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For the second day in a row, Kaden climbed the shallow steps to the front door of the courthouse. And for the second day in a row, the wind cut through the frigid air like a knife. This morning, however, he’d stopped by a store in Madison to buy a thick parka and insolated boots. They weren’t particularly stylish, but at least he wasn’t in danger of freezing his ass off.
Carrying the heavy leather satchel he’d brought from his brother’s condo, he entered the front office to discover a middle-aged woman seated at a wooden desk.
“How can I help you?”
“I need to see the sheriff.”
Her lips turned down. It was impossible to know if she was annoyed with him. Or the sheriff. Maybe both.
“I’m sorry. He isn’t in his office.”
Kaden forced himself to count to ten. “Is there a deputy I can speak to?”
Without warning, a heavyset man in a brown uniform and a baseball cap appeared behind the woman. He looked to be in his early thirties, although he had one of those baby faces that made it hard to be sure. He was studying Kaden with a narrowed gaze. Or was that a squint?
“I’ll deal with this, Monel,” he assured the woman.
“Thank God someone can,” Kaden muttered.
The deputy waved for Kaden to follow him. “It’s a little stressful around here right now.” He stopped to push open the door to a connecting office. “Come in here.”
Kaden stepped inside, instantly hit with the scent of old wood. It was oddly soothing, as if it was a silent reassurance that the place had stood in this spot for a hundred years and would be there for another hundred. He grimaced, telling himself to be more impressed with the high-tech monitors that were mounted on the wall over the old wooden filing cabinets. That was the sort of thing that could solve cases, right?
His gaze moved toward the large window that offered a view of the town square. He had to admit it looked stunning. A perfect backdrop for a Hallmark Christmas movie.
“I’m Anthony.” The deputy interrupted his wandering thoughts.
Kaden turned back to discover the man leaning against the heavy desk, which looked as if it’d been around as long as the courthouse.
“I’ m—”
“I know who you are,” Anthony interrupted Kaden’s attempt to introduce himself. “The whole town is buzzing about you showing up yesterday. Are you here to do a show about the skeleton we found?”
“Absolutely not.”
The deputy grimaced. “I knew it was too good to be true. Why are you here?”
Kaden swallowed his annoyance at the locals’ hope of using the recently discovered skeleton to grab a bit of fame. He hadn’t liked Vanna, but she deserved better.
Drawing in a deep breath, he forced himself to speak in a calm voice. “Fifteen years ago, my brother’s fiancée, Vanna Zimmerman, went missing.” He reached into the satchel to pull out the eight-by-ten photo of Vanna in her official uniform. Stepping forward, he handed it to the deputy. “This is her picture. You can see her jacket. It looks exactly like the one that was posted on the Internet.”
In the blink of an eye, Anthony went from casual curiosity to a man on duty. “You think the skeleton belongs to her?”
“I do.”
“If you want to write down her name and any other information you have on her, I can pass it along to the coroner.”
Kaden breathed out a sigh of relief. Finally. He started to reach back into his satchel. “My brother passed away five years ago, but he left behind a stack of files. I have them here if you would like—”
His words were cut short when the door slammed open and a man in his midfifties with thinning dark hair combed straight back and a nose that was too large for his narrow face stormed into the room. He was wearing a dark suit with a red tie that looked like it had Christmas trees printed on the silk and he had a metal flag pinned to his lapel.
Kaden didn’t have to guess who the intruder was. He had the smug look of a man who’d been given a tiny bit of power that had gone straight to his head.
Tate Erickson. Mayor of Pike and acting sheriff.
The man came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Kaden. Or maybe it was Anthony, who was still leaning against his desk.
