by Paula Graves
Miranda made a mental note to check with the desk sergeant. Maybe he’d seen something on his drive home that might be helpful. “You don’t remember hearing anything last night?”
“Not a thing.” Lizzie scraped her graying hair away from her weathered face. “I work hard and I sleep hard. You know what it’s like. Now, if old Rocket was still alive, he’d have barked his head off if there was anybody out there, but I had to have him put down last month, and I haven’t had the heart to get me a new dog. Though Coy said his neighbor’s hound mix just had puppies. Said he’d probably be happy to save one out of the litter for me.”
So anyone could have come along this road and dumped Delta’s body out during the night, Miranda thought, without anyone seeing it happen.
But who would know that?
Almost anyone, she supposed, when she thought about it. She herself knew about Lizzie having to have old Rocket put to sleep the previous month. She’d heard it from Tina Shire, who worked at the vet clinic in town. And anyone who’d ever driven down Glory Road would know there wasn’t another house within almost two miles of Lizzie’s farm.
In some ways, it was the ideal place to dump a body, as long as you didn’t care if it was found sooner rather than later.
“Lizzie, if you think of anything you might have seen or heard last night, even if it seems unimportant, you’ll let us know, right?”
“Of course.” Lizzie patted Miranda’s hand. “You must be sick about it. I know you two girls were friends.”
“I’m not sure Delta ever felt as if she had any friends,” Miranda said sadly, looking across the farmyard to where Sheriff Randall and the rest of the deputies had started processing the crime scene. Despite the warm sunlight beating down on the scene, Miranda still felt a bleak chill in the air.
Maybe it was coming from inside her.
“That’s the fellow who moved into the old Merriwether place out on Route 7, ain’t it?” Lizzie nodded toward John, who was watching Miranda rather than the deputies at the scene. “Hear tell he saved your life the other day durin’ the snowstorm.”
“He did,” Miranda admitted. The cause of the crash was being kept secret at the sheriff’s department, for now, but the crash itself was all over the town grapevine. Neighbors had been calling her father’s store for a couple of days, asking if she needed anything and offering to bring food to her house.
If her place hadn’t been trashed by the intruder search, she might have taken a few of them up on the offer.
“Heard he’s some sort of builder or something,” Lizzie said.
“Something like that. He’s actually going to be helping me finish repairing the tornado damage on my place.”
“Mighty kind of him.”
“Yes.” Miranda pushed to her feet, ignoring a symphony of aches and pains. The knocks and dings from the rollover wreck, combined with the strain of all the bending, lifting and carrying she’d done cleaning up her trashed house, had taken a toll on her body.
But you’re still alive, she reminded herself as she headed back to where the coroner’s truck had arrived to pick up Delta’s body. Things could have been so much worse.
She could have been zipped up in a body bag just like Delta.
“Mandy, go home,” Sheriff Randall told her.
“What? This is my case.”
“You’re still on medical leave until tomorrow. And even then, I saw the way you looked at Delta’s body. You’re too close to the case. We’ve got other people who can investigate. Take the rest of the week off and get your head straight. Then we’ll talk.”
“Damn it, sir, that’s not fair.”
“You still believe life is fair?” Randall’s expression was set in stone. There would be no changing his mind, Miranda knew.
“Fine. Will you at least let me call in for updates on the case?”
Randall’s expression softened just a notch. “Sure. But I’m serious about taking the rest of the week off. You could easily have been killed in that wreck the other day, and I can see you’re still sore. Take these days to get some rest and clear your head.” He nodded toward the coroner assistants, who were placing the body bag on a gurney to slide it in the back of a truck. “Since Delta didn’t have any family left, she needs someone to handle her funeral. I don’t know if she had any money stashed away anywhere or any sort of burial policy, but...”
Miranda doubted it. She hadn’t been able to find any sort of bank account for Delta when she’d first taken on the missing person case, so it wasn’t likely she had bothered with anything like life insurance. “Can I at least be the one to take another look at her place? I knew her better than anyone else on the force. There might be something there that’ll mean more to me than another investigator.”
Randall looked as if he wanted to say no, but finally he gave a gruff nod. “I’ll want another deputy with you.”
She bit back a protest and nodded. “Tell me when to be there.”
“I’ll get with Robertson and give you a call.”
“Thanks.” She returned to the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. John watched her in silence, waiting for her to speak.
“It was Delta.”
He let out a slow breath. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
She buckled her seat belt and leaned her head against the backrest. “I don’t know. I feel kind of like I’m in limbo. Waiting for it to hit me.”
He reached across the cab and put his hand over hers where it lay on the seat beside her. “What happens next?”
“I have to look into a few things. See if she had any sort of will or plans for what would happen in the case of her death.” She shook her head. “She was twenty-seven years old. Who plans their own funeral at that age?”
