by Kathy Altman
Contents
Also by Kathy Altman
Dedication
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Dear Reader
Acknowledgements
About the Author
In Full Force
Copyright © 2018 Kathy Altman
Kindle Edition
Digital ISBN-13: 978-1-7323580-0-3
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, and events portrayed in this book are products of the writer’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.
For more information on Kathy Altman and her books, sign up for her newsletter, or visit her website.
Good intentions gone wrong tore them apart. Murder brought them back together.
Charity Bishop is a small-town deputy determined to be the best law officer she can be—which had better be pretty damned good, considering her family is a bunch of crooks. When a local woman is murdered, and the sister of Charity’s high school sweetheart confesses to the crime, Charity accepts that finding a killer means partnering with the man who threatens everything she’s worked for. The man who took her heart with him when he left town twelve years earlier.
That man is Grady West, a struggling single father who finds it hard to forgive his high school lover for arresting his sister. But while Grady battles to prove his sister’s innocence and Charity battles to keep him at arm’s length, he finds himself falling in love all over again. Despite his determination to return to the city, Charity’s resolve to stay and run for sheriff, and a desperate killer’s plans to boost the body count, Grady realizes he has no choice but to convince Charity they deserve to be together.
Also by Kathy Altman
Castle Creek Series
Making It Right (Book #5)
Tempting the Sheriff (Book #4)
A Family After All (Book #3)
Staying at Joe’s (Book #2)
The Other Soldier (Book #1)
For Joyce Lamb.
Relentless champion of the romance genre,
exceptional writer and copyeditor,
very funny girl,
treasured friend.
Chapter One
Charity Bishop’s pulse bucked and her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs as she gazed down at the man she straddled. Torso heaving, hips twisting, he tried his damnedest to tip her sideways. Oh, no, you don’t. What was it with men, anyway, and always having to be on top? She squeezed her thighs tighter. He groaned, and muttered an oath.
With a frustrated sigh, Charity stretched through the gloom, rocking forward over a scrawny hind end. She shook her head, snagged the man’s wrists, and pulled them around to his lower back. Seriously. Was there anything more pathetic than a woman whose only opportunity to ride a man came when she needed to fit him with a pair of handcuffs?
And not even the fun, fur-lined kind. More like the your-ass-is-going-to-jail-so-I-hope-you’re-into-strip-searches kind.
Not that she had cause for a strip search. Nor the desire for any kind of hanky-panky here—the idea itself was enough to make her belly yearn for a ginger ale. The sour stench of stale cigarettes and beer muscled aside the sweet, sage-laced smell of a Montana prairie after dark and Charity’s stomach roiled. She relaxed her jaw and breathed in through her mouth as she patted him down.
He was clean.
So to speak.
She winced at the cold damp soaking through the knees of her pants and lifted into a squat. Right on cue, the man beneath her started to retch. Great. Perfect. The county was steadily hacking away at their budget and all three deputies shared janitorial duties. With her luck, tomorrow would be her day to clean out the holding cells.
“Upsy-daisy.” Tugging hard on the cuffs, she coaxed the drunk to his feet. The moment she’d shaken him awake, he’d bolted from the pickup. He hadn’t given her much of a chase, but her heart kicked like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. Time to get serious about cutting back on the coffee.
The drunk swayed beside her, mumbling, squinting toward the truck. Fretting over what she’d find in the cab, no doubt. She sighed, scooped up her flashlight, and gave her collar a push. She’d stash him in her SUV along with the pickup’s driver, then conduct a search. Another pursuit and her over-caffeinated heart just might explode.
The instant she opened the rear door of her Tahoe, the first drunk started screaming.
“I ain’t done nothin,’” he yelled, thrashing along the length of the seat until he reached the open door. He tried to spit at her, couldn’t get his cheeks working and dribbled sputum down the front of his grubby denim jacket. “You got nothin’ on me. I’m innocent!”
She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever believed that. By now his desperate denial of guilt had become part of their arrest ritual, like the token foot chase and the resigned rummage through his empty beer can collection.
Still she couldn’t help asking, “So why’d you run?”
“Everyone runs from the cops, you stupid bitch.”
“Sweet talk me all you want, but you’re still going to jail.”
“What for?”
“Seriously? You smell like you took a bath in a beer keg, and you were driving like you had both hands over your eyes.”
“Fuck you.”
The guy in her grip chortled and Charity set her jaw. “Nope,” she gritted. “That’d be incest.”
After kicking the door shut with her foot—somehow the jerk managed to pull his head back in time—Charity hustled drunk number two around to the other side. She shoved him in, gave an approving grunt when he intercepted the second batch of spit, slammed the door shut, and straightened. Eyes closed, she turned away and counted to ten, then tugged a pair of latex gloves from her equipment belt and marched over to the pickup.
The truck had skidded to a stop three feet from a cottonwood with a trunk as wide as a tractor tire. Her asshole brother and his drinking buddy were lucky to be going to jail instead of the morgue. She scowled at the battered pickup. The driver’s side door sagged open, the interior light flickering wearily. Stand back, I’m going in.
