In Self Defense (Winchester, Tn. Book 1)

by Debra Webb

  When she’d left home headed to college, one of the few things that had stuck with Audrey was the image of Branch Holloway. Back then he’d been a star quarterback for the Tennessee Volunteers. He’d graduated a couple of years before Colt and her. Like Colt, the man was the quintessential cowboy. She and her best friend Sasha had harbored secret crushes on Branch Holloway. His college football career had made him a real-life celebrity right here in Winchester.

  Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with this cowboy?

  But she hadn’t, and however much she’d lusted after Branch, her gaze shifted to Colt. Way back in eighth grade she’d promised to marry Colton Tanner as soon as they both graduated from college. They’d been boyfriend and girlfriend from seventh grade until he cheated on her with her archnemesis near the end of senior year. A blast of fury burned through her even now. She’d wasted all that time only to have her heart shattered. As if she’d telegraphed those thoughts to the man responsible for all her pain, Colt met her glare, and she could see the regret in his gray eyes.

  Colt Tanner and Branch Holloway had been the hottest, most popular guys in school. Colt had the coal-black hair and pale gray eyes. Branch was blond with gold eyes. He and Branch were both tall and athletic; still were nearly two decades later. Both had been hometown heroes. Except Colt was a cheater. Damn him.

  “Well, I’ll let you gentlemen get back to business.”

  Both tipped their hats at her and bid a good night like true Southern gentlemen.

  Audrey turned and marched to the end of the sidewalk and then back down the gravel drive, cringing with each slide of a leather heel between the crushed rocks. She would snap a few photos and hurry back to the paper to update the front page. The Future Farmers of America’s upcoming annual pig-catching contest would have to be moved to page two.

  By the time she found the perfect angle for a photo of the house and the crime scene tape, Colt and Branch had gone into the house. Audrey took a few more shots with her cell phone and headed to her car.

  “Hey there, Miss Anderson.”

  She hesitated as she reached for the door. Deputy Calvin Stevens grinned at her.

  “I guess the full moon brought out the crazies tonight,” he said.

  “Guess so.” She leaned against the door and waited as he came closer. Cal was a big flirt. If he’d been inside the house she might be able to get a little more for her story. She glanced around. How odd that no other reporters had shown up yet. “But it looks like I’m the only one who arrived to watch all the fun,” she teased, scanning the road in both directions. “I haven’t seen another reporter.”

  “Sarah Sauder’s daddy called the sheriff direct and the sheriff called the coroner. They wanted to keep this quiet.” Cal grinned. “I figured the sheriff called you personally.”

  Well, well. So how did Brian hear about this? Maybe he was the one with the real source in the sheriff’s department. “I’ll never tell,” she said with a wink.

  “You probably saw this kind of thing all the time in the big city.” Cal gave her a look that said he’d made it his business to learn a whole lot of things about her. “I heard about all those awards you won.” The deputy leaned against her car, close enough for her to smell his freshly applied aftershave. Did he keep a bottle in the glove box of his county cruiser?

  “I spent a lot of time in the field.” The statement wasn’t really an answer to his question, but she suspected he wouldn’t notice. He was making conversation with the newest single lady in town. A small-town tradition.

  “The sheriff says you trained with cops all over the country.”

  Only a slight exaggeration, taken directly from the bio on her website. “Wherever the story took me, I immersed myself in the community, including law enforcement.”

  Cal chuckled. “Is it true you helped to capture a serial rapist?”

  “I did.” The story had won her the esteemed Courage in Journalism Award. “I was following up on a victim who had survived an attack by the elusive killer when he came back to finish what he’d started.”

  Audrey had connected with the victim. She’d felt at ease talking to Audrey when she didn’t feel comfortable talking to the police. The younger woman had called, said she felt like someone had been watching her for a couple of days. Audrey had urged her to call the police but she refused. What else was there to do but go over to her house and try to help? Still, she had no intention of becoming a victim herself. En route she’d called the detective assigned to the case and let him know what was happening.

  By the time she arrived, the rapist was already in the house with the victim. Audrey grabbed her courage with both hands, walked in and distracted him until the cops showed up. Looking back, walking into that house knowing the guy was inside was foolhardy, but she hadn’t really had a choice.

  “You are one cool lady, Miss Anderson.”

  “Why thank you, Cal. You should call me Rey. Everybody does.”

  He shrugged. “All right. Rey.”

  “It’s hard to believe this guy broke into Sarah’s house.” She made the statement as if she was personal friends with Sarah Sauder and she knew all about the dead guy.

  “For sure.” Cal glanced at the house, then checked in both directions to ensure no one was nearby. “Especially considering he came all the way from Chicago to do it. Sarah swears she never laid eyes on the guy before. Kind of hard to believe considering he came this far.”

  Chicago. Interesting. Audrey nodded. “Just totally crazy, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am. Sheriff Tanner no sooner ran the man’s name than some detective from up there called and wanted to know what was going on.”

