“Don’t try to blow me off.”
“Dammit, Payton,” he growled. “This isn’t the time.” She’d always been stubborn, but she’d never interfered in his job. In fact, she’d been one of the few women he’d dated who’d never complained at his long hours and last-minute cancellations.
Of course, that could have been because she’d just been killing time with him until something better came along.
“Could you please just forget who I am and listen to me?” she demanded.
“It wouldn’t matter who you are.” He leaned back, pretending he didn’t hear the protesting squeak from his chair. The dang thing was nearly as old as the office, but he could never remember to order a new one. “Fifteen or sixteen hours isn’t long enough to report a missing person.”
Surprisingly she refused to budge. Instead she folded her arms around her waist and glared at him.
“Give me five minutes.” There was a tense pause before she said the word he never thought to hear from her lips. “Please.”
He swallowed a curse. “You have four.”
Her lips tightened, but realizing that he wanted any excuse to toss her out, she forced herself to bite back her angry words and concentrate on why she’d intruded into his office.
“Anne has been with us since before I was born. And in those twenty-five years she’s never changed her schedule. Not once. She gets up early, takes a walk, and then cooks breakfast.” She lifted her hand as his lips parted to make the obvious snarky comment. “Except for Sundays, which is her day off. Even then it’s always the same routine. She drives to Quincy to go to church with her sister and spends the day, always returning at precisely seven. It’s like clockwork.”
Mike studied the perfect, oval face. She was really and truly worried.
“Maybe she’s not feeling well,” he slowly suggested.
She shook her head. “Anne refused to be taken to the hospital during a full-fledged appendicitis attack until she finished baking a casserole we could eat for dinner. Besides, I already checked her rooms. Her bed was made and the uniform she insists on wearing was lying on it, ready for her to pull it on.” Her brows knit together. “It was like she went for a walk and just disappeared.”
Mike considered. It did seem odd. Still, there had to be a logical answer.
“She might have had a family emergency,” he suggested.
“She would never have left without telling us. Or at least leaving a note,” she said with absolute certainty. “And her car is still in the garage. How could she have gone anywhere?”
“What about a cell phone?”
“She doesn’t have one. She always uses the house phone if she needs to call anyone.” Payton’s lips tightened. “I tried to buy her a disposable cell for emergencies, but she hates new technology.”
Hmm. He tried to put himself in the mind of a middle-aged woman who clearly had a thing for schedules.
“Did you call her sister?”
The blue eyes flared with impatience. “Of course. She hasn’t heard from Anne since yesterday.”
“Have you checked the gardens?”
“Yes. The first thing I did was to search the grounds and the house in case she’d fallen.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m really worried, Mike.”
He believed her. Payton could be shallow, and self-absorbed, but it was obvious she cared about the missing housekeeper.
And he couldn’t deny he was increasingly concerned.
He pulled out a blank piece of paper and began jotting down notes.
“What time does Anne usually go for her walk?”
“She comes down around eight to start the coffee,” Payton said. “Then she goes for an hour walk before showering and starting breakfast around nine thirty.”
“Nine thirty?” His lips twisted even as he continued to write down the pertinent information.
“None of us are early risers,” she said in defensive tones. “Well, except Dad, who is out of the house before six. He never eats breakfast.”
“Does she walk alone?”
“Usually.”
Lifting his head, he met her anxious gaze. “Look, I can’t call this a missing person case.”
“But—”
“But I’ll send a deputy to the estate to do a more thorough search if she isn’t back by this evening.” He overrode her protest. “That’s all I can do.”
“Fine.”
Sending him a glare that assured him he’d once again proved to be a gigantic disappointment, she gave a toss of her head and turned to march toward the door.
A familiar sense of frustration raced through him and, before he could squash the impulse, he was calling out her name.
“Payton.”
She grudgingly halted, turning to face him. “Yes?”
Mike rose to his feet. “I heard Christopher is back.”
He watched the expression on her beautiful face become wary. Not surprising. Christopher had been a blight on the precious Hamilton name since he was caught stealing cigarettes when he was just ten years old.
He’d also been a source of contention between Mike and the powerful family since he became sheriff. They had the belief that he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and turn a blind eye to Christopher’s . . . what had they called them? Shenanigans?
He called them misdemeanors that were escalating to felonies. And worse, he suspected the young man had an addiction problem that none of them wanted to admit.
Not that they would listen to his warnings.
“He is.”
“He isn’t working?”
“He’s looking.” She shrugged. “Jobs aren’t that easy to find in the area.”
“What about the family business?”
She arched a brow. “Could you work for your father?”
Mike shuddered. His father had been a local mechanic. Nothing wrong with that, except he’d been a mean drunk who’d beaten his three sons on a regular basis.
“Nope. But I never lived off his money either,” he said in pointed tones. “I left the nest when I was eighteen.”
She flinched as his jab slid home. Then she deliberately allowed her gaze to flick over him with an arrogance that set his teeth on edge.
“Aren’t you special.”
