staircase. Cade County wasn’t small, but it was rural, and the population was low, making one grand building a sufficient hub for the courthouse and local government offices, including hers at the County Treasurer. Oil paintings of the governor, senator and US presidents lined the second-floor hallways.
Rita ducked into her office and dropped onto her rolling chair with determination. Once she cleared the clutter from her head and desk, she’d give the sheriff’s department a call. Anonymously. She’d been trespassing, after all, and she wouldn’t be in this predicament if she’d obeyed the law and heeded the sign. She dropped her head into waiting palms. What would she say? She suspected that something bad happened? The storm had surely erased any evidence, and hadn’t a deputy been there last night?
Why, yes. He had. And she’d run from him. A groan escaped her lips.
“Good morning, Rita!” A perky voice split the silence.
Rita jerked upright. “Hello.”
The receptionist stared expectantly. “You’re here bright and early.” She fluffed giant blond hair and straightened a spray of stiff bangs.
“Hoping to catch up.” Rita motioned to the pile of folders on her desk.
“Any luck?”
“Not really.” She shouldn’t have come in today. The office didn’t feel like a distraction. It felt like a prison. “I think I’m going to make a coffee run before I get started.” Maybe a little fresh air would help. “Can I get you something?”
The woman raised her steaming mug higher. “Kinda got that covered.”
“Right. Sorry.” Rita grabbed her coat and purse. “I won’t be long.” She straightened her white silk blouse and black pencil skirt, then hustled downstairs, taking the side exit into a public garden to catch her breath.
A slight drizzle forced her to stay near the door, where a small overhang served as shelter. The benches were wet. The ground waterlogged. Narrow puddles filled the spaces between walkway paving stones. She inhaled the cool, misty air and shook her hands out at the wrists. She didn’t need fresh air or caffeine. She needed answers, and the only way she’d get them was to call the police like she should have done last night. It was better to report something that turned out to be nothing than to not speak up and find out later that her call could have helped someone.
She marched back inside with resolve and climbed the stairs to her office. Her steps slowed at the sight of a deputy speaking with the receptionist inside her glass office doors. If she truly planned to report what she’d seen, this was the time, but her muscles seemed to atrophy at the thought. There was something unsettling about his stance. She hadn’t seen the faces of the men at the docks, but this deputy seemed familiar in a way that raised the hair on her arms.
She slipped into an alcove and waited. When the deputy reappeared on the steps to the building’s front doors, she dialed the main line to the receptionist.
“Cade County Treasurer. This is Cyndi.”
“Hi, Cyndi, this is Rita.”
“Rita? Talk about timing! A deputy sheriff was just in here looking for you. Did he find you? I told him you went for coffee. Probably at that diner around the corner. Is that where you went?”
A cold sweat broke over Rita’s brow. “Yes. Did he say what he wanted?”
“No. Only that he’d hoped to catch you.”
“Did you get his name?”
Cyndi paused. “No. Honey, are you in some kind of trouble?”
Rita moved double time down the rear staircase. “No. Not at all. I’m feeling sick, though. I think that’s why I was so distracted earlier. It’s really hitting me now.”
“Oh, well, then you should go home. I can’t afford to get sick. Remember when I got that stomach flu last spring?”
How could she forget? Anytime anyone complained about so much as a headache in Cyndi’s presence, they were reminded of her personal near-death experience in March. “Mmm-hmm. You know what? I think I have that.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yep. I’m going to head home. Rest.” Rita jogged through the door and across the employee lot toward Ryan’s decrepit compact. “Cyndi? I’ve got to go. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You need lots of fluids.”
“Okay.” She dropped behind the steering wheel and gunned the little engine to life. What she really needed was to go home and pull herself together. “Thank you. Goodbye.”
The phone rang in her hand, and she tossed it aside. The only person she’d answer for today was Ryan, and that wasn’t his number. Everyone else could get in line.
She made a bunch of paranoid and probably unnecessary turns before arriving on her street almost twenty minutes later. Several neighbors stood on her lawn beside a cruiser in the driveway. Fear and panic bubbled in her core.
She cranked Ryan’s window down and hooked an elbow over the frame. “Mrs. Wilcox,” she stage-whispered. An elderly woman turned to face her. The woman hustled in her direction.
“What’s going on?” Rita asked, sinking low in the driver’s seat. Her tummy bubbled with anxiety at the sight of a cruiser at her home.
“Betty was jogging past and saw the cats in your yard.” She pointed to a woman in hot pink running gear and a matching sun visor. “She recognized them because they spend so much time in your window.”
“My cats were outside?” Rita gasped. “Are they okay?”
“Well, yes,” she said, glancing back at Rita’s home. “Betty collected the little lovebugs, then knocked on your door and it opened. The whole place was a mess, so she dropped them inside, pulled the door shut, then came to me, and I called the cops.”
A rock formed in Rita’s throat. “My house is a mess?” she croaked.
The older woman bobbed her head. “Trashed. The deputy was here in minutes. Must’ve been in the area.”
Her heart hammered and her pulse beat in her ears. Someone had been in her home.
And a deputy was in there now.
Cole had gritted his teeth and dragged his heels when the call came in from Dispatch about a possible B and E on Maple. Leaving West alone with an active murder investigation seemed irresponsible, but one of the problems in a department with only six deputies was coverage. The next man’s shift wouldn’t start for two hours unless West called him in sooner. Meanwhile, the homeowner on Maple had left work early and wasn’t answering her phone. Cole had reluctantly made the trip to check on things.
The front door was unlocked with no signs of tampering, but the place had been destroyed. The neighbors hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary, but every item in sight was upended, overturned or partially disassembled. Bookshelves were emptied. Drawers were dumped. Yet the television and computer were completely untouched.
Not a very effective robbery. So why break in? And where was the homeowner? He double-checked the name on his notepad. Rita Horn. Maybe this was revenge. Something personal. Maybe the work of a jaded ex or wronged family member.
Whatever it was, it was weird.
He scrubbed a palm over his face. First a body had turned up in the river, and now there was a break-in east of the railroad tracks. In a neighborhood known for its distinct lack of crimes. His exhale was long and slow. What was going on with this day?
The tip of his boot nicked a fallen photograph, and he pulled the thick white frame off the floor. “Well, what do you