LITMIR.BIZ

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question all of them,” Reed promised.

      “And I’ll be there when you do,” Livvy added. She heard the irritation in his under-the-breath grumble, but she ignored him, took the handheld UV lamp from her bag and put on a pair of monochromatic glasses.

      “Shane said he was here when he was hit.” Reed pointed to the area in front of the fireplace. It was only about three feet from where Marcie’s body had been discovered.

      Livvy walked closer, her heels echoing on the hardwood floor. The sound caused Reed to eye her boots, and again she saw some questions about her choice of footwear.

      “They’re more comfortable than they look,” she mumbled.

      “They’d have to be,” he mumbled back.

      Though comfort wasn’t exactly the reason she was wearing them. She’d just returned from a trip to visit her father, and one of her suitcases—the one that contained her favorite work boots—had been lost. There’d been no time to replace them because she had been home less than an hour when she’d gotten the call to get to Comanche Creek ASAP.

      “I do own real boots,” Livvy commented and wondered why she felt the need to defend herself.

      With Reed’s attention nailed to her, she lifted the lamp and immediately spotted the spatter on the dark wood. Without the light, it wasn’t even detectable. There wasn’t much, less than a dozen tiny drops, but it was consistent with a high-velocity impact.

      “Shane’s about my height,” Reed continued. And he stood in the position that would have been the most likely spot to have produced that pattern.

      It lined up.

      Well, the droplets did anyway. She still had some doubts about Shane’s story.

      Livvy took her camera, slipped on a monochromatic lens and photographed the spatter. “Your deputy could have hit himself in the head. Not hard enough for him to lose consciousness. Just enough to give us the castoff pattern we see here. Then, he could have hidden whatever he used to club himself.”

      Reed stared at her. “Or he could be telling the truth. If he is, that means we have a killer walking around scot-free.”

      Yes, and Livvy wasn’t immune to the impact of that. It scratched away at old wounds, and even though she’d only been a Ranger for eighteen months, that was more than enough time for her to have learned that her baggage and old wounds couldn’t be part of her job. She couldn’t go back twenty years and right an old wrong.

      Though she kept trying.

      Livvy met Reed’s gaze. It wasn’t hard to do since he was still staring holes in her. “You really believe your deputy is incapable of killing his ex-lover?”

      She expected an immediate answer. A damn right or some other manly affirmation. But Reed paused. Or rather he hesitated. His hands went to his hips, and he tipped his eyes to the ceiling.

      “What?” Livvy insisted.

      Reed shook his head, and for a moment she didn’t think he would answer. “Shane and Marcie had a stormy relationship. I won’t deny that. And since you’ll find this out anyway, I had to suspend him once for excessive force when he was making an arrest during a domestic dispute. Still … I can’t believe he’d commit a premeditated murder and set himself up.”

      Yes, that was a big question mark in her mind. If Shane had enough forensic training to set up someone, then why hadn’t he chosen anyone but himself? That meant she was either dealing with an innocent man or someone who was very clever, and therefore very dangerous.

      Because she was in such deep thought, Livvy jumped when a sound shot through the room. But it wasn’t a threat. It was Reed’s cell phone.

      “Kirby,” he said when he answered it.

      That got her attention. Kirby Spears was the young deputy who’d assisted her on the scene and had carried the footprint castings back to the sheriff’s office so a Ranger courier could pick them up and take them to the crime lab in Austin.

      While she took a sample of one of the spatter droplets, Livvy listened to the conversation. Or rather that was what she tried to do. Hard to figure out what was going on with Reed’s monosyllablic responses. However, his jaw muscles stirred again, and she thought she detected some frustration in those already intense eyes.

      She bagged the blood-spatter sample, labeled it and put it in her equipment bag.

      “Anything wrong?” Livvy asked the moment Reed ended the call.

      “Maybe. While he was in town and running the investigating, Lieutenant Wyatt Colter made notes about the shoe sizes of the folks who live around here. He left the info at the station.”

      That didn’t surprise Livvy. Lieutnenant Colter was a thorough man. “And?”

      “Kirby compared the size of the castings, and it looks as if three people could be a match. Of course, the prints could also have also been made by someone Marcie met during her two years on the run. The person might not even be from Comanche Creek.”

      Livvy couldn’t help it. She huffed. “Other than you, who are two possible matches?”

      “Jerry Collier, the head of the land office. He was also Marcie’s former boss.”

      She had his bio, and it was one of the ones that Reed had picked from the file as a person who might be prone to breaking into the cabin. Later, she’d look into his possible motive for stealing a phone. “And the other potential match?”

      Reed’s jaw muscles did more than stir. They went iron-hard. “The mayor, Woody Sadler.”

      “Of course.”

      She groaned because she shouldn’t have allowed Reed to stop her from arresting him. Or at least thoroughly searching him. Mayor Woody Sadler could have hidden that phone somewhere on his body and literally walked away with crucial evidence. Lost evidence that would get her butt in very hot water with her boss.

      “I’ll talk to him,” Reed said.

      “No. I’ll talk to him.” And this time she didn’t intend to treat him like a mayor but a murder suspect.

      In Reed’s eyes, she saw the argument they were about to have. Livvy was ready to launch into the inevitable disagreement when she heard another sound. Not a cell phone this time.

      Something crashed hard and loud against the cabin door.

Chapter Three

      Reed drew his Smith and Wesson. Beside him, Livvy tossed the UV lamp and her glasses onto the sofa so she could do the same. Reed had already had his fill of unexpected guests today, and this sure as hell better not be somebody else trying to “help” Shane.

      “Anyone out there?” Reed called out.

      Nothing.

      Since it was possible their visitor was Marcie’s killer who’d returned to the scene of the crime, Reed approached the door with caution, and he kept away from the windows so he wouldn’t be ambushed. He tried to put himself between Livvy and the door. It was an automatic response, one he would have done for anyone. However, she apparently didn’t appreciate it because she maneuvered herself to his side again.

      Reed reached for the doorknob, but stopped.

      “Smoke?” he said under his breath. A moment later, he confirmed that was exactly what it was. If there was a fire out there, he didn’t want to open the door and have the flames burst at them.

      There was another crashing sound. This time it came from the rear of the cabin. Livvy turned and aimed her gun in that direction. Reed kept his attention on the front of the place.

      Hell.

      What

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