The Cowboy's Deadly Mission

by Addison Fox

  Ace stepped in. While the move didn’t stem the storm clouds in Tate’s eyes, it did have him moving back a few steps. “What’s this about?”

  Belle hated the necessary distance that had her stiffening up. She’d known all of them since she was small and didn’t truly believe any of them were guilty. But she had to do her job. Assumptions and innuendos didn’t make cases, nor did they set the basis for good cop work.

  She had to keep her focus and she had to be above reproach.

  “We need to call in a team.”

  “A team for what?”

  Ace ignored Tate’s question and continued with his patient, calm questions. “We already agreed to having you talk to the staff. We’ll set you up at the house.”

  “This takes priority.”

  “What takes priority?” Ace’s gaze, so like his brother’s, shifted to the area where she and Julio found the blood.

  “There’s blood on the ground.” Julio spoke first. “The sort of blood that spills when there’s death. Bella and I need to close this off and call in help.”

  “You think someone was murdered here?” All notes of belligerence faded from Tate’s voice, replaced by sheer disbelief. He sat down hard on the open gate of Ace’s truck, the slapping of the thick work gloves he carried beating a steady tattoo against his leg. “On our property?”

  Belle wanted to go to him. In a moment that should be about comfort, all her presence did was cause more pain. But she held her ground. Whatever Tate felt, it was nothing compared to the terror and horror the victim would have felt.

  “The amount of blood and the apparent pattern suggests that someone, if not dead, is in bad shape. We need to get this area cordoned off and the lab out here and we need to do our best to find them. Fast.”

  Ace nodded at her words before stepping back. “Do what you need to do.”

  She eyed Tate, banishing her emotions to a place she rarely visited. “I still need to question you but your reputation in the community works in your favor.”

  “Thanks.” His response was drier than land in a drought—a surprising match for the bleak disappointment in her chest.

  She was a cop. A good one. But she never expected something like this would blight Reynolds land. Or would come so close to people she cared about.

  * * *

  Three hours later, Belle finally found a moment to sit in her SUV and sip a cup of coffee from her thermos. The morning had unfurled pretty much as she expected—with half of the Midnight Pass police force descending on Reynolds Station.

  The chief had arrived within fifteen minutes of Julio’s call into the precinct. His arrival was followed shortly thereafter by several of her fellow officers and then two of the Feds assigned to the Pass. Their jurisdiction was drug and human trafficking, but until they knew what they were dealing with, the Chief had decided to play nice and proactively bring them in.

  Not for the first time, Belle considered Chief Hayes Corden. A big man, he’d worked in both Houston and Dallas in the early days of his career before coming to the Pass in his midforties. He’d been their chief for the past ten years and he ran a tight ship. He respected his cops. He let them do their work. And he played well with the Feds, who spent an increasing amount of time focused on the border.

  It had chafed at first, these interlopers who believed they knew better than the locals. She’d complained about them over beers with her fellow officers and shot them the stink eye whenever she could. And then Belle had gotten fully enmeshed in the work that needed to get done in the Pass and had finally accepted the fact that their help went a long way.

  When had things changed so much?

  She’d lived in Midnight Pass her whole life and couldn’t imagine making her home anywhere else. But recently, she had to admit to herself, things had begun to seem overwhelming.

  And now they might have to add murder to the growing list of sins?

  She was a cop—she knew people made bad choices—and they’d dealt with homicides before. But something about this seemed different. Darker.

  It was a sense more than a confirmed fact, but something about the blood spatter on the ground—and Julio’s somber features—had her instincts quivering.

  In addition to the blood and cut fence, there were those weird depressions in the earth. The more she turned it over in her mind, the more those disparate facts didn’t sit well with her. What made the depressions?

  A bag full of drugs? Or full of something else? Tools to commit murder?

  The tap on her window had her turning toward the chief. His large frame towered over the top of the car and she quickly climbed out, not wanting to seem as if she were slacking on the job.

  “Chief Corden.”

  “Officer.” The chief nodded, his dark eyes warm. “No rush. You took an early call on this. You’re entitled to a cup of coffee.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “What are your impressions?”

  Relaxing under the kind words, she focused on the scene that spread out before them. To the untrained eye, it looked as if people ebbed and flowed over the land like mindless ants, but like those same ants, there was an underlying symphony to their movements.

  Photos of the crime scene. Forensics samples. And as of five minutes ago, a couple of K-9 handlers from El Paso to fan out over the surrounding land. Each person on-site had a job to do and they were hard at work in trying to both secure the scene and find usable information.

  “The Reynolds family has been cooperative. They’re more than willing to let us interview their employees.”

  “You think this was an inside job?”

  “It’s too early to tell, but it can’t be ruled out.”

  “First impressions?” Chief Corden’s gaze roamed the crime scene and beyond.

  “Initially, I suspected drugs. The depression I pointed out to Julio suggested a drop and we know the Pass has seen its fair share of trafficking.”

