached, although there was nothing new in that. When a high-caliber bullet shattered your femur, putting the pieces together was a little bit like trying to patch up poor Humpty Dumpty. And yeah, he hadn’t enjoyed informing the parents of a high school senior that he had arrested their son for selling cocaine, and oh, by the way, the kid would stand trial as an adult since he’d turned eighteen three weeks before.

His desk phone rang and he picked it up, leaving his mobile phone on speaker so he wouldn’t miss a single note of the music.

“Deperro.”

“Detective, this is Officer Bowman. I just responded to a call from a CPS worker who found the man she was looking for dead. Head smashed like a jack-o’-lantern someone dropped. I don’t see a weapon, but someone killed him.”

“Address?”

Daniel committed the street address to memory and asked if the CPS worker was certain of the victim’s identity. A murmur of conversation in the background was replaced by Bowman’s voice.

“She thinks she knows who this is, but can’t be positive.”

“Okay. The name?”

Martin Ramsey rang some bells for him. Coming in to work yesterday, Daniel had taken note of the report of a severe beating given a fourteen-year-old boy and that the teen had tagged his uncle as the perpetrator.

Checking his computer, Daniel saw that an Austin Ramsey owned the home where the dead body had been found. Austin, however, was currently in the county jail. Interesting.

He grabbed his cell phone, cut off the beginning of the spiel, version seven, and walked out of the station to his car.

The drive didn’t take ten minutes.

Somebody had filled potholes in the dirt driveway. Ahead, he saw a brick rambler with a double-car garage at one end. Two vehicles sat in front, one an SPD car with a rack of lights on top, the second a common crossover that would handle well in snow and ice, which they would certainly see plenty of this winter. In the crossover, he could see the back of a woman’s head.

Officer Aaron Bowman came around the side of the house. He was young, twenty-eight or twenty-nine, and had impressed Daniel before with his steadiness and common sense.

When the two men met up, Daniel said, “That the caseworker?”

“Her name is Lindsay Engle. She took a boy named Shane Ramsey from his father, who owns this place, and placed him with the uncle. According to her, a couple weeks later the uncle beat the boy bloody. Nobody has picked up the uncle yet, who apparently hasn’t gone home. She thought he might be hiding out here.”

“And that’s who she thinks is dead in there.”

“Yeah.”

Daniel asked a few questions as the two men went to the back door, which according to the woman had been open. Bowman hadn’t gone past the entrance between the utility room and the kitchen.

“Didn’t need to check for a pulse,” he said, his jaw tightening.

Daniel immediately saw why. Half the victim’s head had been obliterated. He also understood Ms. Engle’s doubts. If the dead man had any face left, it couldn’t be seen from this angle.

The odd note was a small metal wastebasket sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, only feet from the body. He took another step until he was able to see the burned, broken flakes inside, like blackened sheets of paper-thin, delicate phyllo bread.

Crumpled paper, he realized. A fire that had been deliberately set, and gone out when all fuel had been consumed.

Daniel called for CSI. He wanted to walk through the house, but found the front door locked and didn’t want to contaminate the kitchen by tromping through it. He asked Officer Bowman to stay and to start a log of who came and went. Then he went to the caseworker’s car and knocked on the passenger side window. She unlocked once he asked if he could get in to talk to her.

He turned in the seat to survey her, and felt an odd stirring he identified as surprise. In some inexplicable way, she didn’t look like a Child Protective Services caseworker, yet he knew that was ridiculous. He’d worked with enough of her colleagues to be fully aware they could be young, middle-aged, near retirement, outwardly cheerful or glum, blue-eyed or brown. The stereotypes didn’t work. About all he knew for sure was that in the local office, a majority of the caseworkers were women.

This one had medium brown hair worn in a roll on the back of her head, blue eyes and a voluptuous body he thought could be a problem when she worked with unstable men and hormone-ridden teenage boys. But that was none of his business.

What did make him curious was her guarded air. He wondered if she was ever completely open. The fact that he sensed she had secrets might in fact be his business.

“Ms. Engle?” He held out a hand.

Hers was icy cold. “That’s right.”

“Tell me what brought you here.” He smiled, hoping to relax her. “Start at the beginning.”

She spoke succinctly, her voice pleasingly husky. Mostly, what she told him was a recap. He listened intently when she explained her reasoning for checking out this house, and for deciding to get out of her car and ring the doorbell.

“You didn’t consider calling for police backup?” he asked.

“I should have.” Her cheeks warmed. “I don’t like to do that unless I know something’s wrong, though. I mean, that’s a waste of your time. This was just…”

He waited through her hesitation.

Her eyes met his. “I really don’t know. Just a feeling, I guess. I almost chickened out when I first came around the back of the house. I could have sworn someone was standing in that wooded area. But I don’t know, when I kept looking I didn’t see anyone.”

Was she tossing out the possibility that someone else had been watching her to keep him from focusing on her? Or had a killer really been there, and she’d been an idiot to disregard what her instincts had surely been telling her?

She continued. “When I saw that the back door was open a crack, I justified going inside.” She made a face. “I actually tiptoed, believe it or not.”

Yeah, he could see her doing that. He wanted to say, You know walking in that way was stupid, don’t you? Instead, he settled for an “uh-huh.”

“What I don’t understand is who could have killed him. It doesn’t make sense.”

