Her father’s killer is back...

And now he’s after her

Attorney Vanessa Ford was only a child when her father was murdered, but now she’s returned to her hometown, determined to find answers to the unsolved case. When the attacks start, she knows she’s close to the truth…too close. But with policeman Levi Hawk volunteering to work with her on the investigation, can Vanessa finally find answers…or will deadly trouble strike them first?

JENNA NIGHT comes from a family of Southern-born natural storytellers. Her parents were avid readers and the house was always filled with books. No wonder she grew up wanting to tell her own stories. She’s lived on both coasts, but currently resides in the Inland Northwest, where she’s astonished by the occasional glimpse of a moose, a herd of elk or a soaring eagle.

Also By Jenna Night

Last Stand Ranch

High Desert Hideaway

Killer Country Reunion

Justice at Morgan Mesa

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Justice at Morgan Mesa

Jenna Night

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09491-7

JUSTICE AT MORGAN MESA

© 2019 Virginia Niten

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 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.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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“Police!” Levi called out. “Is anybody in the house?”

A woman screamed, “Help me!” from behind a closed door.

He moved toward the door. “Who’s in there?”

“Show me your badge and police ID,” the woman demanded.

He could tell she was terrified by the trembling in her voice.

“You’ll see them when you see me.”

The door opened a couple of inches. He saw a small woman with platinum blond curls. Her blue eyes, wide with fear, focused first on his face, then on the area behind him and then finally on the badge pinned to his chest.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here to help you.”

She opened the door all the way.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. There were reddish marks on her chin and cheek.

“I’m all right.”

“What happened?”

“Somebody chased me with a hammer. He told me to get out of town or get buried here.”

Dear Reader,

Despite our apparent differences, most of us really do have a lot in common. One of those things might be a few lingering questions in the back of our mind that are not going to be answered in this lifetime. And that can be tough to deal with. In Justice at Morgan Mesa, Vanessa is searching for answers and justice for her murdered father. Faith sustains her during that long, difficult search. That same faith also gives her the strength to move beyond past tragedy and toward a bright future.

I hope you enjoyed spending time with Vanessa and Levi and visiting the Silver Horse Guest Ranch. I’d like to invite you to visit me on my Jenna Night Facebook page or on Twitter @Night_Jenna, where I mostly retweet pictures of cute animals.

Jenna Night

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

—Isaiah 26:3

To my mother, Esther. A source of laughter and strength.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Dear Reader

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

Extract

About the Publisher

ONE

Vanessa Ford heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, but she didn’t see anyone. Just pine forest beyond a narrow expanse of rocky soil and scraggly grass struggling to come back to life after a harsh winter.

Morgan Mesa, the place where she stood, towered a thousand feet above her hometown of Torchlight, Nevada. As a kid growing up in Torchlight, she’d been in awe of the rich people who lived on the rim of the mesa. The homes up here had looked like palaces to a little girl living in a single-wide trailer down on the flatland below. Since then she’d made something of herself as an attorney in Las Vegas, nearly five hundred miles away in the southern end of the state.

She was back in town for a few weeks to help her grandfather with preparations to open the Silver Horse Guest Ranch. He and his two closest friends had put their life savings into the endeavor. When their financing had come up short, Vanessa had kicked in some of her own money.

And while she was here, she was investigating a murder.

Standing at the edge of the mesa, she was sure she could feel someone’s gaze focused on her. A chilly breeze brushed the surface of her skin, setting the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

Snap.

The sound of a footstep breaking a twig confirmed her suspicion. Somebody was there, hidden in the forest.

A weird whistling sound pierced the quiet. Vanessa tried to convince herself the noise had been made by an animal or some kind of machine. But she knew better. Somebody was hiding in the woods, whistling a creepy melody she couldn’t quite place. Was someone deliberately trying to scare her? Her gut twisted itself into a knot and her heart began to race. Maybe she was on the verge of stumbling across something she wasn’t meant to see.

The whistling sound abruptly stopped and the sudden quiet made Vanessa’s racing heart pound even harder.

Her hands shook as she reached into her jeans pocket for her phone. She glanced toward the edge of the forest where she’d last heard the whistling, but she still couldn’t see anyone.

She held her breath and listened for sounds of somebody moving around. Whoever was hiding in the woods, watching her, could make their move at any minute. If they were armed, they could fire a shot at her without ever leaving the cover of the forest.

She didn’t have a weapon. Her car was parked a mile away. And the hiking boots she wore weren’t designed for running. Her best option was to call the police and pray they got here fast.

She’d already started punching in 9-1-1 on her phone when she glanced down at the screen. Her heart sank. No bars. No cell service. She was on her own.

She was also still close to the rim of the mesa with a one-thousand-foot drop straight down. She could not stay there. Not if some lunatic was watching her with evil intentions in mind. The rustling of the breeze through the tops of the pine trees could easily mask the sound of footsteps. Maybe the creepy whistler had moved around and was no longer in the direction of where she’d last heard him.

In the late afternoon’s blue-gray shadows, she couldn’t see if anyone was there. Whichever direction she went, she ran the risk of running directly into the lurker she was trying to avoid.

There was always the chance that it was just some fool with a twisted sense of humor taking a shortcut through the woods. Maybe he was already gone.

Or maybe not.

“Hello?” she called out. “Anybody there?”

Nothing.

And then, from among the trees, a mocking, exaggeratedly falsetto voice repeated her words. “Hello? Anybody there?”

Goose bumps dimpled the surface of Vanessa’s skin. It was time for her to leave.

She had to go through the woods to get away from the edge of the mesa. So she started walking quickly, trying to aim herself away from the direction of where she’d heard the voice. She was afraid if she ran it would trigger the person stalking her to run after her.

She’d just stepped into the dim light of the forest when the strange mocking voice called out again, “Hello? Anybody there?” This time it was directly in front of her.

Vanessa stopped. Which way should she go?

Panic clawed up from her chest into her throat. Her heart pounded in her ears.

She looked down at the phone in her shaking hand. Still no coverage. She hit 9-1-1 anyway and held the phone to her ear. Nothing. Then she looked up and immediately wished she hadn’t.

A figure stepped out from the shadows. He was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved red-and-white flannel shirt. He’d pulled his black knit cap down low over his face until it nearly covered his eyes and had covered the bottom of his face with a faded blue bandanna. And he carried a claw hammer in his right hand, tapping the prongs against the palm of his left hand. Through the fabric covering his mouth, she could hear the muffled sound of laughter. And then in a raspy, whispery voice he called out, “Get out of town or get buried here.”

He started stalking toward her.

Run!

No longer frozen in place, she took a couple of stumbling steps while trying to decide which way to go. Then she turned right and sprinted farther into the forest.

Sometimes it paid to be short. Running as fast as she could with her boots sinking into the pine straw and soft loam, at least she could duck under most of the tree branches without needing to slow down. She did a quick mental calculation and figured out if she kept going straight, she’d get to the road. Maybe somebody would drive by and she could flag them down for help.

Or maybe no one would drive by and running along the edge of the road would just make her an easier target for the lunatic with the hammer.

She needed a new plan. But what? She knew panic would cloud her judgment. She couldn’t give in to it, even though she wanted to. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But this was not the time. Lord, help!

Her car was parked in the driveway of Heaton House. It was farther away than the road, but it was a smarter choice. She veered in that direction.

Heaton House had been the height of luxury when it was built back in the late nineteenth century. Nowadays, the wealthy descendants of Alistair Heaton lived in Lake Tahoe and used it only as an occasional vacation home. Plans were in the works for turning it into a museum.

