She’d faced dangerous situations before…
She had no idea what was still to come.
Lindsay Engle became a CPS social worker to improve lives—not get people killed. But after a horrifying string of murders connected to Lindsay’s caseload, Detective Daniel Deperro will do whatever it takes to find the murderer. Lindsay won’t back down from the investigation, even as Daniel fears she’s the next target. But will his twenty-four-hour protection enrage the serial killer further—or expose Daniel’s true feelings for Lindsay?
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
An author of more than ninety books for children and adults with more than seventy-five for Mills & Boon, JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes about love and family, and pens books of gripping romantic suspense. A USA TODAY bestselling author and an eight-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.
Also by Janice Kay Johnson
Hide the Child
Trusting the Sheriff
Within Range
Brace for Impact
A Hometown Boy
Anything for Her
Where It May Lead
From This Day On
One Frosty Night
More Than Neighbours
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk
The Hunting Season
Janice Kay Johnson
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-0-008-90523-1
THE HUNTING SEASON
© 2020 Janice Kay Johnson
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Note to Readers
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
Change of font size and line height
Change of background and font colours
Change of font
Change justification
Text to speech
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Lindsay Engle set down the phone very carefully. If she’d given into her emotions, she’d have slammed it into the cradle and potentially shattered it.
The balding man who’d been chatting with another caseworker made his way between desks until he reached hers. Glenn Wilson, mentor and friend—and well able to read her, even when she was stone-faced. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.
Quiet had stolen over the room, she realized. Glancing around, she saw that her coworkers’ heads had all turned, too. She’d have sworn she hadn’t raised her voice.
“I removed a boy from his home two weeks ago.”
Nods all around; too often, as employees of Oregon State Child Protective Services, they had no choice.
“I placed him with his uncle, who sounded disgusted with his brother. Shane liked his uncle.” Her jaw clenched so hard she wasn’t sure she’d be able to relax it enough to say another word.
Glenn laid a hand on her shoulder. “Is the boy badly injured?” he asked, voice gruff but also gentle.
Lindsay shook her head, swallowed and said, “No, thank heavens. He collapsed trying to get on the school bus. The driver called 9-1-1, and Shane was transported to the hospital. That was the ER doc calling. Shane managed to tell them that his uncle Martin hurt him.” More like beat him to within an inch of his life, from the sound of it.
She opened a desk drawer and took out her handbag. “I need to get to the hospital.”
Ashley Sheldon, who sat behind the next desk, murmured, “That poor kid.”
“Apparently, brutality runs in the family,” Lindsay said bitterly.
“The cops arrest the creep?” Glenn asked.
“He’s conveniently not home. I don’t know whether he realized he’d gone too far, or whether he thought Shane would make an excuse and he’d skate.”
“He fell down the stairs,” suggested Matt Grudin, tone acid.
“Had a dirt bike accident,” Ray Hammond, another coworker, added.
Dark humor was common in their profession, but all Lindsay could summon was a pathetic smile before she said, “I’m off.”
As she walked away, behind her Glenn growled, “There’s a reason I took early retirement.”
She fully understood. Social workers, especially those on the front lines, burned out all too fast. Maybe she was getting to the point where she should do something else for a living. Something one step removed from children with purple bruises, black eyes and teeth knocked out by a fist, or girls who carried terrible secrets. How Glenn had stood it all those years, she couldn’t imagine. She admired him and was grateful that since his retirement he still stopped by the office regularly to say hi and lend his support to anyone who was especially frustrated or down.
At the small community hospital, she went straight to the emergency room, where she was allowed in Shane’s cubicle. As many times as she’d seen battered children and teenagers, she never got over the shock. His face was so swollen and discolored, she wouldn’t have been able to recognize him as the boy who, despite his wariness, was still capable of offering an irresistibly merry smi
le.
Maybe she should say, had been capable.
The one eye he could open fastened on her. “Ms. Engle?”
At least, that’s what she thought he’d said.
“Shane.” At his bedside, she reached for his hand, but pulled hers back when she saw that his was heavily wrapped. “I’m so sorry. I never dreamed—”
“My fault,” he mumbled through misshapen lips. “I thought—” He, too, broke off, but she had no trouble finishing the sentence. Shane had believed his uncle was a good guy.