She sounded sincere. Was she that good an actor? He must have hidden what he was thinking, because her expression didn’t change until he asked, “Is Shane still in the hospital?”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re suggesting Shane would do this?”

“I’m asking where he is.”

She didn’t look very friendly now, but said, “I picked him up at the hospital late this morning and took him to a receiving home. I assure you, he’s in no shape to borrow a bike, pedal across town and beat a man to death.”

“But he has excellent motivation,” Daniel said softly.

Her anger, or dislike, flared from a simmer to a rolling boil. “That’s ridiculous! He never even fought back when his father abused him. He’s a good kid. You might as well accuse me.”

He didn’t say a word, because yes, the thought had crossed his mind that she might have cracked and killed a man who epitomized everything she hated.

She retreated without moving a muscle. The rest of her answers were single syllables. He couldn’t even blame her, but the reality was that he had to consider her a suspect at this point.

Ten minutes later, already on his phone, he watched her drive away. If she intended to call the receiving home, he’d beaten her to the punch—and what he learned in a brief conversation set a red flag to flapping.

Chapter Two

Shane was missing.

Lindsay learned as much when she reached the receiving home. Althea and Randy Price had never been among her favorite foster parents, but they’d seemed capable for short-term placements. Live and learn. Apparently Althea had shown Shane to his bedroom and then failed to notice his absence until four or five hours later.

The woman’s round-cheeked face flushed. “I assumed he was sleeping.”

Scared for Shane, Lindsay said, “You didn’t check even once on a boy you knew had suffered a head injury and had spent the night at the hospital.”

Randy Price glared at her.

Althea’s chin rose defiantly. “You’ll have to forgive me if I thought he needed sleep more than lunch!”

“He needed care, Mrs. Price. And I’ll admit I’m disturbed to learn that he walked out without either of you seeing or hearing a thing.”

She sniffed. “Well, I’m sure that detective who called will find him.”

Oh, crap. That detective had probably called before Lindsay had made it down the driveway. He wanted to pin the murder on her or on poor Shane. Why work when you can go for the easy answer?

She knew what she had to do: find Shane before Detective Deperro did.

But first she had to figure out why Shane had taken off. Only one possibility leaped to mind. He could have gone out to the highway to hitch a ride to some bigger city where he imagined he could live on his own until he turned eighteen. When she thought about it, Randy was a big man who might have reminded Shane unpleasantly of his father and uncle. Lindsay had thought Shane understood that he’d be with the Prices for only two or three days until a suitable foster home was located, but even if he sort of trusted her, believing that the next placement would be any better might be beyond a boy like Shane.

It bothered her that he hadn’t had any stuff of his own to take with him. Thanks to police planning to search his uncle’s house, they couldn’t get into it at least until tomorrow to collect the duffel with his belongings. He wouldn’t have any money, either—unless he’d taken some out of Althea’s purse. Lindsay wasn’t about to ask and put any ideas in the woman’s head.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to look for him,” she said. “Obviously, I won’t be bringing him back here.”

Randy’s jaws bulged. “We wouldn’t have a boy who’d sneak out like that.”

Walking down the sidewalk to her car, Lindsay rolled her eyes. Really? Every kid they’d taken in was a saint? She was angry enough; she intended to contact a colleague and suggest they reconsider the Prices’ receiving home license.

She hadn’t reached her car when an unmarked police SUV rolled up behind her bumper. Deperro got out and watched her approach. She felt a tiny bump in her chest, because there was no denying he was a magnificent male specimen—six foot two or three and broad-shouldered, with dark hair and eyes and bronze skin—but he’d done or said nothing to make her think she’d like him. So she nodded vaguely in his direction and went around to her driver door. She couldn’t think of a thing she wanted to say to him.

His deep voice carried well. “Ms. Engle.”

That tone would scare Shane, too. She really had to find the boy first. “Detective.”

“Can we talk?”

Gee, he’d asked.

Only after she opened her car door did she face him. “We’ve already done that. You may research my background and job performance to your heart’s content, but I think I’ll get an attorney before I sit down with you again. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Not looking at him again, she climbed in behind the wheel and gave a yank to the door handle, only to meet resistance.

Somehow, he’d moved fast enough to grab hold of the top of the door.

Lindsay turned a blistering glare on him. “What do you want?”

“You to tell me where I might find Shane.”

“How can I? My best guess is that he decided he can’t trust any adults. It would appear he’s right.”

Those espresso-dark eyes narrowed. “His uncle was murdered. You don’t think it would be irresponsible of me not to sit him down for a talk? To think, oh, his caseworker says he’s a nice boy. He couldn’t have anything to do with this, and think how much I’d upset him by asking where the hell he was while someone was beating Uncle Martin’s head in.”

Lindsay tried very hard to hold on to her dislike, but that was hardly fair. Of course, his job demanded he find out where Shane had been while Martin was being killed. Ask Shane if he knew who might hate Martin—or benefit from his death.

Her keys were biting into her palm. Not looking at him, she said quietly, “I really don’t know where he is. I’m…scared for him.”

There was a moment of silence. He moved again, squatting inside the open door so he was closer to her eye level. Lindsay was painfully aware of the way the fabric of his black cargo pants stretched across powerful thigh muscles. She hated being torn between so many conflicting emotions and impulses.

