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Kendall’s scream pierced the still night and turned the blood in Coop’s veins to ice.
Coop had already been making his way back down the drive when he’d heard Kendall’s truck coming back to the house. Now his boots grappled for purchase against the soggy leaves on the walkway as he ran toward Kendall.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” By the time he reached her, he was panting as if he’d just run a marathon.
She’d stumbled back from the truck and stood staring at the tailgate with wide, glassy eyes. Raising her arm, she pointed to the truck with her cell phone. She worked her jaw but couldn’t form any words—no coherent words, anyway.
He pried the phone from her stiff fingers, aimed the light at the truck bed and jumped onto the bumper. The phone illuminated a light-colored tarp with something rolled up in it.
“I-it’s a body.”
Single Father Sheriff
Carol Ericson
CAROL ERICSON is a bestselling, award-winning author of more than forty books. She has an eerie fascination for true-crime stories, a love of film noir and a weakness for reality TV, all of which fuel her imagination to create her own tales of murder, mayhem and mystery. To find out more about Carol and her current projects, please visit her website at www.carolericson.com, “where romance flirts with danger.”
To my sister Janice, my cheerleader
Contents
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
“Let go of my sister.” The little girl with the dark pigtails scrunched up her face and stomped on the masked stranger’s foot.
He reached out one hand and squeezed her shoulder, but she twisted out of his grasp and renewed her assault on him, pummeling his thigh with her tiny fists.
The monster growled and swatted at the little girl, knocking her to the floor. “You’re too much damned trouble.”
As he backed up toward the door, carrying her sleeping twin over one shoulder, the girl lunged at his legs. “Put her down!”
With his free hand, the stranger clamped down on the top of her head, digging his fingers into her scalp, holding her at bay. As he gave one last push, he yanked off the pink ribbon tied around one of her pigtails and left her sprawled on the floor.
She scrambled to her knees, rubbing the back of her head. Whatever happened, she couldn’t let the man take Kayla out that door. She crawled toward his legs once more.
“Your parents are gonna wish I took you instead of this one.” Then he kicked her in the face and everything went black.
* * *
KENDALL RAN A HAND across her jaw as she dropped to her knees in front of the door. “I’m sorry, Kayla. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
Common sense and her therapist’s assertion that a five-year-old couldn’t have done much against a full-grown man intent on kidnapping her twin were no match for twenty-five years of guilt.
Kendall leaned forward, touching her forehead to the hardwood floor. She’d relegated the trauma of that event to her past, stuffed it down, shoved it into the dark corner where it belonged. Now someone in Timberline was bringing it all back and that sheriff expected her to help in the investigation of a new set of kidnappings.
If she could help, she would’ve done something twenty-five years ago to bring her sister home. Her heart broke for the two families torn apart by the same torment that destroyed her own family but she couldn’t save them, and that sheriff would have to look elsewhere for help solving the crimes.
She’d come back to Timberline to sell her aunt’s house—nothing more, nothing less. It just so happened that her aunt’s house was the same house where she’d spent many days as a child, the same house from which someone abducted her twin sister and had knocked her out cold.
Raising her head, she zeroed in on the front door. She could picture it all again—the stranger with the ski mask, her sleeping sister thrown over one of his shoulders. Much of what followed had been a blur of hysterical parents, soft-spoken police officers, sleepless nights and bad dreams.
She still had the bad dreams.
Someone knocked on the door, and her muscles tensed as she wedged her fingers against the wood floor like a runner ready to shoot out of the blocks.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Wyatt, Wyatt Carson.”
Her thundering heartbeat slowed only a fraction when she heard Wyatt’s voice. If she was looking for someone to bring her out of the throes of these unpleasant memories, it wasn’t Wyatt.
Clearing her throat, she lumbered to her feet. “Hold on, Wyatt.”
She brushed the dust from her knees and pushed the hair back from her face. Squaring her shoulders, she pasted on a smile. Then she swung open the door to greet the last man she wanted to see right now.
“Hey, Wyatt. How’d you know I was back?”
“Kendall.” He swooped in for a hug, engulfing her in flannel and the tingly scent of pine. “You know Timberline. Word travels fast.”
“Supersonic.” She mumbled her words into his shoulder since he still held her fast.