LITMIR.BIZ

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never known. When Andie first came to Haven Point, she and Wynona had first bonded over their shared loss. Like Jason, Wyatt Bailey had died helping other people. In Wyatt’s case, he had been hit by an out-of-control car during a snowstorm while coming to the aid of other stranded motorists. Andie’s husband had drowned while trying to help a man who was trying to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in Portland. When the man had resisted his efforts and tried to jump anyway, Jason had reached to grab him and had lost his balance and tumbled in, as well.

      In another layer of commonality, Wynona’s father had also died as the result of injuries sustained on the job, though his injuries hadn’t truly claimed his life until two years after a shoot-out with a robbery suspect. John Bailey had suffered a severe brain injury, however, and spent the last two years of his life in a nursing home.

      Marshall had endured those losses, too, she suddenly realized. Like Wynona, he had lost his brother and his father, both in the line of duty. It was a connecting thread between them and she couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her until now.

      Now he joined the ranks of lawmen injured on the job. She didn’t like thinking about it.

      “Who do you think ran him down?” Louise asked. “Herm and I think it must have been tourists who didn’t know the area and maybe thought they hit a dog or something. No one from around here would do such a thing, would they?”

      “I could think of a few miscreants from Sulfur Hollow who would probably love to get even with a Bailey. They likely wouldn’t even care which one,” Megan said, her expression dark. “Any of the Lairds would top the list.”

      “There are all those newcomers in town, too, that we don’t know a thing about,” Linda Fremont put in from her side of the table. “Not to mention all the people in Shelter Springs. It makes my blood run cold.”

      Andie didn’t want to think about it. Picturing him injured and alone in a snowy parking lot made her stomach hurt. It was entirely too similar to the dark days before Jason’s body was eventually found downriver from Portland.

      “Knowing Marsh Bailey, he won’t rest until he finds who did this to him,” Megan said.

      “Whoever did it, our Andie is very sweet to watch over him,” Louise said.

      She wanted to tell them Wynona hadn’t given her much choice, but she didn’t want to sound resentful. She wasn’t. She was happy to help, she just wished the man didn’t make her so nervous.

      “I haven’t done much, only brought dinner a few times.” She paused, remembering her conversation with him before she left earlier. “I don’t want to speak out of turn,” she said to Louise, “but there’s a chance Marshall might be calling to see if Christopher would be interested in earning a few bucks by shoveling his snow while he’s laid up.”

      “That’s out of the question,” Louise said firmly.

      Her vehemence took Andie by surprise and for a moment she didn’t know what to say. “All right,” she finally said. “I’ll tell him. I’m sure he won’t have trouble finding someone else.”

      “Oh, Christopher will be happy to shovel the walks, I’ll make sure of it, but he certainly won’t let Marshall pay him for it. He’ll do it for free, as a favor to a neighbor,” Louise said firmly.

      Megan snorted. “Good luck convincing any teenager to be so magnanimous.”

      “He’ll do it if he wants to eat at my table,” Louise said. “Christopher needs to learn that thinking about others is necessary and important to grow up as a decent adult. I’m afraid the boy hasn’t had the greatest examples in this department. I loved my daughter, but she could be very self-absorbed. His father is ten times worse—the man can’t even be bothered to visit his own son!”

      “I’m sorry. That must be very painful for Christopher,” Andie said, her voice soft with compassion.

      “Being in pain doesn’t give him a free pass in this world,” Louise said. “He still needs to learn how to care for others. From now until spring, I’ll make sure he shovels Sheriff Bailey’s walks when he’s doing ours and he won’t need a dime for it.”

      She had a feeling Marshall would insist on paying Christopher anyway, but the two of them could hash it out between them.

       CHAPTER SIX

      “BASICALLY WHAT YOU’RE saying is you have absolutely no leads, even though you’ve got the stolen vehicle.”

      “I wish to hell I had better news to report.” Ruben Morales looked apologetic and frustrated at the same time. “The state crime lab has gone over and over the thing and they can’t find so much as a stray hair strand. Everything was wiped down, even the mirror buttons and the turn signals. We couldn’t even find the owner’s fingerprints anywhere.”

      Marshall mulled the chilling implications of the information. “So we were right. This wasn’t just some joyriding kid, out to make trouble for a stray cop.”

      “Exactly. What kid would be smart enough to clear evidence from somewhere obscure like the seat adjustment bar?”

      “So that’s a clue right there. Either this is somebody who watches every single forensic crime show on TV or someone who knows his way around the system.”

      “Which you suspected from the beginning.”

      Marshall shifted in the damn recliner, trying in vain to get comfortable. It seemed harder than ever, especially with this grim conclusion sitting in his gut like a hunk of bad meat.

      The decided lack of evidence seemed to point to a perpetrator with advanced law enforcement knowledge. Someone smart enough to scout locations without cameras and then clever enough to lure him there by tantalizing him with a lead on a case they knew he couldn’t ignore.

      It was becoming harder and harder to avoid the conclusion that someone in his own department had deliberately come at him with deadly force.

      He had enemies within his own house. It was tougher to swallow than the giant horse-pill-sized antibiotics the doc gave him. He didn’t want to believe it, but the mounting evidence was becoming inescapable.

      “What’s the scuttlebutt in the break room about the incident?”

      Ruben hesitated, a shadow shifting across his features. “For the most part, everyone is concerned about you and angry that the perp drove away and left you there.”

      He didn’t miss the careful wording. “For the most part. What about the rest?”

      Again, Morales hesitated. Marshall knew he had put his deputy in a difficult position, asking him to investigate his coworkers. The Lake Haven Sheriff’s Department was too small for a dedicated internal affairs department. Usually, they would call in the state police to investigate cases of wrongdoing in the department. Marshall had, in fact, been preparing to bring in state police investigators to look into the missing funds.

      Something was sour in his department, something that had been going on longer than he had been in office.

      After a long moment, Ruben finally spoke. “I can’t help notice that certain parties clam up whenever the conversation swings around to you and your injuries.”

      “Let me guess. Wall and Kramer.”

      “You don’t seem particularly surprised.”

      “Who would be? They haven’t exactly been quiet about some of the changes I’ve tried to implement over the last year.”

      Both deputies had worked in the department for years. Ken Kramer, in fact, had run against him in the general election the previous year. Both Ken Kramer and his longtime friend Curtis Wall had made no secret they thought Marshall won the election because of his family name and not his own qualifications.

      John Bailey

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