  “So this guy has a record?” It was possible someone from Chicago was attempting to horn his way into the local drug trade—not that there was much of a problem in the Winchester area, but most towns had at least some drug issues. Still, why break into a Mennonite woman’s house? Unless, being from Chicago, he lost his bearings and broke into the wrong house. To an outsider, the roads around here all looked alike. At night, they all looked alike even to Audrey. Not so surprising, considering she had lived everywhere but here since she left for college.

  “Oh yeah. Big-time. That big-city detective said the guy has ties to the mob.”

  So that was why Colt had called in Branch. Branch’s first assignment with the Marshals Service was in Chicago. He likely knew all about Chicagoland crime families. This potential breaking-and-entering had just shifted to something else entirely.

  “Do you know his name?”

  Cal shook his head. “He’s a big guy, though. With red hair. She got him square in the chest with her husband’s deer-hunting rifle. One shot. He was probably dead before he hit the floor.”

  “I’m glad she and the children weren’t harmed.”

  Before Cal could say more, the front door of the house opened and a gurney rolled and rattled its way across the porch.

  Maybe she would follow Burt Johnston to the hospital in Winchester. Burt owned and operated the two veterinary clinics in the county. He’d taken care of her beloved collie, Maisey, twenty years ago. Couldn’t hurt to ask him for a few details.

  He’d tell his coffee-drinking buddies at breakfast in the morning anyway. He might as well tell Audrey now. After all, the newspaper gave him a discount on all his advertising. It was the least he could do.

  A murder—even in self-defense—was as scarce as hen’s teeth in Franklin County. Especially if it involved a possible mob-connected stranger from out of town and a quiet Mennonite woman who’d lived here her whole life.

  Had all the makings of a feature that could be picked up by the Associated Press. This might be Audrey’s lucky night.

  Chapter Two

  Audrey tossed her keys onto the table that sat next to the door. Lifting one foot and then the other, she removed her ruined shoes. She pau
sed for a moment, her toes curling against the cool wood floor. The house was completely dark save for the lamp on the table where her keys lay. It felt so strange coming home to an empty house. Even now, after six months of living in her childhood home as an adult, the hollowness at times startled her.

  Her mother had always been so cheerful and vibrant. No matter the season, the house had been filled with the scent and beauty of the flowers from her gardens. Even in the winter she had kept plants blooming in the Victorian-style greenhouse she had built when Audrey was a child. Every single year until the one before last, Mary Jo Anderson had won awards for her lovely gardens. Her gardening had always been her escape, her own special brand of chicken soup for the soul.

  Reading had been Audrey’s. She imagined it was all those suspense novels that had made her so bold as a reporter. She often told friends she had lived a thousand lives through the books she read. Growing up in a small town, books were her escape.

  She picked up her high heels and headed for the staircase. The entire house remained stuck in the Victorian era with few concessions to modern times: a more comfortable sofa in the den and updated appliances in the kitchen. The paint and wallpaper, though well maintained, boasted the same pinks and burgundies from more than a hundred and twenty years ago when the house was built. Her great-great-grandmother who’d actually commissioned the house had insisted on keeping things exactly the way she’d wanted them. Mary Jo, though not exactly a pink-and-burgundy lady, had respectfully left the decorating scheme as the late great Annette Anderson had decreed. Audrey’s grandmother and great-grandmother had done the same.

  At the top of the stairs, Audrey glanced toward the south end of the second-floor hall. The suite at that end had belonged to her parents. How many nights had she crept quietly through the darkness from her bedroom at the other end to those towering double doors? Her father had always scooped her up and nestled her between him and her mother. A perk of being an only child.

  Even after all these years, her heart squeezed at the memory of her father. She imagined that she would always miss him, no matter that he’d been gone for twenty-four years. Weary now, she made her way to her room, the same one she’d slept in growing up, and padded straight to the walk-in closet to put her damaged shoes away. She should probably just throw them out, but the little shoe repair shop on the corner of the square depended on folks like her to stay in business. No one understood the need for supporting local businesses better than Audrey. Though she was far from destitute, the expenses related to her mother’s care and turning the newspaper around were quickly draining her savings.

  She sighed as she hung up her jacket. Though her mother had changed hardly a thing around the house, Audrey had altered a couple of things right away. The first being to expand her closet into a decent-sized one. And still she’d had to downsize her wardrobe. Living in the limelight of investigative journalism for all those years had required an extensive wardrobe. Plus, she was reasonably sure she had a slight obsession with clothes, shoes in particular. With her work, it hadn’t actually been a problem.

  But that life was over.

  Audrey closed the door of the closet as well as the one to the past.

  No looking back. This was her life now, and it wasn’t such a bad one.

  She tossed her clutch purse onto a chair and reached for the zipper of her skirt. After leaving the Sauder farm she’d followed Burt to the hospital but had learned nothing. As she left the hospital and headed home, she dictated the story to Brian, her longtime friend and the editor at the Winchester Gazette, via her cell. Once she’d sent him the photos she’d snapped, he had laid out the story for tomorrow’s front page. It would be tight, but since they were one of the few remaining small-town newspapers that still did their own printing, the job would get done. Newspapers landing on doorsteps and in stands tomorrow morning would showcase what little was known about the shooting. The article was already online.

