by Lauren Carr
“Honey, I’m home!”
Murphy took the steps two at a time up to the second floor while Nigel continued: “The temperature of the water in the whirlpool tub is one hundred seven degrees. The jets have been running at top force for ten minutes. The music Jessica requested was a party mix of the top-forty hits on shuffle.”
Murphy heard the television playing in the downstairs game room. Anxious to see Jessica, he put off saying hello to Newman, the couple’s mixed-breed couch-potato dog. Predominantly a Bassett hound, the overweight short-legged canine spent all of his time in a worn, discolored recliner from Murphy’s old apartment. He watched television twenty-four-seven.
However, Spencer, Jessica’s pure-bred Shetland sheepdog, was not going to miss out on a chance to welcome the master of the mansion home. Her long, thick fur had a bluish tint to it that matched her blue eyes. The young shelty met him at the top of the stairs and leaped into his arms.
“How’s my furry Candi girl?” Murphy buried his face, which still donned more than a week’s worth of stubble, in her fur. While the dog’s official name, Spencer, had been given to her by Jessica, Murphy called her “Candi.” Setting her down, he ordered her to take him to Jessica.
With no hesitation, Spencer raced across the master suite with Murphy directly behind her. He threw open the bathroom door and heard Jessica loudly and enthusiastically singing a popular song by a female pop singer about a girl who wanted a boy to call her…maybe. The roar of the whirlpool tub’s jets accompanied her song.
Awed by the sight of not only her but also the entire scene, Murphy stood in the open doorway.
The bathroom was dimly lit, and there were scented candles all about it. A glass of wine was resting on the counter next to the tub. In the round, sunken whirlpool tub, Jessica was soaking up to her chin.
The music from the central sound system, which was also a part of their smart home and monitored by Nigel, was on at full blast.
With her violet eyes closed, fully enthralled in her fantasy of being a pop star, Jessica Faraday Thornton was waving her arms and hands over her head and belting out the song about a girl giving her phone number to a boy whom she had just met.
Cocking his head at her, Murphy realized that this was a first in their marriage. Never before had he heard Jessica Faraday sing. His lips curled up in a smile while he listened to her. She sang really…badly. Loudly. Passionately. And very off-key.
Well, no one’s perfect.
Unable to wait any longer and wanting to put an end to Jessica’s singing before she had all of the dogs in Great Falls howling, Murphy pulled his shirt up and over his head. Leaving a trail of clothes behind him, he made his way to the tub.
Murphy slipped into the tub and covered her mouth with his to squelch any possible objection to him interrupting her private concert.
The unexpected contact caused her to shriek. Her eyes flew open. In the moment of flailing, the wine glass toppled over, the wine flew out of it, and the glass broke.
“Murphy!” Instantly, she threw her arms around him.
“I’ve missed you so much—I can’t even begin to say how much,” he said into her ebony hair that usually fell in a dark wave to her shoulders. For her bath, she had twisted it and piled it up on top of her head.
“Tell me later. Come here!” She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him with all of the passion that had been building up for the last eleven days.
Chapter Eight
As the final image of the horror movie cut to the closing credits, David looked down to where Dallas was resting her head on his bare chest. Her arm was draped across his stomach. In the dim light of his master bedroom, it was difficult for him to see whether she was asleep.
“Now that leaves me as confused as a goat on Astroturf.” She pulled the comforter up to cover her naked body.
As if to voice her agreement, Storm uttered a deep sigh from where she was sleeping in a dog bed in the corner of David’s bedroom.
It took him a full minute to decipher the meaning behind Dallas’ statement, and during that time, she lifted her head from his chest and pushed some unruly strands of hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t understand that endin’ at all. Why was that guy standin’ in the corner? And what was his name again?”
David chuckled. “If you’d watched the first half of the movie instead of”—with a wicked grin, he pumped his eyebrows up and down—“you’d understand the ending.”