  “And now?”

  “The blood, sir—” She broke off, hesitating. “It’s concerning.”

  “Drug deal gone bad?”

  The chief’s question was a fair one, his tone level as he asked the question. Yet even she knew there was more that lay beneath.

  “It’s easy. Neat.”

  “But?”

  She turned to the chief. “Except it’s too easy.”

  “How?”

  “There’s more than enough violence in the warring drug cartels. We know that. But to commit violence like that at a drop point? It’s messy.”

  “What else?”

  “Drug traffickers want to get in and out. This property and any others they use are a means to an end. No one’s looking to spend time here and risk getting caught.”

  “Random violence happens.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  Once again, Belle struggled to explain why her gut churned so hard on this one. Yet for reasons she couldn’t fully define, ever since Julio pointed out the blood, she’d had a deeper, darker sense that something evil happened here.

  Something worse than the drugs. Worse than the greed.

  “Heard you and Julio questioned a few of the Reynolds boys this morning. Tate Reynolds in particular. Do we need to keep an eye there?”

  Annabelle nearly bobbled what was left of her coffee. “No, sir. I don’t think—”

  The chief raised a hand, effectively quieting her alarm. “I’m not questioning how you do your job, Detective Granger. Is Mr. Reynolds a person of interest?”

  “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “So there wasn’t some sort of misunderstanding before over his rights?”

  “Mr. Reynolds asked if I was going to read him his rights. I felt his tone and manner were meant to tease me instead of to truly ask a question.”

  “So it was just a misunderstanding?”


  “Yes, sir.” The sheer alarm that someone might have been killed on Reynolds land was a big one, but loss of the family’s cooperation wouldn’t put the Midnight Pass police force in the best place as they tried to investigate. “Tate Reynolds is a good man.”

  “Good men can do bad things. He’s known to be a bit of a hothead from time to time.”

  “He is. But—” She broke off again, the truth of her earlier exchange with Tate coming back to bite her. “The fault is mine, sir. I let personal feelings get in the way. I’ll ask Mr. Reynolds the same questions I ask his staff, but I don’t believe he’s done anything.”

  Corden shrugged. “Discussion of rights never hurt anyone.”

  “Yes, but they tend to alarm people.”

  The chief pulled his gaze from the group of people fanned out around them, his dark eyes tinged with a bleak edge she’d never seen before. “Maybe it’s time people got a bit alarmed, Detective Granger. Alarm makes people careful.”

  “You think the Reynolds family needs to be careful?”

  “I think we all do.”

  He patted her shoulder before taking off back into the melee. His first stop: the FBI’s lead field agent that managed the Bureau’s work in the Pass.

  The remaining coffee in her thermos lid had gone cold and she tossed it on the ground. On a sigh, her break at an end, she resolved to follow her chief back into the teeming throng that worked in and around the fence line. Tate and Ace had kept their distance, leaving to talk to their staff after the chief had arrived. The large black truck that bumped over the uneven land in the distance indicated they were back.

  The sight of the brothers filled her with mixed emotions. Tate left her with any number of disparate feelings, but her world was always better when he was in view. It was ridiculous and stupid—and a horrific curse to bear—but it didn’t make it any less true. Yet something about this scene, and the swirling sense of menace, had every instinct she possessed screaming for him to get away. Hell, the man would probably hang around just to make her mad.

  And she didn’t want him here.

  She’d studied blood spatters in college and something about the patterns on the ground haunted her. It suggested the use of a knife with powerful force. She’d leave the specifics to the forensics experts but it didn’t sit well.

  Could it be an animal?

  Even as the wishful thought hit her, she knew the truth. Someone had been harmed terribly on Reynolds land. And with the obvious pain and suffering they’d have sustained, she couldn’t honestly say if the person was better off dead or alive.

  * * *

  Tate couldn’t tear his gaze off the view through Ace’s front windshield. “It looks like a war zone or some creepy movie set.”

  “I think before this is over we’re going to be wishing it was make-believe,” Ace said.

  He couldn’t argue with his brother’s statement, or the increasingly disturbing sense that something was very, very wrong. He and Ace had given their employees a lowdown of the high points—namely the concern someone had run drugs through Reynolds land—but had pointedly kept any mention of violence or possible death from their comments at the Chief’s request.

  Then they’d gone into the house and filled in Hoyt and their baby sister, Arden, sparing neither the full details of the morning.

  He and his siblings managed to get on pretty well in the sprawling confines of the ranch house, but they also knew how to get under each other’s skin. There were times Tate wondered what they were all doing now that they were full-grown, living under the same roof, yet he couldn’t imagine it any other way. After their parents had died, they’d somehow found the ability to move on, all while doing it at Reynolds Station.

  And at a time like this, he appreciated the benefit of all of them being together.

  Arden could take as good a care of herself as Hoyt and Ace, but Tate couldn’t deny the overwhelming need to keep an eye on her. And he felt better knowing it was his family doing the protecting.