Her shoulder mic crackled and she froze.
Crap. The night dispatcher knew Hank Bishop and what he was capable of, which meant she’d be pissed at Charity for not checking in. Charity put her hand to her mic and thumbed the volume up, but the sultry female voice that could have ruled the phone sex industry didn’t transmit the expected rebuke.
“All units, we have a one-eight-seven on Richland Road. Please respond.”
Charity sucked in a breath and pressed push-to-talk. “Dispatch, this is Unit Four. Could you ten-twenty-two?”
“You heard me right, Charity. One-eight-seven. Unit Three’s on location.”
“Ten-four.” Charity stared in the direction of the river. After two days
of April rain, the muddy water tumbled as madly as the inside of her belly.
Homicide. She’d been with the Becker County Sheriff’s Department for six years and only once had she worked a murder. Even then she’d hovered on the periphery, covering shifts for the investigators and offering clerical support. Now the sheriff was on leave, which put the undersheriff, who happened to be Charity, in charge. Her heart gave an anxious kick and she peeled off her gloves. Becker County, Montana was a small town; chances were she knew the victim. She angled her chin toward her radio.
“Unit Four responding. ETA twenty minutes.” Why did she have to be on the opposite side of the county? She’d have to send someone else to work her brother’s accident scene.
Fifteen seconds later, she was strapped into her seat and turning the key. She switched off the takedown lights and tossed her hat aside. Behind her, Hank started in with a slurred monologue of worn-out curses, threats, and pleas. He knew he was facing time. Not only did he have three DUIs under his belt, but he was supposed to be driving the Buick, already fitted with a court-ordered ignition interlock. She figured two years, minimum.
A burst of static from the radio. Charity’s fingers curled around the gear shift and she shot a warning glance at the rearview mirror. “I’m needed out on Richland Road. Either of you gives me any trouble, I’ll pull over and cuff you to a tree.”
“You can’t do that.” Hank kicked the back of her seat. “There’s bears out here. I’ll sue!”
“You could use the money for tires. I bet that old pickup of yours doesn’t even know what a tread is.”
“Fuck you.”
She sighed. Next he’d start harping about how a sister should look out for a brother. Never mind he was ten years older. Never mind she couldn’t remember him once looking out for her.
“Not very original, are you, Hank?” She shifted into drive and ground her boot into the accelerator. Hank slammed back against the seat, hollering a garbled protest, while his buddy started whining about the half-empty bottle of beer he’d left in the truck. Charity smiled grimly.
Twenty-three minutes later she turned into the parking lot of the Becker County Veterinary Clinic. Arriving late at the scene? Not a great way to take lead of a homicide investigation. But she’d had to pull over twice to let drunk number two out to puke.
Deputy Coroner Riley Morrissey, or “Mo,” had been busy. The lot was lit up like an outdoor court prepped for a game of midnight basketball. Someone had turned on the clinic’s floodlights, and they joined the collection of headlights, emergency lights, and spotlights, all illuminating the body sprawled on the dull asphalt.
The body of a woman.
A helpless dismay seared the inside of Charity’s chest. Dealing with the occasional traffic accident victim and household fatality was bad enough. But homicide...
With a quick exhale, she plucked her hat from the passenger seat and pushed out of the SUV. She didn’t have to worry about Hank; despite her driving, he was fast asleep in the back seat, snoring loudly enough to rattle the paint off the chassis. Meanwhile his less-hostile, spew-happy partner-in-crime had started singing a garbled version of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.”
A member of the sheriff’s posse, or reserve unit, nodded as he passed by, walking backward while unreeling a bright strip of Do Not Cross tape. Charity scanned the vehicles in the lot. Besides Mo’s squad vehicle, the twin to her Tahoe, she noted an ambulance, a half dozen pickup trucks belonging either to members of the volunteer rescue squad or the sheriff’s posse, a battered compact no one other than the owner of the local paper would bother to claim, a minivan Charity didn’t recognize, and a two-seater convertible the bright white of a celebrity’s smile. She frowned. She knew that car.
A muffled, staccato sound finally registered. Dogs, barking inside the clinic. The barks faded behind a desultory clatter as two paramedics took their time offloading a stretcher from the back of the ambulance. No need to hurry when they were headed to the morgue.
Charity ducked under the flimsy yellow barrier.
The dead woman lay on her left side, left arm extended and cushioning her head, right arm bent behind her back. A long, off-white, expensive-looking coat hid her torso and upper legs. Beneath the coat she wore jeans and a three-inch pair of brown leather heels that cost more money than Charity took home in a month. She knew that because in a moment of madness she’d looked them up online, after Sarah had shown them off at the fire house’s annual pancake breakfast two weeks earlier. One look at the price and Charity had cringed. The boots were gorgeous, but not worth maxing out her credit card.
