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Carley had been the primary witness against his father sixteen years ago. Jim McKinney, a decorated Texas Ranger, had been accused of murdering his lover, Lou Ann Wallace Hendricks. If it hadn’t been for Carley’s statement that she’d seen his father drunk and disheveled leaving Lou Ann’s room at the inn, there probably would have been no arrest. No trial.
No total meltdown of his family.
Sloan’s family had been ripped apart because of the questionable eyewitness account of a teenage girl. Carley Matheson.
Remembering that certainly cooled down Sloan, and it got his mind back where it should be—on that damaged surveillance camera and her need to have it installed in the first place. In addition to Carley’s theory of a break-in to search for evidence, Sloan had a theory of his own.
“The camera overlooks the wooded area where the killer likely escaped,” Sloan explained. “That could be the motive for destroying it.”
She turned and stared out into the thick woods. “You mean because there’s almost certainly some sort of evidence out there.”
“You bet, and maybe the killer wanted to look for it without the camera recording it.” And that included evidence regarding Carley’s own shooting.
Judging from her slight shift of posture, she considered that, as well.
“So how exactly did you end up in the line of fire of a .38?” Sloan wanted to know. Zane had briefed him, but he wanted to hear what had happened from Carley herself.
Carley eased her hands into her pockets. “I was in my office, working late. I saw something move outside the window. Or, rather, I saw someone wearing dark pants and boots run past the window and into the woods. I grabbed my gun and hurried out to see what was going on, to see if I could catch up with the person.”
“At this point you didn’t know Sarah Wallace had been murdered?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I had no idea. It’d probably only happened minutes before I saw this person. Anyway, I went in pursuit, but by the time I got to the parking lot of the inn, he or she had disappeared into the woods. And then bam. Next thing I knew, I was face-first in the dirt and it felt as if someone had set fire to my ribs.” She drew in a hard breath. “I really want to catch this SOB.”
Oh, man. More vulnerability. She didn’t quiver or tremble. There was no deep level of emotion in her voice. But that bullet had robbed Carley of something that Sloan understood all too well.
Peace of mind.
“You’ll heal,” he told her.
She angled her eyes in his direction. “The voice of experience?”
He nodded. “Eighteen months ago, while chasing down a kidnapper, I took one in the shoulder.”
The silence settled uncomfortably around them.
Carley looked away, cleared her throat. “The surveillance disk is in my office. I was just about to review it, but then I heard someone skulking around out here, so I came outside to check things out.”
Sloan frowned. “I wasn’t skulking.”
“Then what were you doing?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Oh, wait. This was a trip down memory lane, wasn’t it? You’re reliving the good old days when you wore this badge and had the town at your feet?”
That last comment set his teeth on edge. “Sure. I do that all the time. Relive the past. Reminisce about that badge.” He made sure the sarcasm dripped from his drawl.
“Then I’ll leave you to it,” she said with dripping sarcasm, as well. Carley started for the back door but then stopped, turned and faced him. “If you’re looking for your brother, Zane’s not here.”
Oh.
She didn’t know.
He figured this was about to get real messy.
“Zane’s tied up with the grand jury,” she added. “Probably won’t be back for days. Maybe even weeks.”
Sloan didn’t think it was his imagination that Carley seemed smug and pleased about that. She no doubt thought that meant there’d be no Texas Rangers around to interfere with her investigation.
He caught onto her arm to prevent her smug exit. “The mayor and the D.A. don’t think you’re a hundred percent.”
She blinked and took her hands from her pockets. “Excuse me?”
“Neither does Zane. By all rights, you should be in your apartment, recovering.”
Carley threw off his grip. “Is this leading somewhere or are you trying to undermine my authority? Because you’re no longer sheriff of Justice.” She hitched a thumb to her chest. “I am.”
Sloan searched for the correct way to say this and decided there wasn’t one. The only thing he could do was lay it all there, even though he was dead certain it would cause the argument to escalate.
“It’s leading somewhere,” Sloan told her. “Since Zane is busy with the grand jury, someone needs to take over the investigation.”
That got her hands back on her hips. “That’s why I’m here at work, so I can do just that.”
“You’re on the case, Carley.” This was about to get even messier. “But only to assist.”