“Can you tell me what happened? In ten words or less?”
The fourteen-year-old, tall for his age but skinny, tried to smile, then groaned.
Seized by guilt, Lindsay exclaimed, “I’m sorry! Forget it! We can wait until you don’t hurt so much.”
He gave his head the tiniest of shakes. “S’posed to clean the kitchen last night, and I didn’t. He dragged me out of bed and…” He made an abortive gesture. “You know.”
“I gather you talked to a police officer.”
“Kinda.”
“Okay. Did you have the MRI?”
She thought that was a nod.
“Has the doctor talked to you yet?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Oh. Okay.” She smoothed sandy blond, shaggy hair back from Shane’s battered face. “You know this isn’t your fault.”
His face twisted slightly and one shoulder jerked in a shrug she had no trouble interpreting. Did Shane even believe the cruelty he’d lived through from his father was anything but normal? As with most abused children, he wouldn’t have talked about it to his friends. For all he knew, the same crap might be going on behind closed doors in their homes. Now, having the uncle Shane had liked and trusted react so violently to his minor offense had to make him think men were always this violent…or else there was something about him that caused both his father and uncle to lose it.
Neither interpretation was healthy.
The original call regarding Shane had been referred to another caseworker, Emmett Harper. Emmett had thought Shane would respond better to a woman and transferred his case to Lindsay. Whether Emmett was right or not, Lindsay had never had any trouble with the boy, and thought he trusted her as much as he could trust anyone.
She hated that his ability to trust had taken another blow.
Lindsay hid a wince. Bad pun.
“I say it’s not your fault,” she told him, but saw his disbelief.
AN HOUR LATER, she’d talked to the doctor, a gray-haired, reassuring man who said Shane had suffered a concussion, two broken ribs, a broken cheekbone, three broken fingers, probably from blocking a punch, and a great deal of soft tissue damage. Nothing permanent, but he’d be in significant pain for weeks to months as the broken bones healed.
Shane was admitted for the night because of the head injuries, which gave Lindsay almost twenty-four hours to find him a new placement.
She also talked to the Sadler police officer who had responded to the call from the bus driver and who had driven to Martin Ramsey’s house on the outskirts of town. They used a small room off the ER to talk.
“Shane says, after his uncle beat the crap out of him, he told him to take a shower and get ready for school. Sent the kid out the door to catch the bus.”
“Did he really think nobody would notice Shane’s face?” Lindsay said incredulously.
Middle-aged and seemingly steady, Officer Joe Capek shook his head. “If he did, he’s delusional.”
“Do you think he took off?”
Sounding doubtful, he said, “If he’d been afraid of trouble with authorities, he could have kept the kid home from school for a few days. Threatened Shane with what would happen if he told anyone.”
Lindsay thought the same. “When do you plan to go back to the house?”
“I gather he works as a handyman?”
“More like he does remodels, but yes, he said he takes small jobs, too.”
Capek shrugged. “Figured I’d try five thirty, before my shift ends.”
“I’ll meet you there,” she said, rising to her feet.
“Is that smart?” he asked.
“I want to look him in the eye when you cuff him,” she said grimly.
His mouth twitched into an almost smile. “Let’s meet there, then.”
By the time Lindsay drove to the old farmhouse on the outskirts of Sadler, a headache had begun climbing the back of her neck. She could feel the pitons being pounded in.
Unfortunately, Martin Ramsey did not appear to be home. As Officer Capek circled the house to knock on the back door, Lindsay peered into a dusty, small-paned window on the side of the outbuilding that appeared to serve as a garage. She spotted a lawn mower and a flatbed trailer, but no car or pickup truck.
They met back at their own vehicles.
“I can send a unit around later,” he told her, and she nodded. Truthfully, there was no huge urgency to get their hands on Martin. He had no other children in the home who might be potential victims.
