by CJ Birch
Flynn County Sheriff Elle Ashley has spent her adult life atoning for her wild youth, but when she finds her ex, Jessie, murdered two weeks before the small town’s biggest social event, she comes face-to-face with her past and all her well-kept secrets.
Not only is this Elle’s first murder investigation, it’s the town’s first in over fifty years. She must find a killer before there are any more casualties and keep her troubled little brother off the suspect list, all under the watchful eyes of a Chicago reporter.
Investigative reporter Robin Oakes isn’t a small-town kind of girl, and she’s determined to get in and out of Turlough as fast as possible. One look at Sheriff Ashley has her rethinking her plans. As pressure mounts to solve Jessie’s murder, Elle gets help from the most unlikely source—Robin, who appears to be more interested in her than getting the story.
An Intimate Deception
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An Intimate Deception
© 2019 By CJ Birch. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-418-2
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First Edition: May 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Credits
Editor: Ashley Tillman
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design by W.E. Percival
By the Author
Unknown Horizons
Savage Horizons
An Intimate Deception
Acknowledgments
Finishing a book is a strange thing, especially one that was almost a decade in the making. This was the first book I ever wrote. It took eight years and at least a dozen major rewrites to complete. Some of it is very similar to that first draft and some of it is miles away. I say it’s strange to finish because I spent so long stepping into the familiar world of Flynn County, now that it’s done, I don’t have much reason to go back, and it’s definitely somewhere I’m going to miss.
The only reason this book is even here is because of some amazing people who encouraged me and read the horrible (I think I’d cringe if I ever read it again) first draft. I want to thank those first readers: Jody, Courtney, Liz, Five, and my mom. And thanks also to every person who had to listen to me talk about this book for almost a decade. I can’t promise I’ll stop now that it’s done.
I’d also like to thank the incredible people at Bold Strokes and especially Sandy for (among many other things) always suggesting the right title. I feel privileged to be part of the Bold Strokes family.
And also, I’d like to thank my readers who continue to explore my worlds with me. I hope you enjoy this one; it’s one of my favorites.
For Jody, because you read the first chapter and said it didn’t suck.
Chapter One
It couldn’t have gone more wrong.
All the planning and none of it had happened the way he wanted. Even from the start of the evening, everything had been off.
Now, thrashing deeper into the forest, he began to panic. There was so much blood. He was covered in it. His hands, which he’d wiped down the front of his shirt without thinking, his boots, although the fallen brush was taking care of that, and his favorite shirt.
He stopped and held out his shirt to see how bad it was. The pentagram on the front was marred by two elongated streaks down the front. There was no way he could hide that.
Fuck.
He pulled it over his head, taking care not to get blood anywhere else, and stomped farther in. He needed to find a good spot to stash it. Somewhere no one would ever find it or think to look. Up ahead, the forest opened into a clearing and below a cliff that overlooked the sweeping waters of the Red. The river might wash it away, maybe some of the blood too. But they had tests for that. He’d seen it on TV. No, the river was a bad idea. There was no way to judge where it could end up. Some kid might find it stuck on a branch near the edge and then what?
He had to keep his cool. That was the only way out of this. He stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked up at the night sky. The stars, one of the best things about living in this shit-ass town, sparkled like crystals above. Wind played with his hair, cooling the inner storm that raged. His heart, which had been drumming against his chest, slowed.
He needed to hurry and get back to the truck to meet up with everyone. They’d been counting on him tonight. He had to pull his shit together. Turning back toward the darkness of the forest, he spied a cubbyhole at the base of a nearby tree. Few people came through here. There were no roads that led to the clearing, and the forest was dense in this part. He bent to examine the crevice, rotted out by a previous occupant. It was perfect. He balled the shirt up and stuffed it in as far as it would go. As he stood, he made a silent prayer no one would find it or discover what he’d done. He headed back toward the truck and what promised to be a great night.
* * *
The dirt road kicked up tiny pebbles as the cruiser sped by the entrance to the Old Bailey farm. The only lights this far out were the cruiser’s. They jumped with each pothole—plentiful on the unpaved back roads of Flynn County.
From the open window, Elle Ashley could smell summer barreling toward Turlough. The small town lay hidden in the southern tip of Illinois’s boreal forests. It sat between two rivers: one a raging behemoth, the other a lazy Sunday afternoon stroll.
Pretty soon everything would be covered in a fine dust, from porches, to petals, to people. And then the humidity would come. It would set in, squeezing the town in a wet suffocating embrace. A grasp it held until the waning days of summer late in September.
The cruiser curved around bends, taking corners quicker than the tires or suspension would have liked. The last bordered by Nelly’s ravine on the passenger side, a yawning drop to the trickle of the Red River below. The town named the ravine for a young girl who, years previous, had wandered to the edge and lost her footing. She slid to the bottom, only to drown in the two inches of water slopping past.
