Forgiven Justice (Cowboy Justice Association Book 14)

by Olivia Jaymes

  “I don’t want to talk to them but I can’t speak for Reed.”

  Reed shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to them either. I’m fine with letting Drake do any communication with the press. Unless he specifically wants us to handle it.”

  “Those vultures won’t care,” Dare growled. “They’ve even started bugging me and Seth. Hell, I wasn’t even there for Bryson’s capture.”

  “All I’ve ever wanted is for Wade Bryson’s name to be erased from history. He should be forgotten. Completely. But here we are almost ten years later and he’s still getting his name in the fucking papers and on the news. This is what he wanted. Fame. Now he’s got it and it makes me sick,” Logan declared, his lip curled in derision. “All it does is gin up the serial killer groupies, and shit, he had a lot of them.”

  “Do you think this has anything to do with him?” Dare asked, pulling into a parking space in front of the Corville sheriff’s station.

  “Too soon to tell,” Logan replied. “This could be a serial or it could be drug related. And if it is a serial, it may not have a damn thing to do with Bryson. It could all be a coincidence that it’s here in Corville.”

  “You don’t believe in coincidences,” Reed said. “And neither do I.”

  “Maybe not but I’m not ready to call this yet. Let’s see what we’ve got here first.”

  Drake was there to greet them with hot coffee and doughnuts. The coffee was even pretty decent. Logan’s stomach was empty so he immediately shoved a chocolate frosted in his mouth and followed his former deputy into the back room that had been used mostly for storage.

  It looked completely different today. Drake had stacked up the file boxes into the corner and moved out the cot that Logan had taken many a nap on, and instead moved in a large conference table and several chairs. The table was covered with plastic bags of evidence while crime scene photos were pinned to a brand-new bulletin board on the long wall. It was a professional setup and highly organized.

  “I set everything up so you could take your time and go through all of it,” Drake said. “I’m already getting pressure from the mayor to solve these cases, and now the national media has shown up, too. I need to get this under control as soon as possible. Everyone wants answers and so far, I don’t have any.”

  “First of all, you do,” Logan said, pointing to a photo on the board. It was probably from the victim’s driver’s license. “You’ve got some of the identifications done. That’s a huge step right there. As for the mayor, tell Myron to go fuck himself. He couldn’t organize a trip to the bathroom, let alone solve a murder so he doesn’t have any room to talk.”

  Drake laughed. “Actually, Myron retired last year. The new mayor is Myron Junior, his son. But he’s not too far off from his dad. Maybe a little smarter, but the jury is still out on that one. He doesn’t seem to lack self-esteem, I will say that.”

  Logan rolled his eyes as he took up a spot in front of the board. “I went to school with Myron Junior. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

  Reed leaned a hip against the table, both of them staring at the smiling faces of the victims that had been identified. They looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. They’d had no idea what had been waiting for them.

  “Have the next of kin been notified?” Reed asked.

  Drake nodded. “For three of them they have. Two are still outstanding but should be done in the next few hours. The last identification is still up in the air. The body was far more decomposed than the others so we’re having to use dental records to confirm. We think we have it narrowed down but we need to be sure.”

  “He was probably the first to be killed,” Dare growled, his eyes narrowed in disgust.

  Logan didn’t disagree. He took a sip of his coffee, studying the crime scene photos pinned to the board. Grisly didn’t even begin to describe them. The kill site had to have been a mess.

  “Okay, we’ve got six dead men. Let’s talk about them. Similarities and differences. Let’s start with the first body you found. Later when we look at the autopsies, we can put them in likely chronological order.”

  Drake pointed to the first on the far left. “This is Gary Watson. Married with three kids. Age fifty-three. He works road construction part-time and also has a photography business on the side.”

  “Happy marriage?” Reed asked.

  “From what we can see so far? Yes, but we’re early in the investigation. I was the one that informed the wife and she seemed genuinely upset and shocked. She thought he was on a long weekend to work a wedding in Cheyenne. I checked with the happy couple. He never made it. They were angry, of course, until I told them that he was dead. We’re looking for his vehicle now, checking exits off the highway between here and there.”

  They went through each of the identified men and the last that hadn’t been confirmed.

  “So what do they all have in common?” Dare asked. “They’re all married but not all of them have kids. They all seem happy in their relationships but who really knows? If we dig further we might find girlfriends and gambling addictions.”

  “We need to do a detailed analysis,” Reed said. “Where do these guys get their car worked on? Where do they go to church? Do they shop at the same grocery store? Do they go to the same gym? It could come down to something as simple as they all get their oil changed in the same place or they pick up their morning coffee at the same corner shop.”

  “Agreed,” Logan said. “Even the most minute detail could be just the one we need. We’re going to need some manpower back at the shop.”

  Dare looked even more unhappy. “I’d hate to be the guy that had to go through all that damn paper.”

  Logan laughed and shook his head. “When I meant manpower, I meant people to help get the data and program for the computer to do all that work. It will be faster and more efficient than anything our interns could do, and a hell of a lot more accurate.”