“I understand,” Deperro said, in an entirely different voice. “Believe it or not, I’m concerned about him, too.”

She made herself meet his eyes. “Why?”

It was obvious the detective wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her, but after a moment he rolled his shoulders as if to release tension. “What if the uncle saw him on the street and grabbed him? Shane might have had reason to fight back. Or what if he was there in the house when someone else killed his uncle? Did he run before that person had a chance to get a hand on him, too? Or did he see something he’s afraid to tell anyone?”

Lindsay was afraid her mouth had dropped open. He was right. Those were real possibilities she hadn’t considered. Shane might be in danger because he was only a kid standing with his thumb out beside a highway. But he might be dead, too, or running from a killer.

All the air in her lungs left her in a rush. “None of that occurred to me,” she admitted.

“You could help me do my job.”

If Shane were here, wouldn’t she encourage him to answer Deperro’s questions?

Of course she would. “For the third time, I really, truly, cross my heart, don’t know where he is. I don’t have the impression he has any good friends. How could he, when he didn’t want anyone to know how bad it was at home?”

“Yeah,” the detective said gruffly. “I get that.”

“My best guess is that he’s running away because he didn’t like the Prices and is afraid of what will happen to him once he’s placed again. He might think he can get by as a street kid in Portland or Seattle until he ages out.”

Deperro swore. “I’ll put the word out to watch for him. Damn. We want to stop him before he gets too far.”

Again, he was right. And he was able to marshal help from sheriff’s deputies and even the state patrol in a way she couldn’t. Had she really thought she’d find Shane by driving aimlessly up and down local roads?

Deperro frowned. “Could he have gone by his uncle’s house to pick up his stuff?”

“Would he dare?”

“It’s worth looking.” He rose easily to his feet and stood gazing down at her.

“I can go out there while you—”

“Head out there, too.” His eyebrows rose, giving him a devilish look. “You’re welcome to join me.”

Lindsay closed her eyes. As much as she hated to surrender, she just about had to.

“One question,” he said.

She braced herself.

“Has Shane ever been caught setting fires? Even small ones?”

Remembering the smell of something burning at the Ramsey house, Lindsay was profoundly relieved to be able to shake her head. “No. Never.”

The detective’s eyes stayed narrow and intent, but finally he nodded.

That didn’t mean he believed her.

DURING THE DRIVE, Daniel coaxed Lindsay—she’d stiffly given him permission to use her first name—into telling him what she knew about both Martin and Austin Ramsey.

Shane’s mother had died when he was nine. When Shane came onto Lindsay’s radar, he’d admitted that his dad hurt his mother, too. He thought Dad had killed her, but didn’t know for sure.

Daniel gave her a startled glance. “Did you report his suspicion?”

“No. I made a note in his file, but he wasn’t home when his mother died, and he said his father denied having anything to do with it.”

“How did she die?”

“She was helping paint the exterior of the house. Supposedly, Austin heard her scream and raced around to find her on the ground. She’d been atop a tall ladder, painting the trim on the eaves.”

“A fall.” Daniel heard how expressionless that came out.

“Hard to prove anything.”

“Unfortunately.” The odds of a woman whose husband had been battering her dying in an accident struck him as about a hundred to one, but there really wasn’t much he could do all these years later.

“I should have done more of a background check on the uncle,” Lindsay admitted after a minute, not looking at him. “Martin’s ex-wife didn’t return my phone call then, and I depended too much on Shane’s confidence in his uncle. While I was at the hospital this morning, I finally reached Martin’s ex-wife, who has remarried and lives back east. He hadn’t abused the kids, who were really young when the divorce happened, but he’d hit her a few times, she said. He hasn’t demanded visitation, but she said there was no way she’d let their kids go for an unsupervised stay with him.”

“Have you let her know he’s dead yet?” Daniel asked. Fingerprints had already confirmed the victim’s identity.

“No, I thought you might prefer to do that.”

“I would.” He was surprised at her restraint, although it was possible she just hadn’t wanted to do a death notification. Who did? “You’re sure she wasn’t here in Oregon when you talked to her?”

“Pretty sure. I reached a cleaning lady at the house, who gave me Mrs. Schulze’s work number.”

“Took the new husband’s name, huh?”

“Apparently.”

He kept eyeing Lindsay sidelong, wondering if she’d just tamped down the hostility or whether she had let some of it go. Not all, or she’d be willing to look at him. And why would she, once she guessed he had to consider her as a possible suspect in the murder of the man who’d brutally beaten the boy under her charge?

Truthfully, Daniel couldn’t see it. He’d walked out to the woods where she thought she’d seen someone watching her, but found nothing. Given the extremely dry ground, the guy would have had to do something as stupid as drop a cigarette butt to leave any evidence of his existence, and he hadn’t. That’s if he existed at all. But Daniel wouldn’t hold it against her if she’d been scared enough to imagine someone.

Earlier Daniel had gotten the quickie summation of her job history. Apparently, she had received nothing but sterling reviews by supervisors in Child Protective Services. A few quotes from her annual reviews said things like, “Really cares for the kids,” as well as “Lindsay is practical, kind and refuses to let down a child who counts on her.” If the supervisor was to be believed, she was adept at dealing with the abusive adults as well as the children. She had a talent for matching adults and children with the right therapists, too.