Nearly an hour ago, Vanessa had parked in the driveway before hiking out to the mesa. Other than parking on the side of the road, the house’s driveway was the only place to leave a car before coming to enjoy the beautiful view of Torchlight.

She’d come back to this spot before heading back down to the ranch because she’d been thinking about her dad and missing him. And she always felt close to him up here.

But right now, her thoughts were one hundred percent focused on avoiding his fate. She would not fall victim to a killer the way her father had all those years ago. And that meant running to her car as quickly as possible and getting away.

Her lungs burned and she gasped for air as she ran. Stark terror kept her legs pumping as hard and as fast as she could move them, but she was losing speed. The ground beneath her feet was rough and muddy, bogging her down like grasping hands.

Her pursuer was closing in on her. She could hear him.

Her phone. When she’d first arrived at Heaton House, she’d used her phone to make a call while she sat in her parked car. The signal had been fine. Maybe she was close enough to that spot to get reception now. Making a call meant slowing down, but she was slowing down anyway.

She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She glanced at the screen and saw a solitary bar. Relief poured over her. One bar was all she needed.

Her toe snagged under a tree root and she fell forward, smacking her chin and cheek hard on the ground. Her phone flew out of her hand. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see where it had landed.

Her heart sank. The fall had knocked the wind out of her and for a few panicked seconds she couldn’t catch her breath.

Behind her, she heard laughter. Then whooping and hollering. Her tormentor was enjoying this. He probably could have caught her already if he’d wanted to. He was just dragging it out for fun.

Despite the pain from her fall, Vanessa felt her face grow hot with fury. Her anger shoved aside her fear. Yet, another strategy for survival became clearer. If dragging things out was what this jerk wanted, why not use his twisted sense of fun against him?

She pushed herself up to her hands and knees and glanced back. She could see the masked stalker coming after her but he wasn’t running anymore. He was sauntering toward her, loosely swinging the claw hammer back and forth. He was that sure he had her.

Idiot.

Vanessa pushed herself up onto her feet and started a staggering jog toward Heaton House, which was now visible through the trees. She added a fake limp to keep her pursuer from chasing her any more aggressively. Let him keep making sport of the whole thing. If her plan worked, the fake limp would help her conserve energy for a final dash to her car.

If it didn’t work, she was all out of plans.

When she thought she might be close enough to where she’d parked, she reached into her pocket for her key fob and hit the unlock button. Her car made a beeping sound that betrayed her plan. She hit the alarm button, too.

Then she ran full bore, no longer faking a limp.

She heard a howl of rage close behind her and the steel hammer flashed by, smacking hard against a tree just ahead of her and splitting the bark.

That tree could have been her head.

She finally reached the edge of the scruffy-looking lawn that surrounded Heaton House. Her only obstacles now were the decorative boulders lining the driveway. Once she was past them, she’d be safe. She could get into her car and tear out of here, down the road into town and directly to the Torchlight Police Department.

She made it past the decorative boulders and stopped so suddenly she nearly toppled over. Her heart fell to her feet as she looked at her car. All four of her tires had been slashed.

At least the alarm was still blaring. There were no other houses nearby, but maybe somebody would hear the alarm and call the police. Yet, she hated to count on a “maybe.”

She turned to the house. It was nearing sunset and the exterior lights had turned on. The Heatons were so proud of this house and its role in their family history; it had to be connected to a security system. She would attempt to trigger the alarm.

She reached for the handle on the front door and tried to turn it. Of course, it was locked. It looked like there might be a security camera in the shadowy corner of the house on the other side of the front door, but she couldn’t be certain.

She stepped back, grabbed a stone the size of a softball from the ground beside the front step and chucked it through a window. An alarm sounded. She quickly threw a couple more stones until the pane was nearly gone. She yanked off her suede jacket, threw it over the bottom of the windowsill and climbed over it.

She dropped into the house, crouched down and turned to peek out the bottom of the broken window.

She didn’t see anyone. The man chasing her was out of sight. She let out a sigh. The blaring car and house alarms must have scared him away.

Something slammed into the front door beside her and she jumped. It hit again and again, and it didn’t stop. It was the guy who was chasing her. If the psychopathic creep took a second to look around, he’d see the window she’d just broken and climb through it right after her. If he just kept pounding with that stupid hammer, he was bound to eventually break through the wooden door.

Either way, he had her.

Vanessa leaped to her feet and ran farther into the house. She’d never been inside before and didn’t know which way to go. Just past the kitchen, she spotted an open door to what looked like a den and she ran for it. She slammed the door shut just as she heard the front door splinter and break open. There was no lock on the den door. She shoved a heavy end table in front of it as a barricade, fully aware it wouldn’t keep the attacker out for long.

Then the hammer started pounding on the den door. It would break any second. And the psycho would get in.

* * *

Most likely a couple of bored high school kids had busted a window at the Heaton House and set off the alarm again.

Normally, some fresh-out-of-the-academy patrol officer would have been sent to respond, but Lieutenant Levi Hawk of the Torchlight Police Department had been in the neighborhood. So when the call came in, he keyed his radio mic and let dispatch know he’d respond himself.

He followed the main road across the back of Morgan Mesa as it wound through a stretch of forest dotted with modest houses and trailers. It wasn’t as bustling as the town, but there were plenty of employees from the nearby O’Connell ranch who chose to live up here, along with a few other people who preferred the quieter setting. Property inland and away from the edge of the mesa overlooking Torchlight was actually reasonably priced and normal people could afford it. Roughly eight miles ahead, the road angled toward the dozen or so elaborate homes built closer to the mesa’s rim, each one surrounded by a few acres of the homeowner’s private forest, which was also the neighborhood where the Heaton House was located.

Dispatch contacted him again to add that they’d received a report of a blaring car alarm near the historic house. That was something different—something out of character for bored teens. Maybe this would turn out to be an interesting call after all. Levi sped up.

When he arrived at the house, he saw a gold sedan with four slashed tires parked in the driveway. The car’s alarm was still blaring, but it sounded faint and gurgling, like the car’s battery was dying down. Meanwhile, the house alarm, loud and shrill, was still going strong.

More important, the front door to the house was busted open and one of the windows was broken with some kind of cloth lying over the bottom of the frame. This didn’t look like the work of kids just fooling around. He called for backup and then got out of his police department SUV.

Moving cautiously up the driveway, he scanned his surroundings. He didn’t see anybody there, but a couple of tours with the marines in Iraq had taught him never to assume any situation was safe.

Continuing to move toward the house, he glanced into the sedan and saw a purse and a leather satchel on the front passenger-seat floor. Was the owner inside the house, injured or in danger? Had someone with bad intent broken down the door or climbed through the window after her? Levi drew his pistol and moved closer to the front door entrance.

A couple of security lights shone on the outside of the house, but inside it was filled with shadow. Plenty of places for someone to hide.

“Police!” Levi called out as he stepped past the broken door and crossed over the threshold. “Is anybody in the house?”

“Here!”

The shrieking house alarm made it hard for him to know which direction the shout had come from.

He scanned the area around him. The little bit of light coming through the windows shone on fragments of glass atop the hardwood floor. There was a trail of them that led from the broken window over to a closed door. Maybe someone in trouble was behind the door. Or maybe a bad guy wanted his attention focused on that closed door so he could attack Levi from a different direction.

“Police!” he called out again. “If anybody is in the house, show yourself!”

