the heck would be out here in high heels?
He thought of the dead woman, Marcie James, who’d been found shot to death in the cabin about fourteen hours earlier. Marcie hadn’t been wearing heels. Neither had her alleged killer. And Reed should know because the alleged killer was none other than his own deputy, Shane Tolbert.
Cursing the fact that Shane was now locked up in a jail he used to police with Reed and Kirby, Reed elbowed aside a pungent dew-coated cedar branch and hurried up the hill. It didn’t take him long to see more evidence of his something-was-wrong theory. There were no signs of his deputy or the patrol car.
However, there was a blonde lurking behind a sprawling oak tree.
Correction. An armed blonde. A stranger, at that.
She was tall, at least five-ten, and dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt that she’d tucked into the waist of belted dark jeans. Her hair was gathered into a sleek ponytail, not a strand out of place. And yep, there were feminine heels on her fashionable black boots. But her attire wasn’t what Reed focused on. It was that lethal-looking Sig-Sauer Blackwater pistol gripped in her latex-gloved right hand. She had it aimed at the cabin.
Reed aimed his Smith and Wesson at her.
Maybe she heard him or sensed he was there because her gaze whipped in his direction. She shifted her position a fraction, no doubt preparing to turn her weapon on him, but she stopped when her attention landed on the badge Reed had clipped to his belt. Then, she did something that surprised the heck out of him.
She put her left index finger to her mouth in a shhh gesture.
Reed glanced around, trying to make sense of why she was there and why in Sam Hill she’d just shushed him as if she’d had a right to do it. He didn’t see anyone other than the blonde, but she kept her weapon trained on the cabin.
He walked closer to her, keeping his steps light, just in case there was indeed some threat other than this woman. If so, then someone had breached a crime scene because the cabin was literally roped off with yellow crime-scene tape. And with the town’s gossip mill in full swing, there probably wasn’t anyone within fifty miles of Comanche Creek who hadn’t heard about the latest murder.
Emphasis on the word latest.
Everyone knew to keep away or they’d have to deal with him. He wasn’t a badass—most days, anyway—but people usually did as he said when he spelled things out for them. And he always spelled things out.
“I’m Sheriff Reed Hardin,” he grumbled when he got closer.
“Livvy Hutton.”
Like her face, her name wasn’t familiar to him. Who the devil was she?
She tipped her head towards the cabin. “I think someone’s inside.”
Well, there sure as hell shouldn’t be. “Where’s my deputy?”
“Running an errand for me.”
That didn’t improve Reed’s mood. He was about to question why his deputy would be running an errand for an armed woman in fancy boots, but she shifted her position again. Even though she kept her attention nailed to the cabin, he could now see the front of her white shirt.
The sun’s rays danced off the distinctive star badge pinned to it.
“You’re a Texas Ranger?” he asked.
He hadn’t intended for that to sound like a challenge, but it did. Reed couldn’t help it. He already had one Ranger to deal with, Lieutenant Wyatt Colter, who’d been in Comanche Creek for days, since the start of all this mess that’d turned his town upside-down. Now, he apparently had another one of Texas’s finest. That was two too many for a crime scene he planned to finish processing himself. He had a plan for this investigation, and that plan didn’t include Rangers.
“Yes. Sergeant Olivia Hutton,” she clarified. “CSI for the Ranger task force.”
She spared him a glance from ice-blue eyes. Not a friendly glance either. That brief look conveyed a lot of displeasure.
And skepticism.
Reed had seen that look before. He was a smalltown Texas sheriff, and to some people that automatically made him small-minded, stupid and incapable of handling a capital murder investigation. That attitude was one of the reasons for the so-called task force that included not only Texas Rangers but a forensic anthropologist and apparently this blonde crime-scene analyst.
As he’d done with Lieutenant Colter, the other Ranger, Reed would set a few ground rules with Sergeant Hutton. Later, that was. For now, he needed to figure out if anyone was inside the cabin. That was at the top of his mental list.
Reed didn’t see anyone near either of the two back curtainless windows. Nor had the crime-scene tape been tampered with. It was still in place. Of course, someone could have ducked beneath it and gotten inside—after they’d figured out a way to get past the locked windows and doors. Other than the owner and probably some members of the owner’s family, Reed and his deputy were the only ones with keys.
“Did you actually see anyone in the cabin?” he asked in a whisper.
She turned her head, probably so she could whisper as well, but the move put them even closer. Practically mouth to cheek. Not good. Because with all that closeness, he caught her scent. Her perfume was high-end, but that was definitely chocolate on her breath.
“I heard something,” she explained. “Your deputy and I were taking castings of some footprints we found over there.” She tipped her head to a cluster of trees on the east side of the cabin. “I wanted to get them done right away because it’s supposed to rain again this afternoon.”
Yeah, it was, and if they’d been lucky enough to find footprints after the morning and late-night drizzle, then they wouldn’t be there long.
“After Deputy Spears left to send the castings to your office,” she continued, “I turned to go back inside. That’s when I thought I heard someone moving around in there.”
Reed took in every word of her account. Every word. But he also heard the accent. Definitely not a Texas drawl. He was thinking East Coast and would find out more about that later. For now, he might have an intruder on his hands. An intruder who was possibly inside with a cabin full of potential evidence that could clear Shane’s name. Or maybe it was the cabin’s owner, Jonah Becker, though Reed had warned the rancher to stay far away from the place.
With his gun still aimed, Reed stepped out a few inches from the cover of the tree. “This is Sheriff Hardin,” he called out. “If anyone’s in there, get the hell out here now.”
Beside him, Livvy huffed. “You think that’s wise, to stand out in the open like that?”
He took the time to toss her a scowl. “Maybe it’d be a dumb idea in Boston, but here in Comanche Creek, if there’s an intruder, it’s likely to be someone who knows to do as I say.”
He hoped.
“Not Boston,” she snarled. “New York.”
He gave her a flat look to let her know that didn’t make things