“Nothing special about me,” he countered. “I’m just one of the commoners, remember?”
The blue eyes darkened before she was jerkily moving out of the office, slamming the door shut behind her.
Mike grimaced. What was wrong with him? Okay, he’d been dumped. It wasn’t the first time. Heck, it wasn’t even the last time. Jaci had stopped going out with him over the past few months.
It was unprofessional to let his wounded pride make him act like an ass.
Flopping back in his seat, he swiveled to glance out the window. The rain splattered from low-hanging clouds, the wind catching the nearby swings and making them sway as if being pushed by a ghostly form.
It was eerie as hell.
A chill inched down his spine and it was almost a relief when the intercom buzzed. Turning back toward the desk, he grabbed the phone and pressed it to his ear.
“What’s up, Carol?”
“Ed called to say that he e-mailed the pictures you asked him to take.”
Mike pressed his fingers against the headache forming at his temple. Ed Preston was a part-time deputy who had a skill with computers that was badly needed in the department. Mike had called him to take pictures of the body and skull before they’d been moved.
The rural area didn’t have an official police photographer. Why would they? There hadn’t been a murder in years. If they needed pictures of vandalism, or during the raid of a local meth house, Mike clicked a few pics with his phone.
But an unknown woman and a skull needed to be photographed by someone who could put them in a program where they could be enlarged and sent off to the federal authorities if it became necessary.
“Thanks, Carol,” he said. “I’ll t
ake a look at them later.”
After he’d completed the thousand other tasks on his todo list.
Chapter Five
Rylan knelt on the damp porch, an unconscious Jaci gathered in his arms. He was acutely aware of just how fragile she felt as he snuggled her against his chest. Strange. When she was awake she was so lush and vivid and full of life that she seemed invincible.
Now . . .
A mixture of fear and fury thundered through him.
Who was depraved enough to leave the locket on the door? It had to be someone with enough balls to waltz up to her house in broad daylight. Or at least he assumed it hadn’t been there when she’d left for her morning deliveries.
And what did it mean? There was no doubt it was some sort of a threat. But what? Was it just a way to terrorize the young woman?
Or was it something more evil?
And the million-dollar question: did the locket have any connection to the dead woman found floating in the field?
The questions whirled through his mind, and it wasn’t until the porch creaked that he realized his father was moving toward the screen door.
“No,” he said, his sharp tone bringing his father to an immediate stop. “Don’t touch it.”
Elmer pointed a gnarled finger toward the locket. “I don’t want that filthy thing hanging here when Jaci wakes up.”
“I know, but the sheriff needs to see it.”
His father scowled, but he eventually gave a sharp nod. “I’ll call once we get her inside. You carry her.”
Rylan straightened, careful not to jostle Jaci. “We’ll go around the back,” he said.
He didn’t know if the sheriff would actually treat the porch like a crime scene, considering no actual laws had been broken, but he didn’t want to take the chance of ruining any evidence that might lead to the culprit.
Letting his father take the lead, he headed off the porch and circled to the back of the house. Holding Jaci tight in his arms, he carefully surveyed their soggy surroundings.
He assumed that whoever had left the locket had taken off, but there was no guarantee. He wasn’t going to let himself be caught off guard.
He absently noticed that the garage had been expanded since his last visit. And that there was a new greenhouse at the back of the yard. The barn looked the same, although he could hear the sound of two very angry dogs barking from inside.
They were new.
Convinced there were no mystery lurkers in the shadows, he continued along the mossy pathway.
“Do you have a spare key?” he asked his father as they climbed the narrow stairs that groaned beneath their weight.
Elmer snorted as he glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve been gone too long.”
“Why?”
“You’ve forgotten that no one around here locks their house.”
Proving his point, his father reached to pull on the knob.
“Are you kidding?” Rylan snapped as the door easily swung open. When he’d lived in the area he’d never thought about whether or not people had sturdy locks. Now he felt a stab of annoyance at the knowledge that Jaci had allowed herself to be in such a vulnerable position. “She’s a woman living on her own in the middle of nowhere.”
“I doubt her grandparents ever locked the house,” Elmer said, nodding toward the distant barn. “Besides, she has a couple of big dogs that are better than any fancy alarm system.”
“Really? They’re great help locked in the barn,” Rylan said as they entered the narrow mudroom.
They both managed to kick off their splattered boots before moving into the kitchen, which smelled like heaven.
Loaves of bread and freshly baked muffins and golden tarts were sitting on the butcher-block counters. There were fresh herbs growing in pots on the windowsill over the old farm sink. And on the small table in the center of the linoleum floor were bowls filled with peaches and apples and lush blueberries.
Any other time Rylan would have melted at the tantalizing smells. Today, he wasn’t in the mood.
Elmer pointed toward the doorway that led to a short hall.
“Let’s take her to the living room.”
Following his father into the front of the house, he entered a small space that had been made cozy with an overstuffed sofa and two armchairs that were arranged around the brick fireplace. There was a glass cabinet filled with the trinkets Jaci’s grandmother had accumulated during their rare travels away from home.