She’d done social work for nine years, the last three with CPS. If she hadn’t yet cracked and knocked off a vicious abuser, why would she now?

Of course, cops were known to break eventually, too, and do something they wouldn’t have ten years before or even a month before. While Daniel couldn’t entirely rule her out as a suspect, he was more interested in Shane, and then in gathering information from neighbors, friends and people who’d hired Martin along the way. If the man had been capable of losing it with his nephew the way he had, he could have lashed out at other people as well.

At Martin’s house, Daniel parked, turned off the engine and looked at Lindsay. “I’m taking you in with me because you’ll have a better idea what Shane had with him and whether anything is missing. I’ll ask you not to touch anything and to stay with me.”

She retorted, “Why are you treating this like a crime scene?”

“Because trouble could have started here and followed him to his brother’s house.”

Her clipped nod managed to convey surface agreement underlaid by skepticism.

Daniel had the keys that had been in Martin’s pocket. It took him a few tries to find the right one to open the front door. It led directly into the living room, which lacked any suggestion of a woman’s influence. Scratched, worn hardwood floors were matched by dingy off-white walls, unadorned by art. Instead, a big recliner faced a flat-screen TV. The sofa seemed an afterthought.

His nose twitched at the trace of an unpleasant odor. Lindsay’s eyes widened and her head turned. She locked her fingers together at her waist. “Is that…?”

“Something dead? I don’t think so.” That would be an all-too familiar odor for him. This wasn’t the singed smell that had permeated the kitchen at the crime scene, either.

She didn’t look all that reassured but followed him to the kitchen. He almost gagged when he pulled the trash from under the sink.

“Can we relax the ‘don’t touch’ rule long enough to throw this out?” she asked, making an awful face.

“Once I poke through it.” He’d found useful evidence in garbage cans or dumpsters before, but felt certain that wouldn’t be the case here.

When he donned latex gloves, Lindsay retreated a few steps. “You’re braver than I am.”

He smiled. “I doubt that. Cowards don’t do your job.”

Those blue eyes flashed at him. “You’re right about that.”

Beneath dirty food containers and a bunch of beer cans, he found a pound of hamburger that was now gray and all too clearly the source of the stench. Daniel took the plastic bag out to a garbage can he’d noted during the earlier visit. Lindsay stayed on the back porch, sucking in fresh air.

“None of that looked recent,” she said when he returned.

“No.” He’d noticed the same.

“But…does that mean neither of them had dinner the night before last?”

“Let’s look in the fridge.”

“Do we have to?” she mumbled.

Daniel outright grinned as he swung open the refrigerator door. Another package of hamburger wasn’t looking good. Otherwise, racks held mustard, mayonnaise and ketchup, a half gallon of milk—nearly empty, he discovered, when he lifted it—onion and celery in the vegetable drawer, and a pizza box on the top shelf. He took it out and decided it was still edible. He tipped the open box toward Lindsay.

“I suppose that was dinner.”

“His, maybe. More would have been gone if Shane had had some. He’s a teenage boy.”

Her eyes glittered with anger he understood. “You’re saying the creep beat him because, what, he didn’t throw away some wadded paper towels and a few beer or pop cans?”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

“I assumed Uncle Martin had cooked, with the understanding that Shane would do the clean-up.” That anger still carrying her, she said, “Can we check out Shane’s room?”

“You know which one it is?”

“I was with Shane when Martin helped carry his stuff up. Saying how glad he was to have Shane, and how he wished he’d known how his brother had treated his own son.” She shook her head in disgust. “Apparently, the abuse was okay for him because Shane wasn’t his.”

They started up the stairs. To distract himself from the sway of her hips in front of him, Daniel commented, “In my experience, it’s not usually the good guys who get murdered. It’s drug dealers, gang members, people trying to screw other people over. The exception is victims of domestic abuse.”

She waited for him on the landing, a crinkle forming on her forehead. “This is a turnaround for you, then.”

“When this happens, it’s usually because a woman or an older kid fights back. Grabs a knife or gun.” He shrugged.

He almost regretted saying it, because wariness showed on her face again. “That’s why Shane is at the top of your list.”

“I’m afraid so,” Daniel admitted. “I won’t railroad him, Lindsay. I promise.”

She searched his eyes with an intensity that shook him. He wasn’t used to suspecting someone might have actually seen parts of his psyche he’d rather keep hidden. As a cop and a former soldier, he had plenty he never talked about. He didn’t look away, though; he wasn’t sure he could.

Finally, she dipped her head, indicating—what? Acceptance? Belief in him?

He could only hope.

One step into Shane’s room and Daniel knew the boy had been here today and was gone. Dresser drawers remained open. Lindsay peered under the bed, urged him to open the closet door. Empty.

Finally, staring into the closet, she said, “At least he has his stuff.”

If that was the good news, he didn’t want to hear the bad.

His phone rang while he was locking the front door, Lindsay having already started down the porch steps. Unfamiliar number, but local area code. He answered.

“Detective Deperro, this is State Patrol Officer William Lasher. I have the boy I was told you’re looking for.”

“That’s good news.” He was aware of Lindsay stopping, turning to look at him. “Where did you find him?”

“The kid had gotten a surprising distance from Sadler. He’d had his thumb out on Highway 97 near Redmond.”

“I’ll come pick him up,” Daniel said.