Over the shrill sound of the alarm, he heard something crash at the far end of the sprawling ranch house, followed by the sound of a door being yanked open. He’d already started in that direction when he heard a woman screaming, “Help me!” from behind the closed door. Drawing closer to it, he saw there were dents and cracks on it, as if whoever had broken down the front door had beaten on this one, too.

He wanted to give chase to the person who’d just fled, but he needed to check on the woman calling out for help first.

Still wary of a trap, he moved toward the door. “Who’s in there?”

“Show me your badge and police ID,” the woman demanded.

He could tell she was terrified by the trembling in her voice, but he admired the gumption she showed by standing her ground.

“You’ll see them when you see me.”

He turned the handle and pushed, but the door didn’t move.

“Wait a minute,” she called out.

It sounded like she was shoving aside something heavy. And then the door opened a couple of inches. He saw a small woman with platinum-blond curls. There were pine needles in her hair. Her chin and part of her cheek were covered with mud. Her blue eyes, wide with fear, focused first on his face, then on the area behind him and then finally on the badge pinned to his chest.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here to help you.” He was in uniform but to make her feel safe, he quickly showed her his ID.

She opened the door all the way.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. There were reddish marks on her chin and cheek.

She blew out a breath. “I’m all right.” She pulled a key fob out of her pocket and turned off the car alarm.

“What happened?” He stepped back from the den into the dining area where he could have a better view of his surroundings. He’d been inside of the house before, but it had been a while.

“Some lunatic chased me with a hammer.”

A hammer? That explained the busted-up front door.

“Do you know this person?”

She shook her head, then winced. He keyed his collar mic and called for EMS to respond. She didn’t seem to be significantly injured, but it was possible that adrenaline was masking it. Better safe than sorry. He also asked for the alarm company to be contacted so the alarm could be remotely turned off and to log a request for them to send him whatever video footage they had.

“The man who chased me didn’t identify himself, and he had his face covered,” the woman said.

Levi holstered his gun, then pulled out a chair and gestured for her to sit down. He flipped on a light switch. “What’s your name?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the alarm.

“Vanessa—” She said her last name but it was drowned out by the blare of the alarm.

“I’m Lieutenant Levi Hawk,” he responded loudly.

Suddenly the alarm stopped.

In the quiet few seconds that followed, the pinched, fearful expression on her face began to ease a little.

She took a fortifying breath and then told him a harrowing story about being chased to the house from the edge of the mesa. As she spoke, the dazed look in her eyes gave way to a more focused expression.

After she finished her story, two of his patrolmen arrived. He had them search the house.

“Why were you over by the edge of the mesa?” he asked. Any details she gave him might help him hunt down the bad guy.

Vanessa arched a pale blond eyebrow. “The Heatons allow the public to enjoy the view from their property along the mesa. They have for years.”

She was defensive. That was interesting. Levi decided to prod a little more. “Why did you decide to enjoy the view this evening?”

She frowned at him for a moment, sighed and then glanced away. “I grew up around here. Moved away. I’m back for a short while and I wanted to visit a few of my old haunts.”

“Where do you live now? What do you do?”

“Vegas. I’m a defense attorney.”

Vanessa. A memory clicked into place in the back of Levi’s mind. “What did you say your last name is?”

“Ford. My name is Vanessa Ford.”

“Are you related to Josh Ford?”

She nodded, the expression in her eyes turning sorrowful. “Yes. He was my dad.”

Levi glanced away and drew in a breath as memories tumbled through his mind. He’d just been twelve years old when Josh Ford’s lifeless body was found on a lonely stretch of road up here on the mesa. It was the first major news story of his young life that he could remember paying attention to. His parents had talked about it at the time. Everybody had. Unease had settled over the town as the weeks and months and ultimately years had passed without the murderer being found.

Vanessa had been eight years old. He remembered seeing her picture. He especially remembered seeing the lost expression in her blue eyes. For weeks, he’d been worried that something terrible would happen to his own parents, until finally that anxiety had faded.

Vanessa had already had more than enough heartache for one lifetime. She didn’t deserve to have some violent maniac chasing her.

So who was after her and why?

“Has anybody from your work threatened you?” Levi asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure? You’re a defense attorney. Hasn’t anyone you’ve defended ever gone to prison? Maybe held a grudge against you that they intended to settle when they got out? Or what about an angry victim, or their family, who felt like you helped a bad guy go free?”

She blew out a sigh. “Of course I’ve been threatened a few times, blamed by one side or the other whether my client has been convicted or gone free. As a cop, I imagine you’ve been threatened, too. Most of the time it’s just somebody blowing off steam.”

“Sometimes those aren’t empty threats. Think about it and see if you can think of some names for me to check out.”

She nodded and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. It was still the same pale blond color it had been when she was a girl. Still very curly.

“Did the guy with the hammer say anything to you?” Levi asked.

“He told me to get out of town or get buried here.”

“Get buried here, on this property? Is that what he meant?” Had she stumbled across someone illicitly using the house, doing something on the property that they wanted to remain undiscovered? There’d been talk recently of turning the house into a museum. Could someone want to sabotage that for some reason? Make people afraid to come up here?

“I don’t know what exactly he meant by his stupid threat,” she said irritably.

“Could you have crossed paths with him recently? Maybe you’d had a disagreement?”

“I’ve spent the last couple of days up here on the mesa, stopping in stores and cafés and different places, asking people if they knew or ever heard rumors about what happened to my dad. Nobody knew anything. It was all such a long time ago.” She shook her head and winced again. “What happened tonight probably doesn’t have anything to do with that. Maybe he’s just some dealer cooking meth in the woods around here.”

“Why are you conducting an investigation into your dad’s murder now?” Levi asked, feeling his heart speed up a little at the thought that the case might finally be solved. “Do you have some new information?”

“No new information. This is just something I’ve thought about doing for a long time. And now I finally have the chance to do it.”

Levi’s cop instinct told him she wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but this wasn’t the time to press. He heard the ambulance pull up into the driveway and convinced her to let a medic take a look at her.

By the time she’d been cleared, his officers had completed their search of the house and hadn’t found anyone hiding in there. He had one of them stay behind to take down basic contact information from Vanessa and make sure she got home safely. Then he grabbed a couple of flashlights from his SUV and had the other officer go with him to look for signs of the chase she’d described and to search for whatever evidence they could find.

He didn’t know what he expected to find, especially in the dark, but he knew he wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving until he’d done everything he could. Levi had experienced a rocky return to the United States after his years spent fighting overseas. When he’d finally made his way back to Torchlight, he’d become a police officer to give something back to his hometown and do something to help heal his soul. Protecting Vanessa and capturing the sick assailant who’d attacked her would help him fulfill both of those goals.

Maybe this weird attack was related to Josh Ford’s murder all those years ago. Maybe not.

TWO

“You have to tell your grandfather what happened to you tonight.”

“Of course I will.” Vanessa glanced over at the woman riding in the pickup truck’s passenger seat, Rosa Sandoval. Her husband, Pablo, had worked as a ranch hand alongside Vanessa’s grandfather for years.

When Vanessa’s grandparents started looking into buying property and turning it into a guest ranch for their working retirement, it naturally followed that they’d invite their best friends to join in the venture. Pablo and Rosa had jumped at the chance.

“I’m not trying to deceive Grandpa. I would never do that.” Vanessa downshifted her grandfather’s old truck when she came to a steep drop in the road. “It’s just that he’s finally gotten back to his normal sleeping pattern. It’s been eight months since Grandma Katherine passed away and for most of that time, I don’t think he slept more than two or three hours a night.”

