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WEDNESDAY MORNING Sara jogged around the block with Harold before finally stopping at the deputy’s office.
It had been more than a week since they’d gone fishing together. Since the kiss that had turned her heart upside down.
She’d found herself watching for Nathan around town. Wondering what he was doing, where he was. Even worrying about his safety as he went about the business of being the local deputy.
Where had that come from? The best thing she could do was concentrate on her surveillance. Watch for increasing activity at the plant. File her reports.
She had no business starting to care about the local law-enforcement officer who could—in the worst of all possible worlds—actually be aware of the illegal activity happening out at the plant. Maybe even being paid to ignore it.
But she needed information. The headline in yesterday’s local newspaper were stark—LOCAL MURDER-SUICIDE—but the article had offered few concrete facts about the deaths.
In a sleepy little town like Ryansville, where out-of-town guests could warrant notice in the gossip column, this tragedy had filled three full pages with interviews of locals who knew the couple well. All were testimonials to a loving marriage of two people who had been active in their church and the community.
In Sara’s casual conversations with shopkeepers, there’d been not one word about any trouble in that relationship or volatility in either spouse.
And as of last night, Allen hadn’t been able to give her any information on the BCA’s ballistics reports. Information that Nathan might already have.
Taking a deep breath, she walked into the quaint little brick building to track him down. Ollie glanced up from the papers on her desk without smiling. “He’s in his office, but you can go in.”
“Thanks.”
Through the open door of Nathan’s office, she could see two stacks of files on one corner of his desk, while three folders were open in front of him.
She studied him for a moment, trying to slow down her pulse. There were lots of guys with dark, wavy hair. Good, strong jaws. Dimples. Killer smiles.
Then he glanced up. At the familiar gleam in his eyes and the deep crescents carved into his tanned cheeks, all the resolve in the world couldn’t stop the little tap dance in her heart.
“Ollie told me I could come in.”
Closing the files in front of him, he pushed away from the desk and crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. Now she could see the shadows under his eyes and the tension bracketing his mouth.
“She’s been trying to make me take a break.”
Sara pulled up a chair in front of his desk, and Harold lay down beside it as she sat down. “Are you working on the Lund case?”
He gave a noncommittal tip of his head.
“Strange, isn’t it? Two nice people, no history of abuse...”
He cocked an eyebrow.
“Well, at least not according to all the talk flying around town,” she clarified with a sheepish smile. “I could hardly miss hearing it.”
“They were good people. Did you know them while you were growing up?”
“Not that I remember. The paper said they were both in their mid-forties, so they were more than ten years older than me.” She reached down to rub Harold’s ears. “Since everyone seemed to like them so well, do you really think they were the kind of people to... I mean, do you really think it was what the paper said? That this was a murder-suicide? Could it have been a setup?”
Emotion flickered across his face, and she wondered if he’d been thinking the same thing. “The rifle was found at Vince’s side.”
She considered her next words carefully, then gave a rueful shrug. “I guess I watch too many crime shows on TV. But I keep wondering, would anyone even know if that rifle was his? Someone could have broken in and—”
“You do watch a lot of TV.”
“But it’s possible?” she persisted.
“Anything is. The county crime-scene unit and the BCA are both continuing their investigations, and so am I.”
“What about the bullets?”