“Is there anything you can do right now?”
She looked across the cab to find him watching her with a gentle expression that made tears prick her eyes. She blinked them back. “I would really like to go home now. Can we just go home?”
* * *
JOHN PULLED HIS truck up next to Miranda’s on the concrete driveway and cut the engine, waiting for her to move.
She sat in the passenger seat and was very still for a long moment before she slowly reached for the seat belt buckle and released herself from the harness. “I should call my dad and let him know.” She sighed. “Although as fast as news travels in this town, he probably knows already.”
Before she could move, her cell phone trilled, harsh in the silence of the truck cab. She pulled it from her pocket and checked the display. “Can I call it or what?” She got out of the truck and started toward the house, lifting the phone to her ear as she walked. “Hi, Dad.”
John followed more slowly, giving her a little privacy to talk to her father about her friend’s death. By the time he reached the porch, she had hung up the phone and was unlocking the door.
“The sheriff took me off the case,” she said as she locked the door behind them. When she lifted her gaze to meet his, she looked more hurt than angry.
“Because you’re too close to the case?”
“Yeah. And he’s making me take the rest of the week off, too. I think it’s just to keep me from nosing around the case, although he says it’s because I need to take more time to recover from my injuries.”
“Maybe that’s a good idea.”
The look she gave him was sharp enough to cut. “Et tu, Brute?”
He crossed to where she stood, arms folded, her brow furrowed. “I know you’re tough. Hell, you were in a rollover accident three days ago, and I just watched you clean up a wrecked house and work a crime scene without even dragging your heels. But maybe it’s time to give yourself a break.”
“I’m not fragile.”
“I know that.” He put his hands on her shoulders, running hi
s thumbs lightly over the curve of her collarbones.
She opened her mouth as if to argue, then closed her eyes, taking a shaky breath. Slowly, she dropped her arms, her hands coming to rest on his sides, just below his rib cage. She took a step closer, the delicious heat of her body sliding over him until he felt as if he was on fire inside.
“I’m glad you’re here.” Her voice was barely a whisper, her breath soft and hot against his chin. He bent his head until their foreheads touched, and he drank in her sweet herb scent.
“I’m glad I’m here, too.” He brushed his lips against her forehead. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Don’t make promises. It’s way too early for promises.”
“Okay. No promises.” He was crazy to make promises, anyway, given how up-in-the-air his life was at the moment. “Why don’t you lie down a while? I could figure out something for supper.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She moved away from him in restless strides, coming to a stop at the window. She gazed out at the dying daylight for a moment, her face tinged rose by the setting sun, before turning to look at him. “I wouldn’t mind supper, though. What do you have in mind?”
“I thought I’d run to that little store down the road and pick up some groceries. Maybe grill a couple of steaks and bake a potato?”
“Sounds good.” She pulled her keys from her pocket and handed them to him. “The house key is the silver one there on the end. Pick up some vegetables, too, and I’ll whip up a salad.”
“Okay, you’re on.” He smiled at her as he unlocked the door. “Lock up behind me. I’ll be right back.”
He hurried through his shopping, not liking the idea of leaving her alone for long. Delta McGraw clearly hadn’t died of natural causes. And if the attack on Miranda was connected, the stakes had just gotten a lot higher.
“I haven’t found much of anything on Delta McGraw,” Quinn told John when he checked in with his boss. “I have found a few things on her father, Hal, however.”
“Anything that could help us figure out who killed his daughter?”
“I’m not sure. The one thing I’ve learned is that he was charged with extortion by an oilman in Plainview shortly before his death. Apparently he tried to blackmail the man over something the oilman’s son had done—selling drugs or something. The report I got had been redacted in places. Anyway, the oilman told Hal to go do something anatomically impossible and called the cops on him for his attempted extortion.”
“What happened?”
“Hal died before it ever got to court.”
“Is that the only thing?” John asked.
“The only thing I’ve found,” Quinn replied. “But if he blackmailed one person...”
“He might have blackmailed several,” John added. “But I’m not sure how that relates to his daughter’s death.”
“Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Ask around. Stay in touch.” Quinn ended the call.
Pocketing his phone, John pondered his boss’s suggestion as he carried his basket of groceries to the checkout stand. The teenage boy at the cash register rang up the purchase with amusing enthusiasm, keeping up a stream of friendly chatter until John paid the bill. “You have a nice evening,” he said with a grin, displaying a mouth full of metal.
He let himself in at Miranda’s with the house key, expecting to find her waiting for him in the living room, where he’d left her.
But the living room was empty.
He started to call her name but stopped himself, standing still and listening instead. He heard a soft hitching sound coming from somewhere in the back of the house.
The sound went silent as he moved through the house, his footsteps on the hardwood floor seeming loud to his own ears.