The red and blue lights atop the car sat dark, and both front windows were rolled down. Elle always kept the windows down in summer, even when the cruiser’s air still worked. All three cruisers in Turlough were a gift as far as Elle figured it. They still worked—mostly. Unlike their neighbor county, which had five of its cars repossessed by the bank, they’d paid Turlough’s off last year. Even if they were ’05s, even if you had to disregard the rust spots for the paint, and even if the sirens only worked half the time, each deputy had their own.
The recession had hit small towns harder. And Turlough was no different. It had been leaking young folks for years. To places like Evansville, Louisville, Nashville, Chicago. The big cities promised jobs. The most you could hope for in Flynn County was trucking or laboring on the roads, or a fat baby and a dusty garden. But it had taken Turlough longer to recover than others. Some said they never would.
Before the noise came the lights, playing with the tree branches in the distance. They’d constructed a bonfire in a small clearing. The harsh powerful colors painted everything around it an orange
hue. As the cruiser started up the hill toward the group of teenagers parading around with plastic cups, Elle flicked on the red and blues.
The cruiser’s lights created a panic. Fingers loosened, dropping cups to the ground, feet uprooted, the crowd scattered to the trees, leaving the area and refuse behind. A lone officer was not enough to catch and hold an entire party. If they could stay upright long enough to get out of range, they’d get away.
Elle unfurled from her cruiser. She watched as the crowd bounded for the forest, leaving a keg, two young men, and a mishmash of cigarette butts and crumpled red cups behind. The two sipped their beer and eyed Elle from the safety of a far tree.
“Dan, EJ,” she said.
In unison they said, “Sheriff.”
Clad in the Flynn County uniform of tan pants with a gray stripe up the seam, a black cotton uniform shirt with the gold star-shaped badge of a sheriff and a straight, unwavering tie to match the pants, Elle strolled up to the keg with her thumbs hooked into her Sam Browne belt. She’d left her hat on the passenger seat. Her dark red hair was coiled in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She kicked the keg. Her boot made a soft metallic thud, indicating the keg was still half full.
“Where’d you get it from?” she asked.
EJ shrugged but kept his eyes on the dirt in front of his worn Chucks.
“Is it Christmas? Because usually I don’t get presents like this handed to me any old time.” She picked up a cup and sniffed it before setting it down on the keg. “Which one of you knew underage drinkers are my favorite?”
“The pump’s mine,” said Dan, his eyes level with hers. “We didn’t steal it.”
Someone giggled close by, a soft feminine noise. The bonfire had slowed without encouragement, but there was still enough light to make out the white faces lining the edge of the trees.
Elle let a slow, long breath escape between her tight lips. “Go home,” she said to the trees in general. Silence. “Or I’ll call every one of your parents and wake them up.” She turned to address the trees full on. “Don’t think I didn’t see you,” and she began trilling off names. “It’s a lot of work, but if you piss me off enough I’ll do it.”
There was a quick and violent rush of noise and the trees were clear. Cracking twigs and branches echoed down the hill.
“Come on.” She waved toward the cruiser. “In the back.”
“That pump cost me fifty bucks.” Dan chugged the last of his beer. He crumpled the cup and tossed it to the ground.
Elle stared.
“Fine. But if someone takes it before I get a chance to pick it up…” He ran his hand over the pump as he passed, stealing a look into the forest, letting the words trail. Then, almost as an afterthought, he picked up a sharp rock and gouged a mark into the hard black plastic of the pump handle.
EJ slouched against the back door, waiting. As the tall and lanky have a way of doing, he always managed to melt into his surroundings. If life were a track, EJ would plod along, taking each step as if the next didn’t matter and the last had never happened. A mash of freckles peppered his white complexion. A by-product of his flaming red hair, which sat on his head as it grew, curled and frizzled.
Elle opened the door and watched EJ climb in and slide to the far side. She felt Dan slink up behind her but turned before he could place a hand on her ass.
“You can arrest me anytime, Sheriff Ashley,” he said, a blast of his beer-infused breath hitting her in the face.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Baker. I will remember that the next time I pull you over for broken taillights.” She ushered him into the back and closed the door, scanned the clearing one more time, then walked to the pit. She circled the fire, spreading the logs out with the tip of her boot, then picked up an empty Solo cup and doused the fire in dirt. It crackled and smoked as it died. She watched it for a couple minutes, letting the boys stew in the back of her cruiser, until it was out.
The inside of the cruiser smelled of artificial apples, a condition of daily scrubbing with scented Lysol wipes. The paint was peeling on the cage separating Elle from her guests, but a recent sand job had removed any chunks that could fall and mar the upholstery. The windows gleamed from Windex, free of streaks and dried water spots.