  Sarah Sauder was two or three years younger than Audrey. She remembered seeing her at the family-run bakery as a child and then as the woman behind the cash register since moving back to Winchester. Audrey popped in at least once every week. The Yoder Bakery, though located outside Winchester proper, was considered a local landmark. The peanut butter balls were to die for and her mother loved them. Audrey liked having a special treat for her mother when she visited. She also adored their blueberry scones. She bought those for herself, which was all the more reason not to drop by too often.

  But the man who’d taken his last breath on Sarah Sauder’s kitchen floor hadn’t come to Buncombe Road for peanut butter balls or blueberry scones. And he sure hadn’t broken into the century-old farmhouse looking for valuables to snatch. Branch Holloway’s presence ruled out any possibility of the man’s death being something less than serious trouble.

  Wouldn’t be drugs or human trafficking. Certainly not gunrunning. At least not involving the Sauders. The man had obviously connected the wrong identity with the house. But that still left the possibility that someone in Franklin County was up to no good and the trouble rippled all the way to the Windy City.

  The skirt she’d worn tonight slid down her hips, then she stepped out of it. Frankly, she couldn’t think of any criminal activities that rose to that level in which any of the locals, much less the Yoders—in this case the Sauders by marriage—would be involved. Of all people, Audrey was well aware of the reality that what one saw was rarely exactly what lay beneath the skin of others. But these were Mennonites.

  She frowned as her fingers hesitated on the buttons of her blouse. She’d forgotten to ask Brian how he’d heard about the shooting. She assumed it was from the police scanner. She would ask him tomorrow.

  The buzz of her cell echoed in the room, the sound muffled deep inside the clutch she’d tossed aside. She didn’t dare ignore it. There could be breaking news in the shooting...or an issue at the paper.

  Since taking over the Winchester Gazette, she’d realized how running the family business could consume one’s life. As a crime reporter she had given herself completely to the story, but when the story was over there was typically some time before another came her way. Running the Gazette was entirely different. It was always there, an endless cycle of need for more content. Another story, another something to fill the pages—advertising. The newspaper had been in the Anderson family for nearly two centuries. How could she be the one to walk away? Her father would have wanted her to take over when his brother, Audrey’s uncle Phillip, decided to retire.

  She shivered. It wasn’t like she’d had a choice. That decision had been taken from her years ago.

  She dragged her cell from the clutch. When she had learned the developer who wanted to buy the Gazette planned to tear it down, she’d had to take control. The shiver turned into a chill that scurried deep into her bones.

  The historic building could not be torn down. Ever.

  At least not as long as Audrey was still breathing.

  The caller ID read Pine Haven. A new kind of dread spread through Audrey’s body. Pine Haven was her mother’s residential care facility.

  “Audrey Anderson.” She held her breath. It had been two days since she’d visited her mom. What kind of daughter allowed forty-eight hours to pass without dropping by or at least calling?

  “Ms. Anderson, this is Roberta Thompson at Pine Haven.”

  The worry in the other woman’s voice sent another spear of uncertainty knifing through Audrey.

  “Your mother is very agitated tonight. We need to sedate her but she insists on seeing you first. I know it’s late but—”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  * * *

  THE DRIVE TO Pine Haven on the other side of town took scarcely fifteen minutes and still it felt like forever. Audrey’s heart pounded twice for every second that passed before she was parked and at the front entrance. The night guard waved her through. Evide
ntly her mother had the facility’s night shift all out of sorts.

  Nurse Roberta Thompson waited for Audrey at the entrance to the Memory Care Unit. Roberta smiled sadly. “I’m so sorry I had to bother you at this hour, but she won’t stay in her bed and she’s demanding to see you. When a patient is this agitated we nearly always have to use sedation, but your mother’s file says you prefer to be called first.”

  “Absolutely.” Audrey held up her hands. “Please. You know I always want you to call. No matter the hour.”

  Roberta nodded. “Talk to her. You’re what she needs right now. Then we’ll get her settled for the night.”

  Mary Jo Anderson was pacing her room when Audrey walked through the door. Her short white hair was mussed, her long flannel gown rumpled as if she’d already tossed and turned all night.

  “Mom.”

  Mary Jo’s gaze settled on Audrey’s. For a moment she stared, the haze of confusion and distance dulling her blue eyes. She was far away from this place, perhaps not in miles but in time. Audrey knew the look too well. When she came back home to buy the paper and to stay until she sorted out her future, Audrey had been startled by the episodes of total memory loss her mother suffered. Startled and heartbroken. How could she have deteriorated so without Audrey knowing it?

  “Audrey.” The haze cleared and her mother smiled.

  Audrey closed the door and walked over to hug her. “What’s going on? Nurse Thompson told me you’re upset.”

  When Audrey drew back, her mother’s smile was gone. “They’ll find him and then you know what will happen.”

  The too-familiar apprehension stole back into Audrey’s gut. “Let’s sit down, Mom, okay? I’m really tired. I’m sure you must be, too.”

  She ushered her mom to the bed and they sat on the edge.

  Mary Jo took in Audrey’s jeans and sweater before settling her gaze on her face once more. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in plain old blue jeans, Audrey Rose.”