She climbed up on top of him. “Hey, I didn’t hear any complaints from you.”
“I’d already seen the movie.” He wrapped his arms around her. “You hadn’t, which is why we were watching it in the first place.” He pulled her in close to kiss her.
“Why don’t you just tell me what I missed?” she whispered.
“Forget the movie.” Grabbing her, he rolled her over and landed on top of her. Giggling, she pretended to fight him off until he managed to pin her down by the arms, and then he gave her a deep kiss. She had just given in to his passion when the cell phone on the nightstand rang.
With a groan, David dropped down on top of her.
“Can’t you—”
“Not when you’re the chief.” David crawled to the other side of the bed and grabbed the phone from the nightstand. “O’Callaghan.”
Dallas’ deep sigh of disappointment lured Storm out of her bed so that she could offer her a consolation cuddle.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” David threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.
“Where’re you gonna be?” Sitting up, Dallas watched him take a fresh pair of underwear from the dresser.
“The Braxtons’ estate,” he said while putting on his briefs. “There’s been a shooting.”
“A shootin’?” Dallas threw back the comforter and climbed out of the bed. “At the Braxtons’ estate? As in Nancy Braxton’s?”
In the midst of getting dressed, David stopped when he saw Dallas throwing on the clothes that she had tossed around the bedroom before they’d settled in for the movie. “What are you doing?”
“I’m comin’ with you, sugar.”
“Whoa!” David held up both of his hands, which were then holding his clothes. “Hold your horses, Lois Lane!”
Half-dressed, she looked at him with narrow eyes, daring him to tell her that she couldn’t go with him.
“We need to set some boundaries,” he said. “I’m the chief of police.”
“And I’m an investigative journalist.”
“I do not discuss open investigations with the media,” he said while stepping into his pants. “I can’t. And the people in this town aren’t going to trust me if I go blabbing about their personal business to my journalist girlfriend.”
“I’m not askin’ you to blab to me,” she said while zipping up her pants. “You don’t have to tell me anythin’. I’m just gonna go along and do what I do best.”
“Which is?”
“Snoop.” She tossed him his keys. “You drive.”
“Yeah, I’ll drive, but I’m not taking you,” he said while she stepped into her shoes. “I can’t show up to investigate a shooting with the media in my cruiser.”
Offering no response, she picked up her cell phone and purse from where she had tossed them onto a chair.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, I heard you.” She shrugged into her blouse “You’re not drivin’ me. That means I have to drive myself.” She kissed him. “Your barn door’s open and the mule’s tryin’ to run.”
“Huh?”
She pointed down to where he hadn’t zipped his fly. Then, with her silk blouse not yet buttoned, she ran out the door. “See you there, lover.”
He heard the clatter of her heels racing down the stairs.
“Come on, Storm! You’re ridin’ shotgun!”
With only one bounce
in the center of the mattress, Storm flew over the king-sized bed and raced out the door and down the stairs.
“I can feel myself getting into trouble,” he said while zipping up his pants.
The Braxtons’ mansion was located halfway up Spencer Mountain. Tucked up against the heavily wooded mountainside, it provided a broad view of the lake below and the valley beyond. A gate prevented unwelcome guests from wandering up to the front door of the stone mansion that had been designed to resemble a palatial European estate.
One Spencer and one Garrett County sheriff’s cruiser were stationed on either side of the stone pillars marking the end of the driveway to keep the curious out. Knowing that the odds were that she wouldn’t be allowed to pull her truck up into the driveway, Dallas parked off to the side of the road and, leaving Storm in the passenger seat, trotted up the Spencer police officer whom she recognized as Officer Zigler.
The young officer greeted her with a polite grin. “Hi, Dallas.”
After returning his greeting, Dallas craned her neck and saw that both an ambulance and an EMT vehicle were inside the gate. “David told me that there’d been a shootin’. Was it Nancy Braxton?”
Officer Zigler and the sheriff deputy exchanged looks.
