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He shook his head. “Don’t mistake what I’m doing for a blessing on this project. I’m just hoping you’ll do your research, find nothing, and go away quietly. Ten o’clock tomorrow work for you?”
“That’s fine.”
Every pair of eyes followed her as she made her way to the front door. On the sidewalk, she stopped a moment and looked around. Her skin crawled, as if the predator was actually there, watching her. All these years, she’d been convinced he was still here, hiding behind a familiar face, concealing the evil that swirled within him.
Her mind still on her conversations at the newspapers, Dana barely glanced at the large black pickup parked across the street fromThe High Ridge Messenger.And the man watching her through the passenger window.
****
Just who the hell is she?
Sheriff Cole Landry sipped on the giant cup of hot coffee from Freddie’s Gas and Go, watching the woman walk out of the newspaper office and climb into her car. Everything about her screamed “big city.” She was maybe five four, with streaky blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail so tight it had to give her a headache and a slender body in jeans and a blazer. Her eyes were hidden behind huge sunglasses. Everything expensive. Even he could see that.
He was sure she wasn’t from around here. As sheriff of Salado County, population twenty-five thousand, there were few people he didn’t at least have a nodding acquaintance with. And with just five thousand people in High Ridge, strangers easily stood out. This one more so than usual.
She was definitely a different breed of animal. Tension radiated from every line of her body. He’d known plenty of women like her—tightly wound, obsessive about control even in bed, emotions locked down. Down and dirty sex, then get the hell away.
But something about her made the back of his neck itch. And worse than that, made his cock sit up and pay attention. What the hell was someone like her doing in his nice quiet slice of the world? The place he’d spent summers on his uncle’s ranch. The place he’d retired to when he left the Marines—burned out from Iraq and Afghanistan—and bought a small spread of his own. And how lucky was it that Salado County was looking for a new sheriff at just that moment? And then the consultation offer from Guardian Security came out of the blue after he’d worked a situation with them. Life was good.
But he had a feeling this woman was going to kick him straight out of his comfort zone.
He took another swallow of coffee. Usually, he waited to reach the office before pouring his first cup, but he’d had to stop and see Freddie about some minor vandalism at the store and the coffee had looked and smelled better than anything Grace, his dispatcher, brewed. The stop put the stranger square in his sites.
Finishing the last of the dark liquid, he crushed the cup, turned on the engine, and headed for his office. He was barely inside before someone yelled to him, “John Garrett’s on the line for you.”
Good. Maybe he’d get some answers.
****
Needing something in her stomach besides airline peanuts, Dana took the time to grab a sandwich at a nearby diner. She had only vague memories of the town she’d grown up in, culled from the mind of a seven-year-old. But research told her High Ridge was just like all the other small Hill Country towns. Limestone buildings, ranches whose rolling acres held herds of cattle and horses, the local high school and weekend rodeo serving as centers of activity. As she drove down Main Street she thought she’d stumbled into a Charles Russell painting.
How many times had she Googled both the town and the county, searching for…she sure didn’t know what. If it had to do with the children’s murders, she didn’t find it. Somehow, the sheriff at the time had been able to shut down the flow of news, and newspapers outside the county carried only a smattering of details of the crimes.
What had she expected coming back here? A sudden message from outer space telling her who destroyed her life and killed her sister? That certainly wasn’t happening. Instead, what she got the minute she passed the boundary sign for Salado County was the familiar cold fist of terror that never released its grip. Not once in all these years. It was the single force that drove her.
The High Ridge Motel was every bit as dreary as Dana expected, but no worse than dozens of others she’d stayed at. This one was distinguished by the fake antlers on the wall in the lobby, the terra cotta tile floor, and a potted cactus that had to be a hundred years old. The bedspread in her room was fake animal hide and the furniture a very cheap oak.
At least it would do for one night. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be leaving this town any time soon. Tomorrow she’d do what she often did—find a short-term rental.
Parking in front of her room, she hauled her suitcase and laptop inside her room and flopped onto the bed, still fully dressed and exhausted. The lack of sleep the night before and the flight and the tension of the morning finally caught up with her, and in seconds, she fell into an uneasy sleep. A sleep haunted by dreams of an old barn and the high cackle of a man’s voice.
Chapter Two
Dana pushed open the door ofThe High Ridge Messengerand hoped Marian Jordan didn’t shoot her on sight. When she woke that morning, she was no more rested than when she fell asleep the day before. Her dreams were especially disturbing, and she had to look carefully around the room to be sure Kylie’s little body wasn’t lying somewhere for her to find. Sleeping in her clothes hadn’t helped, and a shower had barely washed away the rumpled feeling.
When the grumbling of her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, she made herself stop at the Gas and Go for coffee and a sausage biscuit. Now the food sat like lead in her stomach. She forced her mouth into a smile for John Garrett when he came out to greet her.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this.” Dana stood in his office, hoping he would give her what she wanted and leave her alone to work with it. Like every other man his age in the county, he was somewhere on her suspect list and being around him made her nervous and edgy.
“You won’t thank me when you start reading this muck,” Garrett told her. “But if you’ve got your mind set on it, I might as well get you what you need. I suppose you won’t give me any peace until I do.”
“I like to think of myself as persuasive,” she told him. “And I’ll be fine. It won’t be any worse than other research I’ve done, I can promise you.”
He motioned for her to follow him. “Come on. I’ll take you to the storage room where everything is kept. Lucky for you, those issues are on microfilm and not lying stacked in some box somewhere. Who knows what shape they’d be in by now? I’ll set you up at a machine and leave you to it.” He shook his head. “I wish you joy of it. I have to warn you, though. This town won’t give you much cooperation if you try talking to anyone.”
“I’ve already figured that out,” she told him in a dry voice.
The room he led her to was obviously not used on a regular basis. A long table pushed against one wall held two microfiche machines, a printer, and dusty cartons labeled by years with rolls of microfiche in them.
