Page 12 of Overkill

My brows came down in confusion. Foul play?

“I thought they said he’d drowned.”

“Apparently,” Braun said pointedly, “the Grays are all fantastic swimmers and boatmen. There was no way that he could have been killed by drowning, so they want to know what happened to him really.”

He puffed his cigar, then shrugged.

“They don’t believe Sheriff Whitlaw. They think she’s biased.” He chuckled to himself as he ashed into a tray. “Though, if you ask me, she’s not the type to let her own feelings get in the way of an investigation.”

I agreed. I hadn’t interacted much with the sheriff, but she seemed straightforward, serious, and really, really competent. I didn’t get the impression she’d be biased in any way.

“Why would they think she’s biased?” I asked while examining photographs of the living Luke Gray.

There were family photos. Him with his wife. Sometimes she was in nurse’s scrubs. Three kids. Two girls and one boy. Melody was a lot older than her siblings. I knew that, though. She was now their guardian.

My eyes lingered on her face. She had the most amazing eyes that reminded me of the wings of a phoenix—rounded in the middle, then tipping drastically upwards at the ends. I’d never seen eyes quite like hers, and I’d become a little obsessed with them.

Melody. Everyone called her Mellie or Mel, but she wasn’t either. She was a Melody through and through. I knew from the moment I saw her walking up the McClanahan driveway last Christmas. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders and the look of genuine gratitude anytime I helped her with anything. That gratitude did it for me.

Maybe I had a gratitude kink, because I mesmerized by the way she said thank you, and I wanted her to thank me after the throes of orgasms. To look at me with lust-filled gratitude as I gave her everything she needed.

Was that a real kink? I wasn’t about to google it. That was a minefield ready to kick me in the ass.

“Hm…” Braun mused, staring at me as I stared at her photo.

“It’s an open secret that Sheriff Whitlaw’s son was probably the product of an ill-fated union with Mr. Turner Gray.”

“What?” I said, my head spinning from his way of speaking.

“Sheriff Whitlaw is twenty-nine years old. Her child is thirteen. Are you any good at math, young man?”

“Carry the one…She had a child at sixteen?”

“Pregnant at fifteen. That’s right.”

“How old is Turner Gray?” I asked, scanning the documents for his birthday.

“Forty-eight.”

“Well, that’s another twist in the world’s most disgusting pretzel.” I let out a whistle, my stomach turning. A fifteen-year-old seduced—no, raped—by a thirty-six-year-old?

I was thirty-seven. The idea of sticking my dick into any human who wasn’t old enough to drink made me want to puke.

Braun pursed his lips, nodding. “Yes. It’d be better for everyone involved if Turner went the way of his brother and found himself face down in a lake. But if wishes were horses…”

I had no idea what would happen if wishes were horses. There’d be a lot of horse dung on the road?

“What do they think happened to him? Do they have any suspicions?”

“Yes,” Braun drawled. “They think the pretty little stepdaughter had something to do with it. You know Miss Melody Gray, don’t you?”

The sly look in his eyes told me he did not require an answer.

There were no secrets in a small town. I knew that from having lived in Belfree, Kansas many lifetimes ago. Mourningkill wasn’t much different except for the elevation. Everyone here knew me as the guy living in the McClanahan barn, and Melody was the neighbor they all looked at crossways. I hadn’t missed the sidelong glances or the cold shoulders sent her way.

It made me like her more, to be honest. I was the small-town outcast once. Hell, I was the outcast on my old team, too. I was an outcast now.

I made no secret of being nicer to her than I needed to be.