The next morning, she drove Shane to a receiving home, intended to be temporary. Late afternoon, she called Capek to learn he’d had a family emergency. Sadler was one of the larger towns in eastern Oregon, which meant only that it had a handful of traffic lights downtown and an array of essential businesses as well as a bunch of churches and taverns. The police department consisted of seventeen officers as well as a chief and captain. The resources weren’t unlimited, and the county sheriff’s department was stretched even thinner patrolling lonely miles of rural roads and highways. Lindsay had always found both agencies to be cooperative to the extent of their capabilities. This time, though, it appeared that in the absence of Officer Capek, nobody else had made any effort to catch up to Shane’s uncle.
Too mad to wait, she decided to follow up herself. She wouldn’t make contact, just check to see if there were indications the man was home. The situation was beginning to strike her as really strange. Had he gotten home yesterday evening and not wondered at Shane’s absence? Or had he gotten nervous and gone to stay with a friend?
Or could he be at his brother’s empty home? Austin Ramsey was serving a disgracefully short jail sentence for what he’d done to his son. Knowing that, Martin might have thought he could stay there for a week or two with no one the wiser.
Martin’s own home first.
The aging house and barn and additional small outbuilding looked as deserted as they had yesterday. Even forlorn, Lindsay thought, although that was surely all in her head.
Disturbed, she turned her car around and went back out to the road.
Shane had grown up in a somewhat more modern rambler that was also set on two or three acres. As Lindsay turned into the long dirt driveway, she became uneasily aware that, without binoculars, the nearest neighbors wouldn’t see what was happening here.
Her foot went to the brake. Maybe coming out here alone wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. But after a brief hesitation, she made sure the car doors were locked and went ahead. Why would he be a danger to her? He probably thought he was fully justified in punishing his nephew.
She rolled to a stop in front of the house, which at first sight showed no sign of life. Here, a double garage could be hiding his pickup truck.
Lindsay turned her Subaru Outback around, so that all she had to do was stomp down on the accelerator to escape. Then she leaned on the horn and watched the front door and windows through her rearview mirror.
Wait. Was that a light on inside?
Her internal debate was brief. This was hardly the first time she’d gone alone to speak to an abusive parent. Assaulting her wouldn’t advance Martin’s cause. To the contrary, in fact. He still technically had visitation with his own children, albeit they lived with their mother and a stepfather in Pennsylvania. Given his poor impulse control, it
probably hadn’t occurred to him that he had put that visitation in jeopardy by beating up his nephew.
Lindsay left the key in the ignition, her engine running and the driver side door open to facilitate a hasty escape. She wasn’t even sure why she felt so tentative as she climbed the two porch steps and approached the front door.
Ringing the doorbell produced a sound inside she’d call a gong. When nothing happened, she eased toward the large front window. The blinds were down, but slanted to allow her to peer in. The interior was dim, but a light was definitely on deeper in the house. The kitchen?
She dialed 9-1-1 and clutched her phone in her hand with her finger poised over the screen as she left the porch and went around the house to the back. On the way, she reasoned with herself. Austin might well have left a light or two on in the house to make it appear someone was home. He could even have lights on timers. Lindsay didn’t understand this instinct insisting that, all evidence to the contrary, someone was here.
The quiet seemed unnatural when the road wasn’t that far away. She stopped in the middle of the overgrown lawn and looked around. Movement in the trees caught her eye, chilling her despite the heat of the day. She stared. She’d been imagining things; no one was there. A few leaves quivered, probably because a bird had taken off from that branch.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to the back stoop, which was just that: a concrete pad with a small extension of the roof sheltering it. She was only a few feet away, about to take a last look over her shoulder, when she saw that the door stood open by an inch or two.
She froze, eyes fixed on the thin band of light. Her finger twitched, but…what if she called the police, and it turned out Austin just hadn’t latched the door when he left the house?
Somehow, Lindsay knew better and knew, too, that she was going to look inside. Her mouth was suddenly dry. She used her elbow to nudge the door. It swung silently inward, revealing a utility room with a bench for the owner to sit and remove boots. Two pairs had been neatly placed beneath the bench. Several coats hung on hooks on the wall. An empty plastic laundry basket sat atop the dryer. An open doorway led into the kitchen.
The Hunting Season Page 1