“Oh, we’re on our way to you. Can’t say the boy is happy—” there was a smile in Lasher’s voice “—but he’s gobbling a double cheeseburger and fries, so I’d say he’s okay.”

Daniel laughed. “Hey, he’s a teenage boy. Bottomless pit.”

“That’s for sure. I have two of ’em at home.”

Daniel thanked him and they agreed to meet at the Sadler police station. He could see from Lindsay’s expression that she thought he’d isolate the kid in an interrogation room and take out his rubber hose.

“I want to sit in on your talk with him,” she said firmly.

“You’re entitled,” he agreed. “Unless you or we come up with another family member willing to take responsibility for Shane, you’ll need to stand in as his guardian.”

She eyed him suspiciously, then climbed into his SUV. Lindsay Engle was one feisty woman, who wouldn’t appreciate his smile.

THE BOY STARED anxiously at Daniel. Small for his age, he looked downright pathetic with the bruising in full color, the swelling that distorted his face, and the way he held one arm across his torso as if protecting it. Daniel had broken ribs before and knew how painful they were. Shane’s right hand was wrapped to immobilize several fingers, which would rule out writing or texting. The still grossly swollen lips turned his speech into a mumble.

Lindsay had very gently hugged him and murmured something in his ear. Now she sat on the boy’s side of the table, where she could fix a distrustful gaze on Daniel.

“Are you making me go back to that foster home?” Shane asked her.

Lindsay shook her head. “No, we’ve found a permanent placement for you. You’ll like this family.”

Not hard to see Shane’s doubt.

“Why did you leave the Prices’ home?” Daniel asked. “Ms. Engle has been worried about you.”

Shane shot a quick look her way. “I’m sorry. I just thought…” He didn’t finish.

“Did either of the Prices do or say anything that frightened you?” she asked him.

His shoulders hunched. “Not really. He—Mr. Price—looked mean.”

Enough chitchat. “When did you last see your uncle Martin?” Daniel asked.

The kid’s puzzlement appeared genuine. “Yesterday morning. When he said I had to go to school and to get out of the house.”

“Has he contacted you?”

“How could he?” He sounded confused. “I don’t have a phone or anything like that.”

“He could have had his call put through to your hospital room.”

“The only person who called was Ms. Engle.” His expression changed. He drew into himself, appearing to shrink. “Is he trying to get me back? Like, claiming it wasn’t him who hurt me?”

“No—” Lindsay broke off at Daniel’s signal.

He said bluntly, “Your uncle is dead, Shane.”

Shane gaped. “What? How?”

“He was murdered. Ms. Engle found his body.”

His wild stare swung between Daniel and Lindsay. “But… I don’t get it.” And then he drew in a sharp breath. “You think I killed him?”

Daniel modulated his tone. “I have to ask, Shane. The fact that you were missing at the same time he was murdered doesn’t look good.”

“I wouldn’t! I never saw him!” He focused on Lindsay. “I didn’t!”

She reached for his uninjured hand. “It’s okay. Just answer Detective Deperro’s questions so he can eliminate you as a suspect.”

Well, at least she hadn’t said, I believe you, although Daniel felt sure she did.

Trouble was, despite a usually cynical nature, he believed Shane, too.

Chapter Three

Shane eyed the molasses cookies Rhonda Manning had set out. She and her husband, Lyman, both beamed at him. Lyman designed games for a small software company in Bend. He worked remotely three days a week, only going into the office the other two days. Maybe five foot nine or ten, he was as scrawny as Shane, and certainly not physically prepossessing, which made him a good choice for Shane.

Lindsay thought this was the perfect home for Shane.

She smiled at Rhonda. “If you don’t mind me snitching a cookie or two, I’d better get back to the office.”

“Of course not. I’ll grab a napkin.”

Lindsay turned to Shane. “Remember your promise to the detective.”

Shane ducked his head. “I won’t run away again. If I freak, I’ll call you.”

She laughed, hugged him and murmured in his ear, “You do that.” Lindsay thought he was smiling when she let him go, although given the swelling on his face it was a little hard to tell.

Shane was shyly reaching for a cookie when she thanked the Mannings and left.

Unfortunately, she’d lied; she wasn’t going to the office. Her destination was once again the hospital. As medical personnel were legally required to do, an ER doctor had contacted Child Protective Services to report his belief that a twelve-year-old girl was being sexually abused by her stepfather. Lindsay’s supervisor, Sadie Culver, had asked her to take this investigation. The only other caseworker free to pursue it was male, and Sadie assumed the girl would feel more comfortable with a woman. Given that Deperro had allowed Lindsay to take Shane, exacting only the promise that he stick around, she thought she had the boy settled. She couldn’t forget that she had dozens of other open cases, but the most urgent leapfrogged to first place on her agenda.

Nobody in Kaila Kelley’s family had appeared on the Oregon Department of Human Services’ radar before. That wasn’t unusual in cases of sexual molestation; those children rarely told anyone what was happening. Shame and threats were such an effective one-two punch that a father could work his way through three or four daughters before even a hint of the ugly situation surfaced. Lindsay hated knowing that Kaila had an older sister, Kira.

She learned at the hospital that the observant ER doc had admitted Kaila over the objections of her mother. Going to her room, Lindsay found Mrs. Norris sitting solicitously at her daughter’s bedside. The slight figure in the bed lay curled on her side, looking toward the window instead of her mother.