“For a while there, he really was looking like something the cat dragged home,” Rosa agreed.

“Now that he’s finally back to his usual routine of lights out at eight at night and coffee in his cup by four the next morning, I don’t want to mess that up by having him worry about me tonight. He needs his rest.”

Rosa sighed loudly. “You have to tell him as soon as you get up tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will. And I’ll call my mom and let her know what happened, too.”

Vanessa glanced over and offered her a smile. Rosa was a retired parole officer, which meant she could be tough when she needed to be. Just the kind of person Vanessa wanted alongside her on the ride home tonight.

With a borrowed phone from a patrolman, Vanessa had called to have her car towed into town so the tires could be replaced and the battery checked out. Then she’d called Rosa, at the time telling her only that she’d had car trouble and needed a ride back to the ranch.

Vanessa shifted gears again when they reached the foot of the mesa and drove back onto flat land. She’d wanted to do the driving because she’d thought it would help her feel more in control. So far, it hadn’t worked. The stuff of nightmares had just happened to her. A masked lunatic had tried to kill her. With a hammer.

Thank You, Lord, for protecting me.

A cold chill passed over the surface of her skin and she drew in a quivering breath.

Rosa reached forward and turned on the heater.

After a few seconds, warm air blew out, relaxing Vanessa’s tense muscles. In a way, it made things worse. Physically relaxing made her emotions start to loosen up, and she became more conscious of them. That was the last thing she wanted right now.

What she needed to do was toughen up and pull herself together. She’d done that as a kid when her father was murdered. And again, when her mother had gotten remarried to an abusive man and it had seemed like life was just one terrible thing happening after another. She’d gone on to hone that skill of tamping down her true emotions when she became a lawyer and needed to appear confident every time she stepped into a courtroom.

“I saw Levi Hawk while I was sitting in the truck waiting for you,” Rosa said. “He’s a very determined and thorough investigator.” Despite her retirement, Rosa still kept active ties to the law enforcement community.

“Good to know,” Vanessa said. He was handsome, too. Military-cut black hair. Intelligent dark eyes. Bronze skin. And a capable, calm demeanor. Not that any of that mattered.

Vanessa tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel, directing her thoughts back to the man who’d chased her tonight, trying to think of any hint at who he was or what his motive might be. She’d been threatened a few times during the course of her career, but never anything like this. She couldn’t imagine it was connected to her work back in Vegas. Her attacker had seemed intent on getting her away from here, specifically. Why would a client with a grudge care where she went?

“What I’m wondering is whether that guy knew you were going to be up on the Heaton property and was waiting for you,” Rosa said. “Or if you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and stumbled across some creep who was desperate to scare you away for some reason. Did you tell anybody you were going to be there?”

“Yeah. Pretty much everybody I talked to on the mesa today. I had no reason to think it was dangerous to do that. I know it was a long shot, but I guess I was hoping somebody might come out and join me to tell me something new about my dad. Maybe give me some new information on what happened to him twenty years ago. I let people know I was going to be there on the Heaton property because I wanted to make it easy for anyone who didn’t want to talk to me around other people, or who might be afraid of our conversation being recorded if they talked to me on the phone.”

Rosa turned in her seat to face Vanessa. “Well, you need to make sure you don’t go to some isolated place alone again. Not until this creep is caught. And don’t tell strangers where you’re going to be.”

Vanessa felt herself trembling again. She glanced in the rearview mirror to see if they were being followed. Of course they were. They were on the only road that led down from the mesa and it intersected with the four-lane highway heading into Torchlight. You could eventually get into Torchlight by following the unpaved county roads on the mesa, but it would add a good sixty miles to the trip. She tried not to be bothered by the headlights behind her, but she felt her shoulders tighten up all the same.

“I’ll be very careful from now on, believe me,” Vanessa muttered, understanding the wisdom of the advice but still angered that she had to change what she did because of some violent crazy person.

They were nearing the intersection with the highway. Torchlight was to the left. The Silver Horse Guest Ranch—her grandfather’s new home—was to the right, several miles away.

“I bet you haven’t had dinner,” Rosa said. “We could load you up with pancakes and hot chocolate. All those carbs will make you sleepy.”

“I’m too nervous to eat anything.”

“Honey, I’ve been through some pretty hair-raising situations in my day,” Rosa said. “And my experience is that afterward you need some time with somebody you can talk to. Even if you don’t eat, you need to talk until you start to wind down a little. Then maybe when you get back to the ranch, you’ll be able to fall asleep.”

Vanessa doubted she would get any sleep tonight. She was pretty sure anytime she closed her eyes she’d see that masked figure with that claw hammer and hear him laughing. She wanted to put that experience off for as long as she could.

“Okay,” she said, turning left onto the highway. “Let’s go into town.”

* * *

The next morning, Levi turned off the highway at the sign that read Silver Horse Guest Ranch. He drove up the winding private road, early-morning sunlight filtering through the new spring leaves on the trees lining the way.

This was an unannounced visit after last night’s strange attack up on Morgan Mesa. Between searching the area on and around the Heaton property for any evidence he could find and coordinating a search for the suspect, Levi hadn’t had as much time as he’d wanted to interview Vanessa. He hadn’t found the perpetrator last night and he was anxious to get the investigation moving forward today. The creep who liked to threaten women with a hammer needed to be locked up.

Sometimes after a vicious attack, when a little time had passed, people remembered helpful details they hadn’t mentioned before. There was also the possibility that Vanessa had withheld some important bit of information intentionally last night, either because it was embarrassing or because it might incriminate her in some illegal activity. Levi wanted to talk to her while she was still a little off-balance from the attack and might find it difficult to hide the truth.

His police SUV rattled as he drove over a cattle guard. The noise might wake up some of the ranch’s vacationing guests, but that would just add to the authenticity of their visit. From his own ranching childhood, he knew waking up early was an integral part of an authentic ranch experience.

The Silver Horse Guest Ranch was sixteen miles east of town on what used to be a family-owned horse ranch. The family’s younger generation had sold out, and apparently the buyer had turned it into a guest ranch. Vanessa had told the patrol officer he’d handed her off to last night that she was staying here.

After driving through a couple of curves in the winding dirt road, the view opened up to a fenced meadow on the left and a sprawling ranch house on the right. Beyond the ranch house, scattered among the trees, he spotted several small unfinished cabins. It looked like the guest ranch wasn’t open for business yet.

A big blue storage trailer sat alongside the private drive with piles of raw lumber and paint cans stacked against it. The stables were tucked up fairly close to the ranch house with a big red barn and a couple of other storage buildings a little farther away.

Levi parked his SUV in front of the ranch house and walked up the three steps to the wide front porch. There were four rocking chairs sitting out there, each one a different style and color. An ancient-looking calico cat occupied one cushioned seat. She lifted her head and slowly blinked as he walked up. He reached out to pat her head, half expecting her to run away before he could touch her. But she didn’t.

After scratching the orange patch between her ears for a few seconds, he glanced up. The drapes were open at a pair of large windows beside the front door, and he could see Vanessa Ford inside seated in a straight-backed wooden chair, an elbow propped on the dining table beside it and her forehead pressed into the palm of her other hand.

Across from her, a tall, sinewy man in dark jeans and a long-sleeved Western shirt paced back and forth. His hair was mostly steel gray with a few black streaks while his thick mustache was almost completely black. He waved both of his arms as he talked. “You should have woken me up and told me!”