  “Do you think they found anything yet?” Tate asked.

  “Hard to say.” Ace pulled up behind a line of government-issued cars and put the truck in park. He made no move to get out.

  Fingers tapping against his thigh, Tate fought the nagging weight of idleness. He preferred action to sitting, and allowing strangers to mill over his land was the equivalent of being stung to death by bees. Nerve-racking and painful.

  “I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around here all day waiting for something to happen.”

  “Then let’s go. We don’t need to be here. Belle will call if—” The rest of Ace’s words were lost in the heavy shouts and loud barking that rumbled in through the open windows.

  Tate was out and headed for the group of people, uncaring what he might find. He was done sitting around and done imagining what might have taken place on his family’s land.

  His land. More, his home.

  The shouts continued as the assembled cops tumbled through the cut fence and into the ravines that peppered this part of the Pass. Another bark went up, followed by the heavy cries of a dog on the scent, and Tate kept pace behind them, Ace on his heels.

  Was it possible they’d found something? He’d been out here early this morning all on his own. Had he been that close to such violence? Worse, was it possible he interrupted something?

  He and Tot were generally in sync with each other. And even though he worked with the horse regularly, Tot’s feral upbringing ensured a keen awareness of his surroundings.

  Was it even possible they both could have missed something early this morning?

  Questions without answers kept pace with Tate’s heavy trudge over scrub grass and into the rocky slide of one of the ravines. He nearly stumbled on a loose bed of rocks but caught himself, arms windmilling to stay upright.

  Tate had barely righted himself when everyone in front of him came to a hard stop behind the K-9 unit. The team had canvassed the ground as a pair, but the dog had come to a quick stop, dropping to his haunches. His handler was already praising his partner’s skills as the rest of the police team closed in around them.

  The steady hum of conversation that filled the air ceased. The dog’s panting was the only sound floating on the morning breeze until Belle gasped. Tate’s gaze shot to her first until he saw how her attention was focused on something near the dog.

  It was only then that he saw the body that lay nestled in a ravine, its throat slit.

  Chapter 4

  Belle fought the urge to avert her eyes as she took in the dead body. The poor man was horribly mutilated, the slash across his neck the most obvious wound but not the only one. His hands were badly bruised and she could see two of his fingernails had been torn from their beds.

  Tamping down on the rising slick of illness that threatened her empty stomach, she forced herself to think of her job. And the oath she’d taken to protect others.

  And knew, beyond a doubt, she and her fellow officers had failed to uphold that collective promise with this man.

  With the same precision she and Julio had reviewed the edge of the Reynolds property, Belle began the slow perusal of the site. She took in the broader swath of land, then worked her way determinedly through those quadrants, looking for clues. Unlike the lone patch of blood spatter, this area had dozens of points of interest. Spilled blood. Dirt covering a good portion of the body. And a clear trail of where the dead man had been dragged to the ravine.

  Who had done this?

  Her earlier conversation with Tate whispered through her mind. The assumption drugs were to blame for the cut fence seemed like an obvious answer, but was it? Drugs brought untold violence—she’d seen her fair share of it—but this was brutal.

  Savage.

  And a sight that would haunt her nightmares for a good long while.

  She felt him
before he spoke, the large presence at her side coupled with the masculine scent of man, earth and horse that was distinctly Tate. “This happened on my land? Near my family and my home and my men?”

  “It appears so.”

  “Because of drugs running through the Pass like an out-of-control virus.” The words dripped with derision and disdain, a clear continuation of what Tate had leveled at her earlier.

  Most law-abiding people in town think the Midnight Pass police force couldn’t find justice with both hands and a flashlight.

  “Despite the feelings you’ve made abundantly clear regarding the capabilities of the Midnight Pass police force, you should get back and let everyone do their job.”

  “This happened on my property.”

  “We’re no longer on your property. This is borderland.”

  “Belle—”

  She whirled on him. “No. You’re not giving orders here and you’re not in charge. Let us do our job and figure out what happened.”

  Once more, she felt him before he moved. His hand closed around her upper arm to pull her closer, their faces practically touching. His grip was firm, yet retained a core of gentleness that only reinforced what she already knew.

  Tate Reynolds wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t a drug dealer or a criminal either. He might be the monumental pain in the ass of her life, but he was a good man. A caring man.

  And right now he was processing the fact that his home had been breached and violated in one of the worst ways possible.

  “This isn’t about you and me arguing on the playground, Belle. Someone died. And by all accounts, they were killed on my land.”

  “I know.” She laid a hand over his forearm and took strength from the solid muscle beneath her palm. “Which is why you need to let us do our job.”

  Although conversation had restarted among the assembled officers, the sounds were muted as people spoke in quiet whispers. She kept her voice comparable, not wanting anyone to overhear them. “You need to trust that we will handle this. Regardless of your feelings.”