When Lindsay introduced herself, Kaila rolled over, her small face with delicate bones drawn with anxiety. The mother jumped to her feet.

“I just don’t understand why that doctor insisted on calling CPS!” Anxiety underlaid Mrs. Norris’s anger. “My husband thinks of Kaila as his daughter. He’d never do anything so awful! She had to have been raped, maybe by a boy at school. It’s the police who should be investigating.”

They would be, but Lindsay didn’t tell her that. Rather, she said calmly, “I’m here to find out what Kaila says happened.”

Mrs. Norris turned her head to look at her daughter. “Tell her.” Her voice rose to near-hysteria. “Tell her your daddy wouldn’t hurt you.”

Before the girl could open her mouth, assuming she intended to, Lindsay took two steps to place herself between the mother and child. “I know this is difficult for you, Mrs. Norris, but I need to speak to Kaila alone. You can wait in the hall or go down to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee or lunch. If you give me your phone number, I can—”

“I have a right to be here! I’m her parent,” the woman cried.

“Under usual circumstances, that’s the case. However, we need to offer the children we protect the chance to speak freely to us. I feel sure you understand that.”

Paige Norris understood no such thing, but eventually, reluctantly, withdrew.

“Hi, Kaila.” She sat in the chair pulled close to the bed and smiled sympathetically. “I’ll bet you have awful cramps.”

Wary brown eyes focused and unblinking, Kaila nodded.

“Are your parents divorced? Do you have contact with your biological dad?” Lindsay already knew, but this seemed like a good way to edge into the difficult part.

“Daddy died,” Kaila said in a small, husky voice. “In a car accident.”

Lindsay touched the girl’s nervous hand. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to lose a parent.”

Tears shimmered in Kaila’s eyes but didn’t fall.

“When did your mother remarry?” Lindsay asked.

“Four years ago. I was eight.”

“That’s been a long time. Do you think of your stepfather as your dad now?”

The girl shook her head vehemently. “He’s mostly nice. You know? But he always liked to hug us and we had to sit on his lap and stuff like that. Mom said he’s just touchy-feely. Like that. I didn’t like it, but I just—” She broke off.

I just endured it. That’s what she wasn’t saying. And her mother had sent the message that she should ignore her own instincts and allow a man to handle her any way he wanted. Lindsay had to struggle for a moment with her temper.

Once she had it mastered, she asked, “What about your sister? Kira? Does she like him?”

“Uh-uh. She hates him. She never said anything, but I think he did this to her before. I’d find her crying, and she’d tell me to go away.”

“And what is ‘this’?”

Getting a child her age to spell out the details took patience. But Lindsay sat quietly and allowed Kaila to take her time. Finally she admitted to the molestation, but her eyes glistened with tears when she said, “He told me I couldn’t tell anyone, or bad things would happen.”

Starting to weep, she exclaimed, “But I can’t go home! I can’t!”

Lindsay took her hand and said firmly, “No, you won’t be going home unless and until we’re certain you’ll be safe there. I’ll call the police, and they and I both will talk to your mom, your sister and your stepfather. In the meantime, I’m placing both you and Kira in a foster home. She can’t stay at home, either.”

“Really?” Those wet eyes held a glimmer of hope. “Mom says I’m lying. That’s what she’ll tell you, too.”

“You know what?” Lindsay smiled. “I’ve heard that before. What you tell me is what counts the most.”

Kaila cried afresh, but less with despair than relief, Lindsay thought.

“Now, you’ll be staying here at least overnight,” she said. “I’m going to talk to your mother now. I’m also asking the nursing staff not to allow either your mother or stepfather in to see you. Okay?”

She gave a big nod and started swiping at her face with her sheet.

Lindsay squeezed Kaila’s hand and turned her mind to foster placement options.

DANIEL TIPPED BACK his desk chair and brooded. Not surprisingly, he’d had little luck finding any of Martin or Austin Ramsey’s neighbors at home midday. He’d have to canvass the neighborhood in the early evening. So far, he hadn’t come up with names of friends, either. He supposed he’d have to start with clients who had hired Ramsey to work on their homes or businesses; the guy had kept records of his jobs and payments. Daniel wasn’t optimistic about learning much from them. The brutality of the beating shouted rage. This crime was personal. It had to be.

Most murders weren’t mysteries. Wife shot husband after he hit her one time too many. Brawls got out of hand at bars. A creep holding up a convenience store panicked and shot the clerk.

On the face of it, Shane was the likeliest—and best motivated—suspect, and Daniel couldn’t yet 100 percent rule him out. The fire in the trash can was typical for the budding arsonist. Nonetheless, Daniel thought the kid was sad more than angry, and the timing wasn’t right. After all, Daniel couldn’t be sure the fire was connected to the death, although setting a can in the middle of the kitchen floor to, say, burn papers didn’t strike him as logical.

Anyway, now that the medical examiner had established time of death, Daniel didn’t see how the boy could have managed to knock off his uncle while also picking up his stuff from his former home and getting so far from Sadler. Suspicious by nature, however, Daniel reminded himself that Shane might have an older friend who helped by driving him around…and possibly even with murder.

