family. The inn where Carley now lived in a converted attic apartment.
Murder on her own doorstep.
That couldn’t have been easy for a peace officer to accept. Especially this peace officer.
Unless she’d changed a whole bunch in the past couple of years—and Sloan doubted that she had, Carley would have taken this crime personally even if she hadn’t been shot. Justice was her town, and keeping it safe was her responsibility.
Sloan reholstered his own weapon, and because of that wince, he nearly moved closer to check on her. However, Carley’s steely expression had him staying put. It’d be suicide to try to get a look at her wound, especially since it would involve unbuttoning the shirt of her khaki uniform.
Definitely suicide.
So why did he even consider it?
Sloan gave that a little thought and he quickly figured out why. Despite the surly glower, Carley Matheson looked vulnerable.
Yeah.
A man didn’t have to dig too deep to find it. The vulnerability was there, stashed beneath that khaki uniform, shiny badge and five-and-a-half-foot-tall lanky body. Her sea-green eyes were sleep-starved. Her normally tanned skin was shades too pale. Her brown-sugar hair was pulled back into a near haphazard ponytail that left stray wisps fluttering around her neck. She looked weary.
No, Carley hadn’t fully recovered from her injuries and yet she was apparently on the job.
Part of him admired her for that.
The other part of him wasn’t pleased that she was in his way. And she was definitely in his way.
“Why are you out here?” he asked.
For a moment Sloan thought she would fire that exact question right back at him. Instead she pointed to the eaves on the backside of the police station. Specifically to the surveillance camera that was mounted there. Or, rather, what was left of the camera. It had sustained some major damage and was no doubt disabled.
“I had it installed early yesterday morning,” Carley explained. She walked toward it, propped her hands on her hips and stared up at it.
Sloan lifted a shoulder. “Why? When I was sheriff, we didn’t have a surveillance camera.”
That earned him a glaring glance. “When you were sheriff, you also didn’t have anyone attempt to break into your office, now did you? Nor did someone try to kill two women right in this area. This is definitely a place that needs some 24-7 surveillance.”
He knew about the attempted murders. One was Carley’s own shooting that’d taken place in the parking lot of the inn adjacent to where they stood now. The other, the more recent one, involved his soon-to-be sister-in-law, Anna Wallace, and the attempt to kill her in the police station itself. Sloan’s brother, Zane, was still beyond riled that he hadn’t been able to catch the person who’d tried to murder the woman he loved.
Sloan had been briefed about those near deadly attempts but not about the camera or the first concern that Carley had addressed.
“Someone tried to break into the police station?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.” She slapped at the yellow crime-scene tape that the breeze was batting against her side. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard. It’s all over town.”
“I only arrived an hour ago.” But Sloan was a little miffed that he hadn’t already been informed about this from his brother, Zane—the Ranger who was heading the investigation into Sarah Wallace’s murder. Zane had certainly been thorough in his updates about the murder itself and the subsequent attacks, but he’d apparently left out this little detail. It made Sloan wonder if and how it fit into the grand scheme of things.
“You think this busted camera and the attempted break-in are related to Sarah Wallace’s death?” Sloan asked.
Her icy glare melted away. “Maybe. The killer might have thought your brother stored evidence inside. After all, Sarah’s sister, Anna, did find those papers, the ones that Sarah had hidden. Zane put them somewhere, and the most logical place would be here at the police station.”
Since her inflection made it seem as if she had something to add to that, Sloan stared at her.
Their eyes met.
The morning sun was still haloing around her, and despite the khaki polyester attire, she looked…interesting. She smelled interesting, too. Like fresh coffee, cream and honey. Because he was a male and therefore driven by totally stupid urges that could never be logically explained, he felt that punch of interest that he often felt when he was looking at an attractive woman.
And Carley was attractive, no doubt about it.
She was also hands-off.
Because in a bottom-line kind of way, they were enemies. Not just regular enemies, either. Big-time enemies with a feud that’d been going on for sixteen years, since Carley was barely thirteen years old. He’d only been fifteen at the time, but time didn’t matter when an issue like this was at stake. Even lust and basic attraction weren’t enough to make him forget that this was a woman who would do anything within her power to have his father arrested.
Carley had been the primary witness against his father sixteen years ago. Jim McKinney, a decorated Texas Ranger, had been accused of murdering his lover, Lou Ann Wallace Hendricks. If it hadn’t been for Carley’s statement that she’d seen his father drunk and disheveled leaving Lou Ann’s room at the inn, there probably would have been no arrest. No trial.
No total meltdown of his family.
Sloan’s family had been ripped apart because of the questionable eyewitness account of a teenage girl. Carley Matheson.
Remembering that certainly cooled down Sloan, and it got his mind back where it should be—on that damaged surveillance camera and her need to have it installed in the first place. In addition to Carley’s theory of a break-in to search for evidence, Sloan had a theory of his own.
“The camera overlooks the wooded area where the killer likely escaped,” Sloan explained. “That could be the motive for destroying it.”
She turned and stared out into the thick woods. “You mean because there’s almost certainly some sort of evidence out there.”
“You bet, and maybe the killer wanted to look for it without the camera recording it.” And that included evidence regarding Carley’s own shooting.
Judging from her slight shift of posture, she considered that, as well.
“So how exactly did you end up in the line of fire of a .38?” Sloan wanted to know. Zane had briefed him, but he wanted to hear what had happened from Carley herself.
Carley eased her hands into her pockets. “I was in my office, working late. I saw something move outside the window. Or, rather, I saw someone wearing dark pants and boots run past the window and into the woods. I grabbed my gun and hurried out to see what was going on, to see if I could catch up with the person.”
“At this point you didn’t know Sarah Wallace had been murdered?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I had no idea. It’d probably only happened minutes before I saw this person. Anyway, I went in pursuit, but by the time I got to the parking lot of the inn, he or she had disappeared into the woods. And then bam. Next thing I knew, I was face-first in the dirt and it felt as if someone had set fire to my ribs.” She drew in a hard breath. “I really want to catch this SOB.”
Oh, man. More vulnerability. She didn’t quiver or tremble. There was no deep level of emotion in her voice. But that bullet had robbed Carley of something that Sloan understood all too well.
Peace of mind.
“You’ll heal,” he told her.
She angled her eyes in his direction. “The voice of experience?”
He