The bedroom door was open, the room empty. The bathroom was empty, as well. He found no one in the kitchen, either, but he could almost feel a presence nearby. Waiting.
He set the bag of groceries on the kitchen table and eased over to the door to the unfinished room. It was only halfway open, obscuring his view of all but a sliver of the room. Reaching behind his back, he grabbed the butt of the Ruger hidden in a holster clipped to his jeans and drew it.
Slowly, he pushed open the door. It creaked, the loud sound jangling his taut nerves.
“Don’t move.” Miranda’s voice sounded thick and hoarse, but there was no mistaking the tone of command.
He went very still. “Are you alone?”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
He found her sitting under one of the windows, her knees tucked up near her chest and her head leaning back against the wall. She still held her M&P 40, but the barrel was pointed toward the ground.
She’d been crying.
As he walked slowly into the room, she set it on the floor beside her. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries.” He nodded his head back toward the kitchen. “I brought the groceries. You still hungry?”
“I will be. Just give me a few minutes.” She spoke as if she wanted him to go. But when she lifted her damp eyes to his again, he could see she really didn’t want to be left alone.
He reholstered his own pistol and crossed to where she sat, easing himself into a sitting position next to her.
“What did you buy?” she asked, sniffling a little.
“Two nice sirloin steaks, two enormous baking potatoes—plus sour cream and butter, because this is no time for watching our weight. And I wasn’t sure what kind of salad stuff you liked, so I might have bought out half the produce section at the grocery store. Didn’t know what kind of salad dressing you’d want, so I bought small bottles of several to choose from.”
She managed a watery laugh. “I’m sure I’ll find exactly what I want.”
“Listen, before we start supper—I need to ask you something about Hal McGraw. Did you know he was arrested for extortion shortly before his death?”
She looked up at him. “Of course. But how do you know?”
“My boss told me.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. “And why would he know anything about Hal McGraw?”
“I asked him to do some research on Delta.”
“Without asking me?”
He shrugged. “Do you want to know what else he said or not?”
She was quiet for a moment, then gave a brief nod.
“Well, he asked a really good question. I was wondering if you might know the answer. Do you think Hal McGraw might have been blackmailing anyone else?”
“We always figured he must have been. But once he died, it wasn’t likely anybody was going to come forward to tell us about it. We figured most of the offenses were probably personal problems, not legal ones, and none of our business.”
He didn’t like asking the next question, considering the tear tracks still staining Miranda’s cheeks. But it had to be asked. “What about Delta? Do you think she knew about her father’s extortion plots?”
Her brow furrowed as she gave the question some thought. “I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “I guess she might have.”
“Then that brings up another question, doesn’t it? Did Delta pick up where her father left off?”
She turned her gaze to him again, her expression troubled. “And is that why she ended up dead?”
Chapter Eleven
“If she was blackmailing anyone, I never heard about it.” Miranda poked at the remains of her baked potato, scooping out one last buttery morsel. She popped it in her mouth.
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you? The whole idea of extortion is to pay for the blackmailer’s silence. You done?” John reached across the kitchen table for her plate.
She pushed it toward him and sat bac
k, feeling comfortably full. “You’re not a bad cook, John Blake.”
“A man’s gotta know how to grill.” He flashed her a smile that made her heart give a little flip. She was beginning to wonder how she’d ever thought of him as average or ordinary.
“The only wine I had in the house went down the drain,” she said as she pushed to her feet and joined him at the dishwasher. “But I saw you picked up a bag of coffee. I could brew a pot if you like.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. Why don’t I go start another fire while you get the dishes going, and we can just try to relax for a while? You’ve had a stressful day.”
Stressful and upsetting, she thought, adding the word he was kind enough not to say. She’d felt a little embarrassed when he’d found her crying in the back room, but he hadn’t made things worse by trying to comfort her with awkward words of sympathy. He couldn’t know how she was feeling, and he knew it.
To be honest, she wasn’t sure herself how she was feeling. Grief of a sort, she supposed, but Delta had never really let her get close enough for her to think of the other woman as a true friend. Still, the sight of her lying dead in the bottom of a shallow arroyo had been deeply disturbing on a number of levels, some of them personal.
She finished loading the dishwasher and set it to run, then joined John in the living room. The fire had reached a crackling blaze, helping to fend off the gathering chill of the evening, and John had moved the sofa so that it faced the fireplace.
“Hope you don’t mind.” As she approached the sofa, he smiled up at her, sliding one arm over the back of the sofa. “Didn’t want to waste a nice fire by sitting halfway across the room.”
She hesitated.
“I don’t bite,” he murmured in a tone that made the words sound like a lie. There was a challenge in his expression, as tempting and dangerous as the firelight reflected in his eyes.
Come on, Mandy. You’re not a sixteen-year-old virgin faced with your first bad boy. He’s a tax accountant. You’ve dated bull riders before.