Levi was interrupting an argument. It sounded like it was about the attack on her last night. He stood by the window so they’d be able to see him, then reached over and knocked on the door.

The man looked at him first. His face was red. Then Vanessa lifted her head to look toward him. The red marks he’d seen on her chin and the side of her face after she’d tripped and fallen last night had darkened into purple bruises. The man strode over to open the door and Levi introduced himself.

“Sam Ford,” the man said in response. “Come on in, Lieutenant. I believe I have you to thank for saving my granddaughter’s life.” With that, he turned to glare at Vanessa.

Vanessa shifted her gaze to Levi. Her eyes were squinted like she was in pain. Maybe a headache. He’d fallen and smacked his head a few times and he knew how she felt. He also understood the alternating emotions of buoyant relief and sinking terror once the adrenaline wore off after someone tried to kill you.

Not that he was convinced the man who attacked her last night had truly intended to kill her. If so, she’d be dead now. The attack was almost theatrical. Fear was the goal. Now he needed some leads on who would do that to her and why.

“Sorry to interrupt your morning,” Levi said as he stepped inside. They were in a dining area. Wood floors, oak table and chairs, a couple of potted plants, coffee mugs hanging from pegs on the wall, and not much else. The current residents hadn’t been settled in for very long. “I came out to ask Ms. Ford a few questions.”

“You could have just phoned me,” she grumbled, running a fingernail up and down the handle of her coffee mug. “And call me Vanessa.”

“I wasn’t aware you’d gotten your phone back.”

Her shoulders dropped and she sighed. “I haven’t.”

“We’ve got a good group of volunteers working with a couple of officers up on the mesa. They’re doing a second search of the Heaton property now that it’s daylight. If your phone is still up there, they’ll find it.”

Levi felt another presence walk into the room and turned to see a second older gentleman, this one shorter than Mr. Ford, with sparse reddish hair. He was barrel-shaped and wearing a white cook’s apron. He walked from the kitchen area with a plate of muffins and a coffeepot. He set the muffins on the table and turned to Levi. “Good morning. Would you like some coffee?”

“Sure, thanks.”

“This is Pablo Sandoval,” Vanessa said. “Pablo, this is Lieutenant Levi Hawk.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Pablo said as he took a mug from a peg on the wall and filled it with coffee for Levi. “I’m grateful to God that you arrived at that house in time to keep something terrible from happening to Vanessa.”

Levi nodded. He was a praying man. And he, too, was grateful to God that nothing worse had happened.

“This is Rosa,” Vanessa added, making the introductions as a lady with graying hair pulled back into a tight bun walked into the room and smiled at him.

“Rosa and I know each other through work,” Levi said. “It’s good to see you.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d had to intrude on a family while doing his job. He’d accepted the offer of coffee in an attempt to be social, which wasn’t always his strong suit. But he’d been working on it. He thought about forcing a friendly smile on his face, but didn’t. His sister, Angela, told him he looked scary when he did that. “How are you feeling?” he asked Vanessa.

“Probably about how I look. Bruised.”

“Why bother asking?” her grandfather snapped. “She’ll just tell you everything’s fine. She won’t be forthcoming.”

Pablo loudly cleared his throat and gestured toward the plate he’d set on the table. “Applesauce muffins. Anybody hungry?”

Apparently, nobody was. No one made a move toward the food. Everyone’s attention was focused on Vanessa.

“So, you live in Las Vegas and your family lives here?” Levi asked her.

Vanessa started to nod, winced and stopped. “We bought this property a few months ago. There’s still a lot of work to be done before the guest ranch opens for business.”

“Do you have any leads on who attacked my granddaughter?” Sam asked impatiently.

“Not yet.” Levi watched Vanessa closely, trying to gauge whether she was holding back information. Maybe she didn’t want to talk in front of her grandfather. “I have several questions for you,” he added. “Maybe you’d like to step outside. We could talk on your porch.”

“You can talk right here,” Sam growled out. He pulled out a chair for Levi and one for himself. Pablo and Rosa headed off into the kitchen area. There was the sound of a cabinet door opening and a bag rattling. A gray tabby cat shot down the staircase beside the dining area and disappeared into the kitchen, heading toward the sound of kibble being poured into a bowl.

“Good morning, Tornado,” Levi could hear Pablo saying in the kitchen.

“Vanessa should have called me last night right after everything happened,” her grandpa said, his voice a low rumble, leaving no room for argument. He twisted in his chair to face her. “We would have gone to the hospital to have you checked out. Maybe had you stay there overnight just to be certain you were all right.” He shook his head. “No more secrets, little girl. Not with me.”

“I’m sorry, Grandpa.” Vanessa’s eyes looked watery and her nose reddened. She sniffed loudly, then turned to Levi. “Go ahead and ask your questions—it’s fine for us to stay in here.”

“First, have you thought of anything else to tell me about the events last night? Anything you remembered?”

“Not really. I’ve tried to think of anything I could add to the physical description of the guy who chased me, but I can’t.”

“That’s all right. Maybe you’ll see or hear something later that will trigger a memory. Meanwhile, you mentioned being up on the mesa to talk to people about your dad. I’ll need a list of the names of the people you spoke to.”

“I can give you the names of people I know that I’ve spoken to since I’ve been back in town. But when it comes to the people I spoke to on the mesa yesterday, I don’t know their names. They were strangers. Out of desperation to generate a lead, I took a chance and I just stopped at random places. A couple of gas stations, a coffee shop. The Carson Family Diner. I told people who I was and asked if they knew anything about my dad and what happened to him. Asked if they had any theories or ever heard any rumors about who’d murdered him or why.”

“Did anybody have anything to tell you?”

“No. I gave people my phone number in case they thought of something. And I mentioned I was going to stop at the edge of the mesa on the Heaton property and enjoy the view around sundown before I headed back down to the flatland.” She drew in a shaky breath.

“I’ll need a list of the places where you stopped to talk to people,” Levi said. “And the names of anyone back in Vegas who might be angry with you. Disgruntled clients. People who are upset because you successfully defended someone who they thought should have been convicted. Jealous colleagues, bitter exes—whatever you can think of. It’s all worth looking into. And if you can think of anyone who physically reminds you of the man who attacked you, add that name to the list, too. We’ll check them all out.”

Levi could almost physically feel how desperately this family wanted answers. Right now, though, he couldn’t give them any.

Sam cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. Levi could see the frustration in the older man’s eyes, along with the fear that had likely triggered the dressing-down he’d been giving his granddaughter when Levi first arrived.

“Are you familiar with what happened to Vanessa’s father?” Sam asked. “You would have been a kid at the time it happened, but you still might remember. It was all over the news.”

“I did grow up here, sir. I remember very well when it happened and I’m sorry for your loss. I want you to know I’ll definitely be investigating that angle, but I can’t assume what happened on the mesa last night is related to your son’s murder. I need to keep an open mind and collect as much information as I can.”

“Along with the other places I mentioned, I also stopped by the O’Connell ranch, where my dad was employed when he was murdered,” Vanessa added. She glanced at her grandpa. “Mr. O’Connell wasn’t there. Neither was his son, Trent. I talked to a couple of ranch hands, but neither of them were employed at the ranch back when the murder happened.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “It’s hard to believe that my asking simple questions after all this time would get somebody upset enough to attack me. Nobody had anything useful to tell me. Maybe it really is related to something back in Las Vegas. Or something I accidentally stumbled across.”