“David told me to meet him here,” she said. “He’ll probably have an easier time of findin’ me if I wait inside.”
“Nice try, Dallas.” Bogie’s deep voice in the darkness caused her to jump. She located the deputy chief, who was leaning against one of the stone pillars. “Chief called ahead and told us not to let you in.”
“Sorry, Dallas,” Officer Zigler said. “Chief’s orders.”
“Why that—” she said, and then she sputtered, trying to find the right words to express her disgust, until she felt a friendly swat on her rump.
David passed her on the way inside. “Better luck next time, lover.”
Bogie fell into step beside him, and they made their way up the driveway to where the EMTs were wheeling a gurney out of the mansion.
“You can’t expect me to sit in the car like…some…child!” she said, calling after him.
Turning around, David made a broad shrugging motion. “If you don’t want to do that, go home and watch the first half of the movie.”
With a growl, Dallas spun around on her heels in time to see the sheriff’s cruiser pull up and park behind David’s vehicle. While she watched, Sheriff Turow got out and made his way to the driveway, stopping to greet Storm, who had stuck her head out of Dallas’ truck and was wagging her tail. “Well, who might you be?”
Seizing the opportunity, Dallas trotted up to him. “Sheriff Turow?” She offered him her hand. “We’ve howdied but we haven’t shook yet. I’m Dallas Walker. Police Chief O’Callaghan’s girlfriend. This critter’s name is Storm.”
Grinning at her and the dog, Sheriff Turow said, “I assume David is inside already?”
“Sure is,” Dallas said. “Gettin’ the lowdown on what happened. Since they called out the big guns, I guess this ain’t just some petty crime.”
The sheriff made his way up the road to the Braxtons’ driveway. “It’s never a petty crime when someone gets shot.”
“Who got shot? Ms. Braxton? Or was she the one who did the shootin’?”
With a slim grin, Sheriff Turow stopped and turned to her. “Chief O’Callaghan won’t give you a clue, will he?”
Her bottom lip came out in a pout. “He says he can’t comment on an open investigation—especially to the media.”
“And you’re an investigative journalist.”
“Freelance,” she stressed. “So I’m not really—”
“I’ve seen your blog,” he said. “You’re a journalist, and I can see that you have a lot of your mother’s talent…and tenacity.”
“Nuts don’t fall far from the tree in the Walker clan,” Dallas said with pride. Her grin turned wicked. “Pappy used to say that that’s why our family is so nutty.”
“I’ve heard about Buddy Walker’s sense of humor,” the sheriff said, chuckling.
“Did David tell you that I was named after the city I was conceived in?” She smiled. “I was conceived in Dallas, Texas. My brother’s name is Phil, and he was named after Philadelphia.”
Sheriff Turow let out a deep, hearty laugh. Seeing that she had broken the ice, Dallas asked, “So you’ll help me, Sheriff?”
After glancing in all directions, the sheriff lowered his voice. “Victim is Nancy Braxton’s assistant. Erin something. She walked in on an intruder. Police are searching the house and grounds for him now. My department was called in at the request of Nancy’s brother because your boyfriend nominated Gnarly to oppose her on the ballot for mayor. The family fears that he has a conflict of interest with the case. You didn’t hear it from me.”
“Thanks, Sheriff,” she said with a broad grin. “You’re a peach.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“We’ve been searching the house and the grounds for the gunman,” Bogie said to David as he made his way up the driveway. “But we haven’t found any sign of the shooter.”
“Who’s the victim?” David paused to observe the ambulance pulling away. Beyond the gate, Dallas’ truck took off to follow the ambulance. Shaking his head, he surmised that she was going to tail it to the hospital to gather information from the EMTs or, if she got lucky, from the victim.
“Erin Devereux,” Bogie said. “Nancy Braxton’s executive assistant. She took a bullet to the shoulder. She was conscious and talking when we got here. Said she couldn’t sleep, so she decided to do some work. She realized she’d left a folder in the study. She walked in on what must have been a burglar.”
