Shotgun Sheriff Delores Fossen MILLS & BOON
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Comanche Creek, Texas
Something was wrong. Sheriff Reed Hardin eased his Smith and Wesson from his leather shoulder holster and stepped out of his mud-scabbed pickup truck. The heels of his rawhide boots sank in the rain-softened dirt. He lifted his head. Listened. It was what he didn’t hear that bothered him. Yeah, something was definitely wrong. There should have been squawks from the blue jays or the cardinals. Maybe even a hawk in search of its breakfast. Instead there was only the unnerving quiet of the Texas Hill Country woods sardined with thick mesquites, hackberries and thorny underbrush that bulged thick and green with spring growth. Whatever had scared off the birds could be lurking in there. Reed was hoping for a coyote or some other four-legged predator because the alternative put a knot in his gut. After all, just hours earlier a woman had been murdered a few yards from here. With his gun ready and aimed, Reed made his way up the steep back path toward the cabin. He’d chosen the route so he could look around for any evidence he might have missed when he’d combed the grounds not long after the body had been discovered. He needed to see if anything was out of place, anything that would help him make sense of this murder. So far, nothing. Except for his certainty that something was wrong. And he soon spotted proof of it. There were footprints leading down and then back up the narrow trail. Too many of them. There should have been only his and his deputy’s, Kirby Spears, since Reed had given firm orders that all others use the county road just a stone’s throw from the front of the cabin. He hadn’t wanted this scene contaminated and there were signs posted ordering No Trespassers. He stooped down and had a better look at the prints. “What the hell?” Reed grumbled. The prints were small and narrow and with a distinctive narrow cut at the back that had knifed right into the gray-clay-and-limestone dirt mix. Who the heck would be out here in high heels? He thought of the dead woman, Marcie James, who’d been found shot to death in the cabin about fourteen hours earlier. Marcie hadn’t been wearing heels. Neither had her alleged killer. And Reed should know because the alleged killer was none other than his own deputy, Shane Tolbert. Cursing the fact that Shane was now locked up in a jail he used to police with Reed and Kirby, Reed elbowed aside a pungent dew-coated cedar branch and hurried up the hill. It didn’t take him long to see more evidence of his something-was-wrong theory. There were no signs of his deputy or the patrol car. However, there was a blonde lurking behind a sprawling oak tree. Correction.