“Why are you asking people about your dad now?” Levi asked. When he’d asked her last night about the timing of her investigation, her answer had been vague. Now he wanted specifics. “This can’t be the only time you’ve come back to town to visit since you moved away.”

“I’ve thought about coming home, asking questions and trying to stir up interest in my dad’s murder case before, but I never had the nerve to do it. Not that I ever thought anyone would attack me,” she quickly added. “I suppose I was afraid I’d learn something about my dad I didn’t really want to know. Or that I’d hear some new detail about how he died or what his body was like when he was found that would give me nightmares.”

Levi felt a sympathetic twinge in the pit of his stomach. He could imagine the horrible nightmares she’d had about her father’s murder over the years. The terrible things she’d imagined when a dark mood settled over her. He’d experienced all of those things and more due to his combat experience. He knew the raw feeling a person was left with in the aftermath.

“So why did you decide to go through with it now?” he asked.

“My grandmother passed away recently. And that reminded me that I’m running out of time to find someone who might know what happened. At some point, any potential witnesses will pass on, too, and I’ll never be able to get an answer to the question of who murdered my father.”

“It’s not your job to find the killer,” Sam said, focusing his gaze on his granddaughter.

Vanessa reached for her coffee mug and took a sip. “It’s not anyone’s job, anymore—no one’s looked into it in years. If I don’t find answers, who will? I do some investigative work for my job, but I’m not a professional investigator,” she said to Levi. “But I thought maybe I could get some small piece of information, something that changes the timeline of events or brings somebody’s alibi into question, and I’d pass that along to the police. Anything to make my dad’s cold case active again.”

“Are you telling me you haven’t gotten that little bit of information you’re looking for yet?”

She opened her mouth as if to answer, then closed it and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’d forgotten about this until just now, but about midday yesterday I stopped to get something for lunch and my phone rang. I answered it, but whoever it was hung up. I remember the number was the local area code and prefix but I didn’t have a name associated with it in my contact list. I called back, hoping it was someone I’d talked to earlier who wanted to speak to me in private, but no one answered. I suppose it could have just been a misdialed number. But maybe not.”

Levi took out his phone and tapped the screen a couple of times. “What’s your phone number?”

She told him and he entered it into his phone. “Obviously we don’t have your phone,” he said. “But that incoming call should be listed in your phone records. I’ll check with the phone company and see what we can find out about whoever called you.”

“All right.” She nodded her agreement. Her shoulders slumped forward.

Levi could tell her energy was running low. And with good reason. She’d been through a lot last night, and probably hadn’t slept well.

He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Here’s my contact information. Email me a list of all the potential suspects you can think of from Vegas, as well as the names of the businesses where you stopped to talk to people up on the mesa. I’d like that by this afternoon.” He really wanted that information right now, but if he put too much pressure on her, he was afraid she might accidentally leave out something important.

“I’ll get all of that to you as soon as possible,” she said, taking his card. “But I’ve got a meeting with our accountant downtown at one o’clock today to go over some things, so we can get this guest ranch up and running on schedule. I can’t miss that.”

“The accountant can wait,” her grandpa said firmly, but Vanessa shook her head, not backing down.

“I’ve got to keep that appointment.” Vanessa glanced at Levi. “My boss is expecting me back at work in a couple of weeks. I’ve got a schedule of things I want to accomplish while I’m here in Torchlight and I need to stick to it. But I’ll make sure I get you that information today.”

“Thank you.” Levi got to his feet.

Sam Ford also stood and reached out to shake Levi’s hand. “Thank you again for helping my granddaughter. You come out here and ask questions anytime you need to.”

Levi nodded. “Thank you, sir. I will.”

Vanessa walked him to the door. When she pulled it open, the old calico cat that had been sitting in the rocking chair made a surprisingly fast dash into the house and toward the kitchen. Clearly, she knew where the feline breakfast was being served.

Vanessa smiled as the cat ran by her feet. Seeing that smile on a face marked by bruises made Levi’s chest ache. Vanessa had already suffered through so much. But apparently somebody wanted her to suffer even more.

“When you go into town this afternoon, don’t go alone,” he said as he headed down the steps.

“I’ll be careful,” she assured him.

“Good.”

Once he was clear of the porch, he stopped, turned and waited for her to go back into the house and shut the door.

The problem with being careful was that sometimes it simply wasn’t enough. You couldn’t predict every single thing that could go wrong. He’d learned that in a war zone overseas. He’d witnessed it again as a cop after he came home.

If someone was willing to attack Vanessa with a hammer, there was no telling what they might do next. And no way to be prepared for their next move.

THREE

Vanessa was once again behind the wheel of her grandfather’s reliable old truck. Just like last night, she hoped that driving would give her a sense of control as she steered it into town. So far it actually had helped her calm down a little. And it gave her mind something to do other than replay the terrifying scenes from last night.

“Maybe I should scrap my plans and stick with you,” Rosa said as Vanessa pulled into a parking space and left the engine idling.

Grandpa had wanted to come with them, but Vanessa eventually convinced him to stay at the ranch. Physical work would calm him down, which was exactly what he needed and what Vanessa wanted. Plus, Rosa had her pistol. She could protect Vanessa quite adequately if it came to that.

“Rosa, I’ll be fine.” Vanessa’s response came out sounding like a snarl. That was not her intention. She tried again. “You’re just making excuses so you don’t have to let Marisol Beltran’s granddaughter show you a thing or two about technology,” she added, while focusing on making her tone sound lighter and putting an awkward smile on her lips.

Truly, she was grateful to Rosa for accompanying her into Torchlight, but she didn’t want to be coddled. She wanted the long list of tasks assigned to everyone to be completed on time so they could open the Silver Horse Guest Ranch on schedule.

Rosa had already made arrangements for today to meet with a technology coach to get help upgrading the simple website she’d set up to include an online reservations system. She’d been miffed to discover her “coach” was only twenty years old and the granddaughter of a friend. Rosa had held her when she was a baby and that didn’t seem all that long ago.

Rosa opened the door, but instead of getting out she turned to Vanessa. “Maybe instead of you dropping me off, I should drive you to the accountant’s office and make sure you get inside safely.”

Vanessa took a deep breath and squeezed the steering wheel as tight as she could before releasing it. It was a tension-relieving technique she’d learned years ago and at the moment it was helping a little.

She understood the concern behind Rosa’s offer, but having her loved ones hover just made her feel more anxious. Of course she was afraid. Every time she’d glanced at the truck’s mirrors on the drive over she’d seen the dark purple bruises. A reminder that if Levi hadn’t shown up when he had, her night could have had a far worse ending.

But she was determined not to let fear paralyze her. She’d seen what had happened to her mother after her father’s death. And again, after her mom had married a man whose attitude and behavior were poisonous.

Vanessa did pro bono legal work for women living in a shelter in Las Vegas. And as so often happens, in helping others she’d received more than she’d given away. Among other things, she’d heard counselors talk to the women about being cautious and safe, but also about doing their best to not let anxiety torment them and create a stronghold in their minds.

Vanessa was not going to let some idiot with a hammer torment her. She was not going to let some violent jerk control her the way her stepfather had controlled her mother.

She would be cautious. Smart. Reasonable.

“I’ll be fine,” she said to Rosa, managing to keep her tone light and easy. “I’m going to the accountant’s office and then by the library. And the police station is smack in the middle of town so it’s close to both places. Everything will be fine. Now, you get in there and learn something about the exciting world of online reservations processing.”

Rosa hesitated for a few seconds before finally nodding in agreement and exiting.

