LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Franklin County, TennesseeMonday, February 25, 9:10 p.m.

      The red and blue lights flashed in the night.

      Audrey Anderson opened her car door and stepped out onto the gravel road. She grimaced and wished she’d taken time to change her shoes, but time was not an available luxury when the police scanner spit out the code for a shooting that ended in a call to the coroner. Good thing her dedicated editor, Brian Peterson, had his ear to the police radio pretty much 24/7 and immediately texted her.

      The sheriff’s truck was already on-site, along with two county cruisers and the coroner’s van. So far no news vans and no cars that she noticed belonging to other reporters from the tri-county area. Strange, that cocky reporter from the Tullahoma Telegraph almost always arrived on the scene before Audrey. Maybe she had a friend in the department.

      Then again, Audrey had her own sources, too. She reached back into the car for her bag. So far the closest private source she had was the sheriff himself—which was only because he still felt guilty for cheating on her back in high school.

      Audrey was not above using that guilt whenever the need arose.

      Tonight seemed like the perfect time to remind the man she’d once thought she would marry that he owed her one or two or a hundred.

      She shuddered as the cold night air sent a shiver through her. Late February was marked by all sorts of lovely blooms and promises of spring, but it was all just an illusion. It was still winter and Mother Nature loved letting folks know who was boss. Like tonight—the gorgeous sixty-two-degree sunny day had turned into a bone-chilling evening. Audrey shivered, wishing she’d worn a coat to dinner.

      Buncombe Road snaked through a farming community situated about halfway between Huntland and Winchester—every agricultural mile fell under the Franklin County Sheriff’s jurisdiction. The houses, mostly farmhouses sitting amid dozens if not hundreds of acres of pastures and fields, were scattered few and far between. But that wasn’t the surprising part of the location. This particular house and farm belonged to a Mennonite family. Rarely did violence or any other sort of trouble within this quiet, closed community ripple beyond its boundaries. Most issues were handled privately and silently. The Mennonites kept to themselves for the most part and never bothered anyone. A few operated public businesses within the local community, and most interactions were kept strictly within the business domain. There was no real intermingling or socializing within the larger community—not even Winchester, which was the county seat and buzzed with activity.

      Whatever happened inside this turn-of-the-nineteenth-century farmhouse tonight was beyond the closed community’s ability to settle amid their own ranks.

      Though Audrey had lived in Washington, DC, for the past ten years, she had grown up in this part of southern Tennessee. There had never been a murder among the Mennonites that she could recall. In fact, she was reasonably certain there had never been any violence involving one of them, unless the perpetrator was someone who had abandoned the Mennonite life. Even that was nearly unheard of.

      Tucking her clutch bag under her arm, Audrey palmed her cell phone and shoved the car door shut with her hip. The four-inch heels she had chosen to wear to the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards Banquet dug into the gravel with each step she made. She sighed. Sacrifices were a part of getting the story. What was the loss of a pair of shoes if there was a nice spike in subscriptions?

      For a newspaper, circulation—whether print or online—was everything.

      She might be the owner, but she also had the most investigative experience, which meant she had to get out in the field—had to get her hands dirty. How else was she going to turn the Winchester Gazette around? She not only had to get the story, she had to uncover the story no one else unearthed. It helped considerably that her family had deep roots in Franklin County, knew God and everyone who lived within a fifty-mile radius of her hometown. More important, the sitting sheriff—his white cowboy hat came into view even as she thought of him—really did owe her.

      He owed her big-time, and she intended to see that he never forgot.

      She reached for the yellow crime scene tape draped from bare crepe myrtle to crepe myrtle along the front of the yard, raised it and ducked under it. As if he’d sensed the interloper at his crime scene, Sheriff Colton Tanner turned to watch her stride up the driveway, the headlights from the cluster of vehicles illuminating her path. It wasn’t necessary to see his eyes to know his gaze roamed from the top of her blond head down the peach-colored silk blouse and classic broomstick skirt she wore all the way to the sleek matching high heels that would be ruined after this outing. As if to confirm her assumption, he shook his head and cut off the deputy who had headed Audrey’s way, no doubt to inform her that she needed to stay outside the yellow tape perimeter.

      Colt double-timed it down the steps and strode toward her. “Rey, you know you cannot be here.”

      Rey. From the day she was brought home from the hospital everyone around here had called her Rey. That was the way of things in the South. Your name was either chopped in half for a nickname or you were called by both your first and middle. No one seemed capable of simply using a person’s given name.

      “You have a body,” Audrey announced, one hand on her cocked hip as she peered up at the man who had shattered her naive heart at the ripe old age of seventeen. “I have a newspaper. Alone, neither one is particularly noteworthy. But the story of what actually happened can mean the difference between merely dead and murdered and, in the case of my newspaper, staying in business or going bankrupt. So, like you, Sheriff, I’m here for the story either way.”

      His gray eyes filled with confusion that quickly morphed into sympathy. Audrey wanted to shake him and tell him she didn’t need his pity. She just needed the story. The old saying “if it bleeds, it leads” was far too true. Except right now she would take sympathy or whatever else it took to get the story. She was just as ruthless as any other reporter.

      “Well.” He heaved out a breath and braced his hands on his lean hips, matching her stance. “Be that as it may, this is a crime scene, Rey. Police business.”

      He shrugged those broad shoulders and flared his wide hands. Why oh why had she noticed his lean hips or his long legs or his broad shoulders? Or any of those other utterly masculine assets before recovering control of her wayward thoughts? Dear God, she was hopeless. Or maybe simply desperate. She’d been back in Winchester for over six months and she hadn’t had a single date. Hadn’t had one for as many months or more before the big move. Quite possibly the only thing wrong with her was nothing more than basic human need.

      Whatever

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