She shook her head, opened her mouth, closed it and shook her head again. Her confusion and denial morphed into anger. “Assist whom?”
Sloan braced himself for the inevitable fallout. “Me. I’m in charge of the case now. For the remainder of this investigation, I’m your boss.”
Chapter Two
Carley figured it was physically impossible, but she thought her blood might be boiling. She certainly felt something fiery-hot racing through every inch of her body.
“My boss?” she repeated. Not easily. She nearly choked on the words.
Sloan nodded. “Zane is leader of the task force for this murder investigation.”
He didn’t need to add more to that. Carley quickly got the picture, and it wasn’t a picture she liked very much at all. It’d been Zane’s call as to whom to put in charge and he’d chosen Sloan.
Not her.
To an outsider, Zane’s decision would seem like nepotism or even cronyism, but Carley knew for a fact that Zane and Sloan were brothers in name only. They hadn’t been real siblings since their father’s arrest sixteen years ago. That arrest had parted them like Moses had the Red Sea, with Zane refusing to get involved in anything but his own sterling career. Sloan, on the other hand, had involved himself to the hilt so he could convince everyone, including his brother, that their father was innocent.
“Zane must really be desperate to ask you for help,” she mumbled.
Sloan stood there in his crisp Ranger outfit: a white western-cut shirt, jeans, hip holster, snakeskin boots and his shiny silver-peso badge. He was studying her and probably trying to interpret her reaction. Carley didn’t have to interpret her reaction to him. She didn’t want him back in Justice and she didn’t want him meddling in her investigation.
Why Sloan McKinney of all people?
Their history wasn’t pleasant—and it wasn’t all limited to her testimony against his father. Seven years ago, he’d beaten her out for the deputy’s job. That still stung, even now. Carley had wanted that job more than she’d wanted her next breath. And why? Because it was a stepping stone to the next rung in her career ladder: being the top honcho—sheriff.
Something that Sloan had accomplished in record time by becoming the youngest one in the entire county.
He hadn’t changed in the handful of years since Carley had last seen him. The same short and efficiently cut dark brown hair. The same sizzling blue eyes.
Bedroom eyes, the girls had called them.
He still had that athletic physique on that six-foot-three-inch body of muscles and, well, good looks. That was his problem, she decided. Sloan McKinney had always been too sexy for his own good. It had opened doors for him. Plenty of them.
“I know you’re upset,” he commented. “But Zane thought that folks around here would be more likely to talk to me than him. Or you.”
Sloan had probably used that leisurely Texas drawl to soothe her, the way he used to soothe horses on his granddaddy’s ranch.
It. Did. Not. Calm. Her.
“Zane and you think folks are more likely to talk to you because you used to be sheriff,” she clarified through clenched teeth.
Sloan gave her a yep-that-about-sums-it-up nod. “And there’s that whole part about Zane knowing that you weren’t medically ready to resume your duties. This is a double murder investigation, Carley. A cold case—and a red-hot one. He needs someone who’s a hundred percent and he’s not convinced that you are.”
She would have argued if at that exact moment the pain hadn’t pinched at her side. Mercy. When was her body going to heal? It’d been nearly a week. She couldn’t take any more time off. Look what these seven days had done. She was no longer in charge of her own investigation.
Sloan was.
Fate was having a really good belly laugh about that. Sloan, her boss. Her working for him.
Because that was practically an unbearable thought and because her blasted side wouldn’t quit pinching, Carley went inside so she could sit down. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to do that right away. Sloan had those bedroom-blue eagle eyes nailed to her. He was observing her every move—and that wasn’t good, because she wasn’t moving so well.
Carley casually strolled inside, plucked the surveillance disk from the machine and tried to be equally casual by continuing to stroll into her office.
“You’re in pain,” Sloan remarked.
She ignored him and eased into the chair behind her desk. “I suppose Zane has already briefed you about the case that you’re now officially in charge of?”
He looked ready to call her on her evasive response, but Sloan finally just lifted his hands, palms up. A gesture of surrender.
Carley hoped there’d be more of those before this conversation was over.
“Zane briefed me, of course,” Sloan verified. “But I’d like to hear what you have to say about it.”
“No, you wouldn’t, but you’re trying to placate me because you know I’m mad enough to want to hit you with this surveillance disk.”