Dan watched her drive, twisting the white threads on his jeans between his fingers. He oozed confidence the way a half-cracked beer oozed foam. His short butterscotch hair blended with his smooth, tanned skin. His gray, unblinking eyes followed her hands as they moved over the steering wheel. They turned down County Road 12. She slowed the speed of her cruiser to account for the potholes along this belt of road.
“Wait up,” said Dan. “Why’re you turning here? I’m down number six.”
“If I’d told you I was taking you to lockup would you’ve gotten in voluntarily?”
No response.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Fuck that!” His body straightened in the back seat. “What about my parents?”
“You can call them. I’m not arresting you. I’m employing a different tactic. Because talking at you about trespassing on private property and underage drinking have no effect. A sparse cell and shared cot, on the other hand…”
“If it smells like disinfectant, I’m out.” Dan crumpled down on the back seat.
“And, Dan? If you use that kind of language in my car again, I will bust you for that bag of pot in your pants.”
“Your sister has the largest arm of the law stuck right up her ass.” He demonstrated with his own arm, then used it to punch EJ’s thigh.
EJ turned his gaze to the ditches and roadside hills. He let the cool night air from Elle’s window wash over his face. Sometimes he would turn his head toward the wind and let it steal his breath, seeing how long he could go without breathing. He stared as they passed the marker, a red stake he’d stuck in the ground. The paint was fading back into the wood, and the grass stalks obscured more of it each year. He turned to gauge Elle’s reaction. Their eyes met, then released. She had noticed it too. A brief smile came to the edge of EJ’s lips.
Elle was twelve when EJ came home from the hospital. She’d decided he was a rumpled mess. And from the moment she became the built-in babysitter, EJ was the black spy to her white. The irritant who’d wear himself out to keep up on his BMX as she and her friends sped down the road in their old Buick. Red hair and a chalky complexion were their only comparable traits. EJ’s hurdles were walked around. Elle’s were leaped over. Where EJ waded, Elle splashed. EJ the underachiever. Elle the valedictorian. Her success was practically assured.
And then one phone call changed it all. In her last semester at the University of Chicago, about to take her finals, Elle got a call from Sheriff Bailey. There’d been an accident out on County Road 12. No details, but she should come home. EJ was staying at the Cases’.
From the moment she saw EJ, only ten, holding on to the porch frame, fighting back tears and waiting for her to come pick him up, they were a team. From that second forward, she would do anything and everything to never see that look in his eyes again. It crumpled her, that look of anguish, of losing everything that mattered. She would matter. From then on, she would be perfect for him.
Elle pulled the cruiser into one of three empty parking spots in front of the sheriff’s office. For such a compact building, it also housed the coroner’s office and the county morgue, making it a veritable multi-tool of office space. Turlough’s main strip came to an abrupt stop next to the sheriff’s office. Beside it was a small square that folded into the forest on the other side. Across the street was Dell’s Diner, the only restaurant in town open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The other two were Finnegan’s, the local pub, and Torrini’s, an Italian restaurant. It served hard spaghetti and limp baguettes but managed to stay open anyway. They all stood dark, except for the sheriff’s office.
As Elle marched the boys past the empty clerk’s station, the clock above read 2:11 a.m. The layout resembled an old-style newspaper room. The ma
in floor was open concept with several multipurpose desks, tidy except for a few files in the out-boxes. Only one had a computer—a discolored mammoth from the early aughts—parked in the corner to give a modicum of privacy.
Elle seated the boys in the tiny waiting area outside her office—it was the only one with a door on the first floor—before grabbing two large clear Ziploc bags.
“Dan, you can use the phone if you want to call your parents.” She nodded at the phone on an empty desk across from him.
He shook his head.
“You’re eighteen. I’m not calling them for you.” She placed the two bags in front of them.
“I said I wasn’t calling them.”
Elle shrugged her left shoulder. “Empty your pockets. And, Dan, I want to see that bag of pot in there.”
“I’m just guessing here,” he said as he began emptying his pockets and placing the contents in the bag. “But I’m never seeing this pot again, am I?”
“This particular pot?” She lifted the small Ziploc bag containing two large buds from his hand. “No, but I’m sure that won’t stop you from buying more.”
EJ sat holding his breath, pleading for Dan to stop. His bag contained nothing more than a wallet, a Zippo, and some spare rolling papers. A distant rush of water moving through the pipes indicated a toilet had been flushed somewhere in the building. Stan Carrick emerged from a door behind the workstations, zipping his fly, a newspaper under one arm. He half smiled when he noticed Elle and the boys.
“Hey,” he said, a soft pink taking root in his cheeks. “Need any help?” Stan wasn’t just thin, he was concave. Underweight in a way that spoke in terms like anorexic or anemic. He had deep, dark pockets under his eyes, and his belt had several extra holes.