Page 67 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

That got her full attention. Lawless Canyon sat about a half hour from Crossfire Creek, and Lauren had kept a house there. It was where Roman and Jessa had spent entire summers growing up. Quiet land. Rugged terrain. And it was where her mother was buried.

Deacon lifted the phone and hit speaker. “This is Sheriff Raines.”

A man’s voice came through, calm but tight. “Deacon. Sorry to call this late, but we’ve got something you’re going to want to hear.”

Jessa moved closer, every nerve suddenly alert.

Sheriff Martelli didn’t waste time. “Got a call a few minutes ago,” he continued. “Someone reported a man acting suspiciously in Whispering Pines Cemetery.”

Her pulse jumped. Whispering Pines was where Lauren was buried. Where her grave had been desecrated the night before. Where everything kept circling back.

Deacon’s voice sharpened. “Suspicious how?”

“He’s pacing in front of one grave,” Martelli said. “Yelling. Like he’s arguing with someone who isn’t there.”

A chill slid through her, cold and sharp.

“The whole area’s still taped off,” Martelli added. “It hasn’t been cleared yet by county CSI.”

Jessa didn’t have to look at Deacon to know he caught that immediately. He had sent the CSI team himself. He knew exactly what that meant. What evidence might still be exposed.

Deacon leaned closer to the phone. “Do you know who the man is?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s Marty Wynn. I’ve seen him around town enough times when Lauren was still alive to recognize him.”

Hell. Wynn, again. He kept turning up like a bad penny. But maybe this would be their chance to catch him.

“I need him arrested,” Deacon insisted. “Immediately. He’s possibly responsible for two attempts to kill me and others.”

Martelli exhaled slowly. “I hear you. I’ve got deputies staged and ready, but we’re holding off.”

“Why?” Deacon asked.

“Because he’s not just pacing and shouting,” Martelli said. “He’s agitated. Unstable. And we’ve got reason to believe he’s wired.”

The word landed like a punch.

“Bomb squad’s en route,” Martelli continued. “We’re not making a move until they’re here.”

Jessa’s pulse roared in her ears as Martelli finished, his voice grave and certain. “Pretty damn sure that Wynn’s got explosives strapped to him.”

Chapter Seventeen

Deacon ended the call with Martelli and cursed under his breath.

The whole thing reeked of a setup.

A man pacing in a taped-off cemetery. Shouting at a grave. Explosives strapped to his body. Wynn had escalation written all over him, but this felt calculated. Too loaded.

A trap.

Maybe it was a way to lure Jessa and him out into the open. Draw them off familiar ground. Force their hand.

He hated that he couldn’t see a clean way around it.

If Wynn was there, wired with explosives, Deacon had to go. He couldn’t ignore that kind of threat, not when it sat in the middle of a county cemetery with deputies standing by and civilians at possible risk.

And there was no world where Jessa stayed behind.