A stuffed pig from the Iowa State Fair. A tiny replica of the Liberty Bell. A snow globe from Chicago. Hand-painted thimbles. And of course, the obligatory collection of Hummel figurines.
Exactly what a person would expect in a farmhouse.
The only thing that didn’t fit were the large black-and-white photos on the walls that were framed with rough planks of wood. One was a rain-blurred picture of an abandoned warehouse overgrown with ivy. Another was a ghost town surrounded by a desolate, barren landscape.
“Just put her on the couch,” Elmer commanded, hovering with concern as Rylan gently lowered her onto the deep cushions. “Poor thing.”
Keeping his gaze trained on Jaci’s too pale face, Rylan straightened and nodded toward the nearby telephone. In the more remote areas it was almost impossible to get a clear cell connection. Landlines were still a necessary household item.
“Call the sheriff,” he ordered, reaching to tug off her boots. Then, too restless to wait for the authorities, he retraced his steps. “Stay in here with Jaci.”
“Where are you going?” his father asked.
“To have a look around.”
Moving back through the kitchen, he placed Jaci’s boots in the mudroom and pulled on his own before he was out the back door.
He took time to glance in the windows of the barn. The dogs released furious growls as soon as he stepped out of the house, warning him to wait until Jaci could convince the animals he wasn’t an enemy before he released them.
The angry response to his approach, however, proved that an unknown intruder couldn’t be hiding inside.
He moved to the garage, surprised to find that it’d been converted into a large workroom with towering shelves loaded with various boxes of supplies that were clearly marked. In the center of the room she had a few small tools, including a circular saw and a sewing machine.
A woman of many talents.
Stepping out of the garage, he walked to study the driveway. At one time it’d been graveled, but the mud combined with the ruts from the tractor had turned it into a messy bog. Which meant he couldn’t determine what sort of vehicle the intruder had been driving when he—or she—had delivered the locket.
He rounded the house, walking up to the front porch. There were muddy prints where the three of them had climbed the steps. But it was too much to hope that the rain hadn’t washed away any earlier ones.
Crossing the wooden planks, he leaned forward, studying the small locket that dangled from the doorknob.
It had a dull sheen in the gray light, revealing it wasn’t real gold. The locket itself was plain, with a tiny clasp on the side. There was nothing to distinguish it. In fact, he’d guess that it was one of those cheap necklaces you could mass order.
Which meant it would be almost impossible to trace who’d bought it.
Still, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and took several pictures, careful not to disturb the necklace. He had a few connections among the feds. Some of them high enough up the food chain to get him whatever information he needed.
Sending off the images to his contacts, he pocketed his phone and turned to leave the porch.
Ducking his head as the rain drizzled down his face, he hurried around the house and entered through the back door. He kicked off his boots before he was walking through the kitchen and back to the living room.
He found his father still standing at the edge of the sofa, keeping guard over the unconscious woman.
“Did you get ahold of the sheriff?” he asked
.
Elmer nodded. “He’s on his way.”
There was a soft moan as Jaci began to stir.
“I’ll make some hot coffee,” the older man said. Clearly he had the same need as Rylan to feel as if he was doing something to help.
“Put in plenty of sugar,” Rylan called after the older man, moving to perch on the edge of the sofa.
Jaci’s lashes fluttered upward, revealing her blue-gray eyes that looked almost silver in the dim light. Her brows drew together as she caught sight of him looming over her.
“Rylan?”
“It’s me,” he assured her.
Some indefinable emotion rippled over her face before her expression hardened.
“I knew this was a nightmare,” she said, shoving herself into a seated position.
With a grimace she swayed, nearly tumbling face-first off the couch before she managed to regain her equilibrium.
A wry smile twisted Rylan’s lips. Over the years he’d become accustomed to women who were eager to please him. No doubt it was good for his ego to have it bashed on occasion.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “Like an idiot.”
“Why? You had a shock.”
“Yeah.” She shuddered, her gaze darting toward the front door. “Where’s the locket?”
“We left it where it was,” he said. “I’m hoping the sheriff will have it examined.”
Her eyes widened, as if he’d just said he’d set the house on fire.
“The sheriff?”
“Dad already called.”
“Why?”
He studied her pale face. “If they run it through the system, they might be able to get fingerprints or DNA off it,” he said. “Something that will tell us who left the locket here.”
Her jaw tightened. “I remember bringing you lockets before,” she pointed out in dark tones. “You told me I was being silly.”
Guilt sliced through Rylan. He’d started working in the sheriff’s office when he was just sixteen. At first he was a glorified janitor, cleaning the jail and washing the vehicles. But when he’d started attending the nearby college to get his degree in criminal justice, he’d taken on more duties and eventually become a part-time deputy.
That was when Jaci had first started showing up at the office with the lockets. And when he’d turned her away with a lecture that she shouldn’t be wasting his time.
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