Vanessa steered the truck back onto the road, drove a couple of blocks over and found an open spot where she could park on the street directly in front of the public library. She cut the engine and sent her grandpa a text, as promised, on the phone Pablo had lent her, letting him know she had arrived safely.

And then, sitting alone in the truck, she realized she didn’t feel quite as brave as she had a few minutes ago. But she couldn’t just sit there. She turned in her seat and took a look through the windows all around the truck before she opened the door, just in case someone was there waiting to jump her. A trio of cars slowly drove by and she found herself closely watching them, heart in her throat, half expecting to see that nutjob from the mesa with his hat pulled down low and a bandanna over the bottom of his face riding inside one of them.

Of course, that was not the case. They were just normal people going about their business in a small western town in Nevada. Nothing threatening about that.

So much for willing herself to be calm and fearless.

Dear Lord, I pray for Your presence and protection and I thank You for it.

Why was prayer so often the last thing she thought of for comfort when it should have been the first?

Pondering that, she crossed the street heading for the accountant’s office. Hopefully, talking about numbers would take her thoughts off her other worries for the next hour or so.

Her grandparents and the Sandovals were not wealthy people, but they’d been willing to take a chance and invest their retirement savings in the guest ranch because all of them wanted to live and work in the horse-friendly kind of setting they loved. When they discovered they didn’t have enough money to buy the property they’d chosen and pay for all the repairs and renovations they’d need to convert the operation and pay the bills until the business started to turn a profit, Vanessa had contributed her own money to the venture.

And they’d promptly assigned her as the person to deal with the accountant because none of them wanted to do it. But she hadn’t minded. A genuine smile crossed her lips as she thought of how blessed she was to have such good and loving people in her life. She would think of them every time the image of that hammer-swinging stalker up on the mesa tried to worm its way back into her mind.

Vanessa had an awkward first few moments with the accountant as she explained the bruises on her face and what had happened to her. Fortunately, after checking to make sure she was all right and didn’t need to postpone their discussion, the accountant followed her lead and they quickly redirected the topic to the financial issues concerning the ranch. After an hour and a half of talking numbers, Vanessa was finished and she headed back across the street to the library for the next item on her list of tasks.

This wasn’t for the ranch, but for her research into her father’s murder. There were many articles about the case, but they yielded frustratingly few details. Vanessa pored over them carefully, hoping to find some detail previously missed or ignored, but her hope dwindled as the hours passed.

Later, when Vanessa stepped out of the library, she gazed out at the dusky horizon to the east. She should have left sooner. But she’d gotten so caught up in old newspapers that she hadn’t realized how late it was until a librarian told her they needed to close. She texted Rosa to tell her she was on her way. Rosa replied that she, too, had gotten caught up in what she was learning and had also lost track of time. She would be waiting outside the tech coach’s office for Vanessa to pick her up.

Vanessa had printed a few articles at the library and now held the pages in the crook of her arm. Current editions of the Torchlight Beacon newspaper were available online, but older editions were not. There were no digitized archives she could access and she’d had to do her research the old-fashioned way by looking at spools of film at the library. At least the clunky old last-millennium viewing machine she’d had to use was connected to a printer.

She started down the steps to the sidewalk and spotted a familiar figure in a dark blue police uniform standing by her grandfather’s truck. She glanced around to make sure she hadn’t missed a no-parking sign. “Don’t tell me you’re giving me a ticket,” she said to Levi as she walked up to him.

He responded with a half smile and Vanessa’s heartbeat sped up a little. Then he shook his head. “No ticket. I just thought I’d hang around until you came out of the library to see how you’re doing. And also thank you for sending me the information I’d asked for.”

“So you’re following me now?” she teased him a little, hoping to see that fleeting bit of a smile again. Most of the time, he looked so serious and professional. Which was fine for a police officer. But that hint of a smile threw something boyish into his appearance. And Vanessa wanted to see it again.

“I didn’t have to follow you. I was in the neighborhood.” He hooked a thumb toward the police department headquarters on the opposite side of the street the next block down. “The truck you’re driving is distinctive. I noticed it when I was at the ranch.”

The right front fender of grandpa’s truck was canary yellow while the rest of it was sky blue. “I came out to grab something for dinner and spotted it. I went inside the library to see if you were the driver. You looked pretty engrossed in what you were doing. I didn’t want to disturb you, and I knew you’d be out soon since it was just about closing time. So, here I am.”

He’d been waiting for her. She felt like smiling but didn’t let it show.

The tickling sensation in her stomach had to be part of the emotional aftereffects from the attack last night. Vanessa Ford did not get giddy over men she barely knew.

“Well, I’m fine,” she said, her voice coming out a little higher pitched than normal. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yeah.” He held up her phone. “Do you recognize this?”

She nodded and reached for it. “That’s mine.”

“It was found a pretty good distance from where our trackers believe you tripped.” He handed it to her. “I haven’t heard back from the phone company about accessing your records yet. If you want to punch in your password and read off the number from the hang-up call you received yesterday, I can send it to our tech guy to trace. Hopefully, it’s not an anonymous prepaid number.”

She tapped a few digits on the screen until it unlocked. She quickly found the number and read it off. Levi sent his text.

“Is there anything else you need?” she asked.

“That’s all for now. But I’m going to hang around until you’re safely back in your truck and on your way.”

“Thank you.” Vanessa shifted the stack of articles she held in the crook of her arm as she reached into her purse for the truck keys, but she shifted at the wrong angle and the papers fluttered down, fanning across the grimy sidewalk. She snuck a look over to the officer standing by her side. What would be his reaction when he saw that they were all articles about her father’s murder?

* * *

Levi leaned down to help Vanessa pick up her dropped papers before the breeze sent them out into the street. A slight gust blew one of the sheets over as he reached for it, displaying a screenshot of a front-page banner headline: “Cowboy Shot Dead on Morgan Mesa.”

A picture filled the top half of the page and showed a smiling young man wearing a gray cowboy hat and a Western shirt. He had Sam Ford’s thick mustache and longish face. But his hair was the same pale blond color as Vanessa’s. Below the picture, in smaller type, the caption read “Local rodeo champ Josh Ford dead at twenty-eight.”

Vanessa gently tugged at the paper in his hand and he let go of it. Her eyes were red and starting to shimmer. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for her to have to read something like that. Never mind the heartache of having to live through it as an eight-year-old child.

“I remember my parents talking about this when it happened,” Levi said as he helped her collect the rest of the dropped pages. “They didn’t know your dad personally, but they’d seen him competing at Torchlight Rodeo Days a couple of times.”

Vanessa straightened the papers in her hands and nodded to let him know she’d heard him. Tears fell from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her face.

Levi took a step forward, about to wrap his arms around her. But then he realized what he was doing and stopped himself. This was a line he did not want to cross. He was a professional, and that was reason enough to hold himself back. He could never acknowledge that spark of personal concern he felt for her. It would only lead to trouble.

Still, he wanted to offer her some comfort. She’d probably just spent at least an hour looking over articles containing awful details and looking at her dad’s picture.

There are some experiences you don’t ever get over. He knew that from personal experience. He’d seen friends closer than brothers and sisters mortally wounded in combat zones. He still thought of them every single day.

Finally, he reached out and rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He might have already told her that at the ranch, but he’d tell it to her every day if she needed him to.

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath and appeared a little steadier. He let his hand drop back down to his side.