“Did she give you a description?”
With a shake of his head, Bogie explained that Erin had said that it had happened too fast. “She told me that she didn’t even remember seeing the gun before she felt the bullet.”
Sheriff Turow stepped out of the shadows cast by the bushes lining the driveway. “I met your new girlfriend, O’Callaghan.”
“And I’m sure she pumped you about the shooting,” David said. “You didn’t tell her anything, did you?”
With exaggerated innocence, the sheriff said, “Me? No!”
“That woman could charm a rattlesnake.” Realizing what he’d said, David drew in a deep breath. “Did I really just say that?”
Chuckling, Bogie shook his head. “You’ve been hanging around Dallas much too long, Chief.”
“Are you taking the lead on this case, Turow?” David asked the sheriff.
“The Braxtons want me to. Ms. Braxton is convinced that the root of this attack is dirty politics from one of her opponents.”
“Seriously?” David replied. “Who would kill to become the mayor of a town with a population of fewer than a thousand people? That’s crazy.”
Bogie was shaking his head. “Not really. A lot of our seasonal residents are movers and shakers from Washington, DC. An ambitious politician who knows how to network can make contacts here in Spencer who will launch him or her into a juicy position in Washington.”
“Ambition is a very common motive for murder,” Sheriff Turow said in agreement. “And we all know how badly Gnarly wants to be mayor.”
“Yeah,” Bogie said. “He’d say or do anything to get votes. I saw on Twitter today that he promised to repeal the leash law on day one after getting into office.”
“Really?” David asked. “You saw that? When did Gnarly get on Twitter?”
“Don’t know, but he’s got a hundred thousand followers already. I’m following him.”
“Me, too.” Sheriff Turow patted David on the back. “I’ll keep you and your department in the loop, Chief.”
Inside the home, they found that Spencer’s police officers and Sheriff Turow’s deputies had separated those staying at the estate. Nathan Braxton w
as playing pool in the game room on the ground floor. Nancy Braxton’s brother, Hugh Vance, was having a stiff drink in the living room. There was a housekeeper cleaning out the refrigerator in the kitchen.
David and Sheriff Turow stopped to study the security keypad on the wall inside the foyer. The system was on standby—meaning that the alarms on all of the doors and windows had been deactivated so that people could come and go without setting them off.
“Was the system on at the time of the shooting?” David asked Bogie.
Nodding his head, the deputy chief said, “I talked to the security monitoring company. It went off after the shooting when the side door off of the dining room was opened. Nathan Braxton confirmed that the alarm went off after he heard the shot. Then he looked out of his bedroom window and saw someone running off into the woods.”
“That terrain is steep and rough,” David said. “If you’re not familiar with the area, it’s practically impossible to make it in the dark. If you trip over a rock, you’ll fall straight down and break your back—or worse.”
“So it was a local who knows the mountain,” Sheriff Turow said.
“But the system didn’t go off to signal that someone had broken in,” Bogie said. “Plus the system log doesn’t show that anyone put in a code to turn it off until after the call to nine-one-one.”
“That means that the perp was inside before the security system was turned on, or he or she was able to bypass it somehow,” David said. “Since this is your party, Sheriff, where do you want to start?”
“Let’s start with the scene of the crime,” Sheriff Turow said. “The study.”
“Where’s Madam Braxton?” David looked up the stairs that led to the bedrooms and then through the open doorway that led to the rooms on the main floor. “I expected her to be here running the show.”
Bogie turned around. “Believe it or not, she’s upstairs asleep…according to her husband.”
“Asleep?” Sheriff Turow asked.
“My wife was very upset about the break-in,” Nathan Braxton said as he made his entrance from the stairs at the back of the foyer. He was followed by a sheriff deputy. “Erin has been Nancy’s assistant for three years. They have formed a close bond. My wife was so distraught that we had to give her a sedative.”