  “We still work in the last century around here,” Dare said. “We don’t have any of these newfangled computer programs to help us fight crime. Like you’re Batman or something.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be Batman,” Reed mused. “Billionaire by day, crime fighter at night. And all those cool gadgets. The Batmobile alone would be worth it.”

  “For the longest time we thought you just might be Batman,” Logan declared with a grin. “You were so damn secretive about your past. Personally, I never thought you were Batman. It wasn’t your style.”

  “What is my style?” Reed asked with a laugh.

  “James Bond.”

  Dare just shrugged. “By the time I came along, we all knew you weren’t either one of those.”

  “Where is Eli?” Logan asked after they’d gone through the victims and the scant evidence left at the dump sites, basically just clothing. No watches, wallets, or jewelry such as wedding bands. The killer might be keeping those as souvenirs so he could replay the murders over and over.

  Wait, have I decided it’s a serial?

  “He’s meeting us at the county morgue,” Drake replied. “He’s going over the new autopsy results this morning.”’

  “Then we better get there,” Reed said, levering to his feet. “I also want to see the locations where the bodies were found.”

  Victims, bodies, evidence, dump sites. Would any of this give them the answers they needed?

  There was only one way to find out.

  11

  “The killer wanted them found,” Eli said, pointing to the areas near the road. “There are a million better places around here to hide a body that wouldn’t be found for years, if ever. He chose these spots on purpose. I think he wants the publicity. He wants the press to write about him. He’s a fame whore.”

  Logan didn’t disagree. If this guy had wanted to kill people and never be found out these weren’t the spots to hide the bodies.

  But the killer might not be working on logic. After seeing the victims close up and personal at the morgue, it was c
lear that rage was involved. These were no clean, surgical-like murders. They might be well-thought out in advance - Logan didn’t have the evidence to decide one way or the other about that - but once the guy got his victim, he was like a man possessed. The anger that had been involved in cutting these people to ribbons was immense, not to mention the physical strength that had to be involved as well.

  In his mind, Logan had already ruled out a woman. To have somehow lured and then captured a strong, in-shape male and then used a knife in that way…

  “He’s mad as hell and he wants everyone to know about it,” Reed said, squinting against the bright morning sun. “What is he so pissed off about? What about these men are setting him off?”

  “Daddy issues?” Eli said with a shrug. “They’re all in an age bracket to be fathers.”

  “Except one of them doesn’t have kids,” Drake pointed out. “But did he know that? Does he even care? Maybe it’s a physical characteristic? These guys were all well-built, physically fit men. Maybe he feels inadequate or something.”

  “They don’t facially resemble one another,” Dare said. “And their heights are wildly different. We’ve got one guy at five-nine and another at six-four.”

  Logan shuffled through the photos in the file folder he’d brought with him, pulling up the man that Dare was talking about. “That guy was built like a linebacker, too. I wouldn’t want to tangle in a dark alley with him. Yet, our killer managed to subdue him long enough to handcuff him to a chair and kill him.”

  Reed’s brow quirked. “Are you thinking we have a team here? Two people?”

  “Not necessarily. He could have used drugs but shit, even if he drugged the guy he still had to drag the dead body here. That guy was almost two hundred and twenty pounds. That’s not an insignificant amount of weight. At my age, I’d be hurting after doing that.”

  “So he’s young?” Drake said. “Young enough that he wouldn’t blow a disc hefting bodies around in the brush.”

  “I’m leaning that way,” Logan replied. “But we need to keep an open mind.”

  “So the drug cartel theory is gone?” Dare asked. “We definitely think it’s a serial?”

  Logan rubbed at his chin. “I don’t see any evidence that these men were involved in the drug trade. I may change my mind later but right now these seem like random murders in a small geographical area.”

  “Can we talk about that?” Reed asked. “This is all happening here. Again. Does this have anything to do with Wade Bryson? Is there some anniversary that we don’t know about? Has there been a rise in interest in him lately? Did someone do a documentary or maybe write an article?”

  “Not that I know of,” Logan replied. “If this has to do with Bryson, I’m not sure how. These aren’t copycat in nature because they have a different method of killing. Also, Wade didn’t hide his bodies. He left them right where he killed them. Now, did someone locally get the idea to kill because of Wade? And it’s been ruminating around in their head all these years and they finally got angry enough to do it? Maybe.”

  “Then something set them off,” Dare stated. “An inciting incident.”

  “Yes, but it could be something completely stupid like they didn’t get their favorite waitress at the diner. It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be significant to him.”

  “Usually it’s a job loss or a romantic breakup that sets people off,” Eli said. “Or maybe a death or birth.”

  “Or moving,” Reed suggested. “Maybe he just moved into the area and has a string of dead bodies behind him where he left.”

  “Jared’s looking for murders around the country that might match,” Logan said, his gaze scanning the terrain. “What I want to know is how is this guy dumping bodies and no one sees him? Sure, this is a remote area but it’s traveled often enough that the victims were found within weeks or days, not months or years. How is he doing it? Does he have a truck? Is he local?”