He couldn’t rule out Lindsay Engle, either, if only because he had to look twice at the person who’d found the body. He considered her unlikely, in part because, while CPS workers had a tough job and did burn out, what happened to Shane wasn’t extreme or anything new to her. He hadn’t read any undertones in what she’d said. In fact, he liked her determination to protect a boy who’d taken some hard knocks—literally and figuratively. He liked a lot more than that about her, but kept that kind of interest tamped down.

“Hey.” Another Sadler detective, Melinda McIntosh, tapped her knuckles on his desk.

He straightened with a jerk. Damn, he should have noticed her approach. Way to go.

“What’s up?”

“I just caught an investigation that involves a woman I hear you know. Lindsay Engle?”

Unexpectedly jolted, he said, “Tell me about it.” Had he read the social worker wrong?

Melinda grimaced. “The lieutenant likes to give me anything that involves female victims.”

“That’s…sort of logical,” Daniel pointed out.

“Yeah, but it’s also sexist.” She shook her head. “Forget I said that. This involves a girl who was apparently raped. She’s named her stepfather.”

Daniel shook his head in disgust. He also relaxed, although he hoped not visibly. “And Ms. Engle was assigned to the case.” He was proud of himself for not calling her Lindsay, for keeping his distance.

“You got it.”

Midthirties, Melinda was divorced and attractive, with hazel eyes and dark hair kept in a severe bun. There was a time Daniel had considered asking her out, but her appeal hadn’t overruled the likely complications. Instead, they’d become friends who worked together well when partnered on investigations. That was happening more since Daniel’s previous partner had turned out to be corrupt, taking money to protect drug traffickers. Daniel never would have called John Risvold a friend, but he had trusted him. Being shot, twice, by his partner had been convincing evidence that the guy had betrayed not only Daniel, but everything else they were supposed to stand for.

“Ms. Engle is good at her job,” he commented now. “Really good. Don’t get between her and the kid she’s protecting.”

Melinda laughed. “You mean, if I don’t want to lose a hand?”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

Her smile faded. “With these kind of accusations, it isn’t easy hanging on to any objectivity.”

“No, it isn’t.” He hesitated. “Yell if you need backup.”

She waved off his offer. “No reason I should.”

Didn’t that sound like famous last words? Unsettled, he watched her walk out of the cramped detective bull pen.

AT FIRST MEETING, Doug Norris seemed a likeable man. Lindsay saw what Kaila had meant. He was medium height, his body soft without being fat, his smile friendly. His handshake was soft, too, and possibly a little damp. Nerves?

Lindsay hadn’t expected him to admit to having a sexual relationship with one or both daughters, and she’d been right. Instead of outrage, he went with deep disappointment. He loved the girls, had done his best to fill in as their father, couldn’t understand what had set Kaila off.

“You are aware of the reason she was hospitalized.”

“Don’t some girls have heavy, er, cycles?”

Cycles? He couldn’t possibly be that prudish, given that he was married and outnumbered in his home three to one by females.

Lindsay repeated the doctor’s observations, with his conclusion: Kaila’s bleeding had denoted an injury from an act of nonconsensual sex described as brutal.

“Brutal?” he repeated. Now he sounded outraged. “I can’t believe that. Her mother said Kaila looks fine. She couldn’t understand why that doctor wanted to keep her.”

His reaction cemented Lindsay’s certainty. He didn’t think what he’d done was brutal; he’d probably convinced himself that his stepdaughter was happy to have greater intimacy with him. He wouldn’t consider himself a violent man.

She asked further questions. Well, yes, he’d been home with Kaila when the alleged assault occurred, but all they’d done was watch TV. If it was true that she’d been hurt, she must have slipped out of the house later, met up with some friends. She was protecting one of them.

Kira insisted her stepfather had never done anything like that to her—until she found out that she was being removed from her home along with her sister no matter what she said. Then she cried and admitted he’d been molesting her for several years. She hated him, but Mom wouldn’t listen and she didn’t know what to do.

The phenomenon was all too familiar to Lindsay. Life was tough for a woman raising two children on her own, especially if she didn’t have the skills to make an adequate living. Once she’d found a nice guy who treated her well, she didn’t want to admit to his dark side. If she pretended even to herself that her daughter’s accusations weren’t true, that said daughter was acting out as she entered her teenage years, then everything was fine. Kira would be ashamed someday at the awful things she’d claimed. So would Kaila, who must have gotten the idea from her older sister.

Lindsay had also encountered plenty of women who leaped immediately to their children’s defense and called the cops themselves. Unfortunately, Paige Norris wasn’t of that breed.

By the end of the school day, the foster care coordinator she liked best to work with had found a foster home that could take both girls. Keeping them together was important.

She spoke several times to a Detective McIntosh. Honestly, Lindsay had been surprised that Sadler PD had any women on the force, never mind one promoted to detective. This was a traditional, conservative town, to put it mildly. Melinda McIntosh must be both tough and determined to have earned her place.

They’d agreed to interview family members separately, since their goals and authority differed. Detective McIntosh strongly supported Lindsay’s decision to remove both girls from the home while the investigation progressed.

Late in the day, Lindsay checked on Shane, learning that he was in the middle of a computer game designed by his new foster dad, and was in awe at how impossible it was to beat.

She also spoke to Kira and Kaila’s foster mother, who said they were settling in well. Kira came on the phone to say, “Mrs. Simpson is really nice, except she says I have to go to school tomorrow even if Kaila doesn’t.”