Her throat locked as she stared down at the woman sprawled at her feet. There was no mistaking that hair—a thick, glossy, enviable mass the color of polished pennies. Definitely Sarah Huffman. Single, smart, and successful, she’d been an agent with Tarrant Properties for years. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-five years old.
Charity’s gaze traveled to the purple-edged stripe of red that banded the woman’s throat. Who did this to you? No answer but the emergency lights that clicked and whirred, tinting the coat red, then blue, then red, then blue.
She crouched and scanned for signs of blood or other trauma. Hopefully Mo had asked Dispatch to contact the sheriff. And where was Dix? She needed her lead detective on site. Now.
“Strangled. Better than drowning. But not by much, I’m thinking.”
Charity let loose a quiet sigh. She knew that doomsday voice. Whenever she heard it she couldn’t help thinking of Eeyore. Only Eeyore was a damned sight more cheerful. Fingers digging into her knees, she peered up at Phil Smiley—owner, editor and chief reporter of the Becker County Herald.
“I doubt she’d agree with you.” Her gaze dropped to Smiley’s hands. “What are you doing inside the barrier? With that?”
He gestured with the camera. “Deputy Morrissey forgot his. I’d already got plenty of shots of... Anyway, you can have the memory card when I’m done. Long as I get a pic or two for the morning edition. I’m just trying to help out here.”
He adopted an injured expression, but Charity didn’t bite. She reached beneath her jacket and slid a pen free of her shirt pocket, then turned back to the body. Carefully she lifted away Sarah’s hair to get a closer look at the bruising. A flurry of superficial scratches marked both sides of the throat, above the ligature line.
Charity swallowed. Fingernails. Despite Sarah’s tidy appearance, she’d struggled.
“Guess you’re wishing the sheriff was here.”
Slowly Charity stood, replaced the pen, and slipped both thumbs into her rig. Smiley was right. At the same time, in some tragic, twisted way, this homicide would give her a chance to prove what she could manage on her own. Maybe help the town discover a female sheriff wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
“He’ll be here soon enough.” She turned and headed for Mo.
The department’s part-time coroner stood beside his unit, a notepad in one hand and a wad of paper towels in the other. In front of him a petite brunette wavered on high heels and brushed at the front of her leather jacket with her own fistful of towels. Charity winced. Looked like tonight was puke night. Chances were someone would be disinfecting their—
Crap. She halted. The face on the other side of all those dark curls finally registered. She knew she’d recognized that convertible. It belonged to Justine Langford. Justine West Langford.
Grady’s sister.
Cold dread hit Charity’s stomach. Please let her be nothing more than a witness.
The moment she acknowledged the thought, it shamed her. The day she let bias affect her job was the day she gave up being a law enforcement officer. And a law enforcement officer was all she’d ever wanted to be.
Mo shot her an it’s-about-time look, but behind the irritation in his baby blues lurked an unmistakable edginess. She noted the sad cast to his mouth and remembered—once upon a time, Mo had dated the victim, which meant he’d have his own issue
s to deal with.
This just kept getting better and better.
Mo gestured in Charity’s direction. “This is Deputy Sheriff Bishop, Mrs. Langford. She’ll head the investigation until the sheriff arrives.”
Justine gazed at Charity through red-rimmed, tormented eyes. Navy eyes, like her brother’s. Charity looked away and waved over one of the paramedics. When she looked back, she aimed her gaze at Justine’s quivering chin.
“Can I get you anything, Mrs. Langford? Water, maybe?” No response. The paramedic jogged over, and Charity touched Justine on the shoulder. “How about you let Yolanda take a look at you? Just to make sure you’re all right.”
Numbly Grady’s sister turned to follow the paramedic to the ambulance. Her gaze landed on the body and she slapped a hand over her eyes.
“Cover her,” she begged in a high-pitched, breathy voice. “For God’s sake, can’t you cover her?”
Mo moved to block her view. “No disrespect, Mrs. Langford, but we have to finish working the scene. I promise we’ll take care of her as soon as we can.” He gestured for the paramedic to take his place, then he and Charity watched Justine Langford wobble away.
“She’s half-loaded.” Mo held the soiled paper towels way out in front of him as he headed for the back of his SUV.
Charity exhaled. If Justine had been driving, that meant another DUI. Not good. Not good at all. This did not bode well for the socialite’s reliability as a witness.
She turned toward the empty single-lane highway. On the other side of the aging pavement, something made a scraping sound. A rattle of displaced pebbles. Awareness tickled the back of her neck, and every muscle locked. She squinted into the night, straining to see past the borders of the crime scene to the shadows that lurked beyond the reach of the lights.
Was he out there? Watching them labor over his handiwork? Enjoying the shock and grief and horror he’d spawned?
Charity tipped her head and listened. Nothing. But she didn’t have to be trained in law enforcement to know there were times criminals felt compelled to return to the scene of the crime, to witness firsthand the aftermath, to revel in challenging the police.