  “Lots of fishermen around here,” Drake replied. “They travel in and out of the area. Maybe he blends in with them.”

  Reed held up his phone. “Seth and Tanner just showed up at the station. Maybe we should talk about our questions with them.”

  Seemed like a good idea. The more brain power they had on this case, the faster it would be wrapped up.

  There was yelling. Then a door slammed.

  The kids are home from school.

  Ava sighed and slipped out of her desk chair where she’d been trying to write for the last few hours. Her brain, however, wasn’t giving her much peace to do that, instead thinking about her husband in Corville and the murder case he was working on.

  There was no point in trying to write now that the twins were home. While at their age they were quite self-sufficient when it came to getting snacks and doing their homework, this last week of school was a real bear for the kids. Finals were stressful and they were both a little on edge.

  If one of them had blown an exam, she wouldn’t have been surprised at a door slam or two. But they’d been yelling at each other and although Ava mostly let them work things out between themselves, some instinct inside of her said that this wasn’t about who took the last clean fork and whether Brianna spent too much time in the bathroom.

  Which she totally does. But then I did too at her age.

  Padding down the hall, Ava could see that her daughter’s bedroom door was closed, but Colt’s was wide open. She stuck her head in to see him kicking off his shoes and placing his backpack on the floor.

  “Care to tell me what’s going on?”

  Colt groaned and rolled his eyes. “Brianna is acting like a baby.”

  The last three words were said at the top of Colt’s voice, and they were still ringing in Ava’s ears when her daughter stomped out of her room, pointing a finger at her brother.

  “I am not a baby. You’re being a jerk.”

  Colt shrugged and sat down on his bed with a bounce. “I’m just telling the truth. You’re being a selfish baby. All you care about is yourself. It’s pathetic.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Brianna was mad but Colt appeared calm about it all.

  “Colt, why do you think your sister is acting like a baby?”

  “I’m not,” Brianna denied before Colt could answer. “He’s an asshole.”

  That had Ava taking a step back. She didn’t allow the twins to speak like that to one another. At least not in front of her. What they did behind her back, she couldn’t control.

  “Brianna, we do not call our close family members assholes.”

  Although I did call my husband a fucking idiot a few days ago. And that was wrong.

  Her daughter crossed her arms over her chest, her chin lifted in rebellion.

  “He is one.”

  Were they even going to survive the teenage years? In the grand scheme this was a minor skirmish. She couldn’t win them all, of course, but occasionally she wouldn’t mind getting one in the W-column.

  “Colt,” Ava said, this time more loudly. “Why are you calling your sister a baby?”

  “Because she’s acting like one,” he said with a shrug. “She thinks her problems are just the worst in the entire world. She doesn’t care about anyone else and thinks she’s the center of the universe. That’s how babies think, not grown people.”

  Ava didn’t point out that they weren’t completely grown.

  “I am not acting like a baby,” Brianna said, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. “I do think about other people. I’m not selfish.”

  “Yes, you are. You don’t care about Dad. All you care about is your stupid problems like if Christy wore a better outfit than you today or did Kendall talk to Daniel a few minutes too long in the hallway. It’s sickening how superficial you are.”

  Ava held up her hands when Brianna would have argued back. “Wait, I need to catch up. What is going on with your father that you need to worry about?”

  Colt looked at his mother as if she wasn’t very bright.


  Maybe I’m not. I could be stupid.

  These kids had her second-guessing herself on a daily basis.

  “Dad went to Corville,” Colt replied, his brows pinched together. “I know he doesn’t want to be there. And now he’s in danger. This is about Wade Bryson.”

  Oh dear. Somehow in Colt’s mind, he’d made this trip about Bryson.

  “First of all, your father is not in any danger. You don’t have to worry about him. He’s fine. All he’s doing is helping investigate a possible serial killer in Corville. He’s helping Uncle Drake. Second, this doesn’t have anything to do with Wade Bryson. He’s long gone and cannot hurt us anymore. Everything in Corville isn’t always about Bryson.”

  “He’s the reason Aunt Mary doesn’t come visit,” Brianna said, her voice soft.

  “And he’s the reason Dad doesn’t like to go to Corville,” Colt said.

  “The people of Corville are why your dad doesn’t like to go to Corville,” Ava replied, ignoring Brianna’s statement about Mary. “Your father explained that to you.”

  On the best of days, Ava didn’t know how to deal with her sister. Mary lived in a world where she was blameless and Ava couldn’t really argue with her. Her sister was blameless for her husband’s death, and she wasn’t responsible for the demise of the Bryson dynasty either. But she was wrong placing the blame on Ava and Logan. All they’d ever tried to do was keep people safe.

  “Are you ever going to write about it?” Colt asked. “I keep waiting for you to write about it all but you never do.”

  Her kids were hitting on all cylinders today. That was a question she’d asked herself several times and a few more times out loud when talking to Kaylee. They’d be the most logical persons to write the story. They’d lived it, after all, but somehow they’d always talked themselves out of it, allowing other authors to put out their versions to the public.