Laughing, Lindsay said, “Since Kaila spent last night in the hospital and you didn’t, that sounds fair to me.”

The silence that followed sharpened her attention. Finally, voice small, the fourteen-year-old said, “I wish I’d told, ’cuz then this wouldn’t have happened to her.”

“Kira, when the person you most rely on doesn’t believe you, you have to ask yourself why anyone else would. You also have to know that, if someone in authority actually does believe you, it’ll mean your family getting torn apart. That’s scary.”

“How do you know? Did…did this happen to you, too?”

“I had an abusive parent—” not something she often admitted “—but it wasn’t sexual.”

“Oh.” Kira was quiet for a moment. “I guess it hurts either way.”

“It does.”

The conversation stayed with her when she returned to the office to do some online research and write reports. For a girl at such a tumultuous age, Kira Kelley was astonishingly insightful and mature.

Lindsay felt confident that the two girls were telling the truth about their stepfather. His “poor me, I’m just trying to be a great dad” crap confirmed their stories. Mom’s emotions and responses were off, too. Still, there wasn’t any more Lindsay could do until results came back on the rape kit and Detective McIntosh tied up her investigation.

A thought slithered into her head. Too bad Doug Norris hadn’t been murdered instead of Martin Ramsey. After this last beating, Shane would never have been sent back to stay with his uncle, but a judge might decide to return Kira and Kaila to their mother and stepfather if no proof was found to support their accusations.

Guilt rushed through Lindsay. How could she even think something like that? Yes, she despised men like Doug Norris with every fiber of her being, but violent impulses were foreign to her. She had vowed long ago never to be anything like her mother.

Besides, it was unlikely Martin’s abuse of his nephew had anything to do with his murder. He had to be involved in something shady, or he’d hurt someone who wanted revenge, or maybe he had been sleeping with a married woman. The timing would turn out to be coincidental. She refused to believe otherwise.

Chances were good Detective Deperro was pursuing other avenues of inquiry—wasn’t that the right term?—and she wouldn’t hear from him again.

And no, that wasn’t a twinge of regret she felt. It was probably her stomach reminding her she hadn’t stopped for lunch.

THE ONLY UNEXPECTED finding once the medical examiner opened up Martin Ramsey was several tumors in his lungs.

“Squamous cell carcinoma,” the M.E. remarked. “Those tumors can extend into the wall of the chest.”

The blackened lung gave away the dead man’s lifetime of smoking. Daniel had seen the ashtrays in his house, smelled the tobacco smoke that had seeped into the walls.

“Didn’t get a chance to kill him,” he said.

The small fire set in the wastebasket hadn’t had anything to do with Martin’s smoking. No cigarettes had been found in his pockets, and Daniel hadn’t smelled even a hint of tobacco smoke in Austin’s house.

Dr. Stamey had already expressed his belief that the weapon used to bash in Ramsey’s skull was an old pipe, perhaps two inches in diameter. He had plucked flakes of rust from the mess that was the victim’s head.

In his first pass through Austin’s house, Daniel hadn’t seen anything like that, nor had the CSI crew.

Now that he knew what to look for, he intended to return to the house. He had yet to search the several outbuildings, although he didn’t really expect to find the weapon. The killer had probably brought it with him, and taken it home when he or she was done. He or she would have worn gloves, too. His gut said this murder had been planned; it wasn’t an impulsive act. The rage was there, but it might have been boiling for a long time.

What made Daniel uneasy was the fact that Martin had been beaten to death, as he had beaten Shane only the day before. Hard not to connect the dots. Coincidences didn’t sit well with him.

He didn’t make a habit of jumping to conclusions, though, or accepting easy answers like a fish snapping up the fly. He had work to do, and plenty of it.

An hour later, he was sitting in a conference room at the county jail questioning Austin Ramsey, who sat across the table from him. Austin was close to Daniel’s height and breadth, as his brother had been. His hair was barely stubble and he had a cauliflower nose. Either he’d been in a lot of fights or he’d boxed in his younger years.

“Martin’s dead?”

This was the third time Austin had said that, as if he kept hoping for a different answer. He was even shedding some tears, swiping angrily at them with the back of his hand. He could beat his own kid but cry over the death of his brother. Sentiment came in many guises.

“He is.” Daniel hesitated, then told him about the cancer. “If you’re a smoker, too, you might want to see a doctor.”

“Nah, I never started up.” He scowled. “You gonna find who killed my brother?”

“Yes, I am. I’m hoping you can help.”

“Any way I can,” Austin agreed.

As the big brother started spilling everything he knew about Martin, Daniel reflected that sometimes you had to dance with the devil, like it or not.

And then he wondered how Melinda’s investigation was going…which brought him to thinking about Lindsay Engle. He gave his head a hard shake to get her out of it, causing Martin to pause midsentence and gaze at him in surprise.

“Sorry,” Daniel said. “Just…had a passing thought. You were saying that he hadn’t been seeing any woman steadily recently. Anything stand out about the women he did see?”

“He didn’t say nothing about anyone. Maybe he was taking a rest.”

A rest. That was one way to put it. Daniel had been taking a rest, too, no one catching his eye.

Until Lindsay Engle had, at a highly inconvenient time.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.