“Nobody was ever brought to trial for what happened to your dad, right?” he asked, trying to remember what had happened in the aftermath. There would be records of the investigation in the police department storage. They would include details that had not been made public.

“No one was charged with the murder,” she said. “A few people were brought in for questioning. Two men, Kenny Goren and Eddie Scott, were brought in more than once. People anticipated one or the other would eventually be arrested and charged, but it never happened.”

It would be interesting to know if those two men had been cleared of the crime, or if there just wasn’t enough evidence to charge them.

While she was talking, Vanessa unlocked the truck and set her papers and purse on the passenger seat.

“I’ll follow you back to the ranch,” Levi said. “Make sure you get there safely.”

“That’s not necessary. I won’t be going alone. Rosa’s in town, too. I’m going to pick her up and we’ll ride back to the ranch together.”

Levi wasn’t convinced that was enough protection.

“Don’t worry,” Vanessa said as she climbed into the truck. “Rosa brought her gun.”

Levi stepped back so she could close the door. Then he watched her start up the truck, cautiously pull away from the curb and then head down the road.

Conducting a murder investigation could be a dangerous undertaking for anyone. Even if the murder was a case that had run cold years ago.

That harrowing attack on the mesa last night might not even be about her dad’s murder. But now that Levi had started thinking about her father’s case, he couldn’t stop. Maybe it was time for the police department to focus on it once again.

Levi walked down the street and into a sandwich shop where he ordered a couple of roast beef subs and two cups of coffee. While he was waiting, he received a text from the police department tech giving the name associated with the hang-up call Vanessa had received. Marv Burke. The name didn’t ring any bells for him, but maybe it would mean something to Vanessa.

He carried the food and coffees back to the police station and strode directly to the chief’s office, where he knocked on the open door and waited for the chief to stop typing on his keyboard. Finally, Chief Haskell leaned back in his chair and barked out, “Enter.”

Levi dropped one of the sandwiches on the desk in front of the chief and set a cup of coffee close to it.

The chief rubbed a thick hand across his freckled bald head and peered suspiciously at Levi. Then he reached for the sandwich. “You obviously want something.”

Levi didn’t bother trying to deny it. “Chief, do you remember the murder of that cowboy, Josh Ford, up on Morgan Mesa about twenty years ago?”

“Of course.” He unwrapped his sandwich. “I was a patrolman back then. Heard the original call go out over the radio after a motorist found the body. You would have just been a kid back then.” He popped open the lid on his coffee and took a sip.

“What do you remember about it?”

The chief sighed. “Poor guy was found lying dead in the middle of a road up on the mesa. Single point-blank gunshot to his chest. The newspaper was calling it ‘Murder Mesa’ for a while. His pickup truck was parked on the edge of the road, the driver’s-side door hanging open and the engine still running when he was found.”

“What kind of leads did you get?”

“A lot of chatter, but not much physical evidence. There were a couple of suspects that looked good for it, but both got cleared for some reason or other.” He shook his head. “It’s a shame we were never able to lock anybody up for it. Josh Ford worked on the O’Connell ranch, it was payday and they paid cash, and his wallet was missing. Most of us figured it for a robbery gone bad.

“There were some wild theories about there being a psycho on the loose up there, but on the whole, most people wanted to believe the killer was some transient who was long gone. They get some seasonal workers up there who come and go and nobody ever knows who they really are. Could have been one of them, I suppose.” The chief shrugged and Levi got the feeling he didn’t really believe that was the case. “There was also talk that murder might have been the motive and the scene was just set up to look like a robbery. But nobody could ever find anything to prove that.”

Levi flipped open the lid on his own coffee and took a sip. “What do you know about Josh Ford?”

When he was a kid, Levi and his family had been fans of the young cowboy. They were all heartbroken when their local hero was murdered, but Levi had been especially devastated. In his young mind it had felt to him like a member of his own family had died. Maybe because each time he’d seen Josh compete, it had been as part of a Hawk family outing. Now, with the perspective of an adult, Levi realized he didn’t really know much at all about Vanessa’s father.

“I didn’t know him personally,” the chief said. “Just knew of him. He was a good calf roper. Won a lot of competitions. His wife, Claire, was a pretty decent barrel racer. She and her daughter used to dress in matching fancy fringed shirts with lots of rhinestones when they were at a rodeo.”

Levi unwrapped his sandwich. “Do you think it’s a coincidence their little girl is the woman who was attacked on the mesa last night? Especially since the attack came after she’d spent the day asking questions about the murder?”

“I feel the same way most cops do about coincidence. It makes me suspect something more is going on.” The chief set down his sandwich and wiped the crumbs from his hands. “So you want to reopen the Josh Ford case?” He raised an eyebrow. “In addition to the workload you already have?”

“Yes, sir, I do. Vanessa’s questions could be what triggered the attack. She thinks there could be somebody with information who won’t talk to a cop, but who will talk to her. And if the attack truly is connected, that means there’s information out there someone doesn’t want her to find.”

The chief took a bite of his sandwich and thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of a civilian putting herself in danger to do something that’s technically police business.”

“Yeah, but she seems determined to ask her questions and try to develop some kind of lead. At least if I work with her, I can protect her if she ends up in a dangerous situation.”

The chief looked doubtful.

“It’s only for a couple of weeks,” Levi added. “And then she has to get back to her job in Las Vegas.”

“I do like the idea of you keeping an eye on her, especially if there are any additional attacks.” The chief leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. For a few seconds he turned his gaze away from Levi and toward the window into the squad room where he could watch his officers work. “First the murder, then that stepfather of hers.”

“What about the stepfather?” Levi asked. And could he be a suspect for the attack on the mesa?

The chief shifted his gaze back to Levi. “Her mother, Claire Ford, was a young woman when her husband was murdered. She got remarried pretty quickly to Jason Taylor, a regional rodeo star who turned out to have issues with drinking and violence. He moved them out of town, isolated them. Sadly, Claire had to call the cops out to the house a couple of times when he lost his temper and got physical with her. Each time, the same officer responded.

“I don’t know what exactly happened. Maybe the stepfather hit the mom and she hit him back. Maybe the stepfather was an excellent liar, or a personal friend of the officer’s. In any event, the cop was not correctly trained for domestic violence calls. He told Claire if she pressed charges against her husband, she could be locked up alongside him and possibly lose custody of her daughter. I imagine she didn’t know who to turn to for help.

“One night in a drunken rage, Jason fired his gun and nearly hit Vanessa. Her mom grabbed her and ran. She went to the police despite her fears of going to jail and losing her daughter.” The chief sighed. “Jason served time. The police officer eventually took a job in another town.”

That helped answer a question Levi had been turning over in his mind. Why would a woman whose father had been murdered become a defense attorney rather than working for a prosecutor? Maybe it was because her mother could have gotten out of a dangerous situation sooner if she’d gotten some good legal advice.

Life had given Vanessa Ford some hard knocks. But she’d survived them and she was strong. Levi had already seen evidence of that. Still, it wouldn’t hurt if she had someone by her side, helping her for a little while. And Levi would like to do exactly that.

“Just don’t get tunnel vision,” the chief said and he balled up the paper wrapper from his sandwich and tossed it in the trash. “We’ve got a modern-day crime to solve with the attack on the mesa last night. The perp you’re looking for might try to attack Vanessa again. That case is your priority. We don’t know for certain if the murder twenty years ago has anything to do with it.”

“Yes, sir.” Levi’s heart ached at the thought of everything Vanessa had already suffered. And there was likely more trouble still to come.

Please, Lord, help me keep her safe.

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