Carley took out her anger on the disk. With far more force than required, she shoved it into the player.
“Zane didn’t tell me about the surveillance camera being vandalized. Or even that it’d been installed,” Sloan explained. “He also didn’t tell me that you were back at your office, trying to work.” His voice was calm enough, but she could see the little embers simmering in his eyes. They weren’t so bedroomy now. “He might have missed something else that I need to know.”
It was immature, but she huffed.
Sloan huffed, too. Then he dragged a scarred wooden chair from the corner, deposited it in front of her desk and sat down. “Get past your hatred for me. I’ll get past what I feel for you. And for the next few minutes remember that you’re the sheriff, I’m your temporary boss and that you’re giving me a situation report to bring me up to speed on this investigation.”
Carley wanted to hang on to her anger and stew in it a little longer, but, by God, he was right. A situation report to a new officer on the scene was standard procedure, and though she didn’t like it, she would not violate procedure because of the likes of Sloan McKinney.
She took a moment to gather her thoughts and so she could come up with the most condensed version of facts. The less face time with Sloan, the better.
“Okay. You win. Here’s the situation report. As you know, sixteen years ago Lou Ann Wallace-Hendricks was murdered. She was strangled with her own designer-brand purse strap. At the time, she was married to one of our present suspects, Leland Hendricks.”
And her briefing came to a halt. Because what she had to say next would only stir up even more bad memories.
“I’ll finish this part,” Sloan volunteered. “We also know that Lou Ann and my father, Jim McKinney, were having an affair. The night Lou Ann was killed, you claim to have seen my father in the general vicinity of her room at the Matheson Inn. That led to his arrest.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. “And the case against him was dismissed.”
“The charges were dismissed only because there were some inconsistencies with the evidence. Your father’s name wasn’t cleared, and you know it.”
He leaned forward, propping his hands on Carley’s cluttered desk. He violated her personal space and then some. In fact, Sloan was so close that she got a whiff of his manly aftershave. It reminded her of the woods, summer afternoons, picnics and sex.
Whoa.
What?
Sex?
Carley was sure she looked stunned over that last thought. Since it was a truly disturbing notion, she shoved it aside and tried to repair the fractures in her own composure.
“What’s wrong?” Sloan asked.
“Nothing,” she snapped. She forced herself to continue. No more picnic, sex or aftershave thoughts. “I was just thinking how pathetic and dangerous it is that no one was ever convicted of Lou Ann’s murder.”
“Right.” He eyed her with obvious skepticism. “Why don’t we fast-forward this briefing to what happened a little less than a week ago.”
“Gladly,” she mumbled. After a deep breath, Carley went on with the report. “Lou Ann’s older daughter, Sarah, came back to town. She called her kid sister, Anna, who’s an investigative reporter in Dallas, and Sarah asked Anna to meet her at the Matheson Inn. Sarah said she had information about their mother’s killer.”
“Who knew that Sarah had come back to Justice?” Sloan asked immediately.
“Everybody.”
Carley was unable to contain her frustration about that. Sarah hadn’t kept her presence a secret, especially from the killer who obviously wanted to silence her. Not very smart. And because of it, Sarah had ended up dead like her mother. Carley hadn’t been able to protect her, and it was because of her that Sarah was dead.
She’d have to learn to live with that.
Somehow.
“Now you can finish the update,” Carley insisted. “Zane wasn’t exactly doing daily situation reports to let me know what was going on.”
“Because you were recovering from a gunshot wound.”
“And because he thought I was out of the picture. I’m not. So, boss, why don’t you tell me how you plan to catch a killer who’s evaded justice for sixteen years?”
He shrugged. “Simple—I’ll continue the investigation that Zane started. If the grand jury says there’s enough evidence to arrest anyone, that’s what I’ll do. If not, then I’ll reinterview the witnesses—”
“There weren’t any witnesses to Sarah’s murder.”
“Potential witnesses then,” he calmly amended. “And, of course, I’ll talk to Donna and Leland Hendricks since, according to the papers Sarah had, they’re the primary suspects for both murders.”
They were. The information that Sarah had brought with her to Justice pointed the proverbial finger right at Leland Hendricks, the wealthiest man in town, and his equally wealthy ex-wife, Donna.
