would be lost.
Still, there were times when she was in her bed alone that she longed for strong arms to reach out to her, when she wished for an intimacy that she’d never really experienced before with any man.
There were also times she wished she had somebody to talk to about Matt, someone to brag to when he did something amazing and to commiserate with when things went wrong.
Each time she tried to imagine who that man might have been, an image of Cameron filled her mind. Over the past several years he’d made it a habit to stop in at the café right at closing time.
He’d drink the last cup of coffee in the pot and they’d sit and talk. She’d been there for him when his younger brother had died two years ago in a tragic farming accident and his grief had not only shattered his heart, but also made him the sole child of his older parents.
He’d been there for her when Candy Bailey had been found murdered in one of the cabins she rented behind the café. They’d gone through bad times together and had also shared a lot of laughter.
She knew he was romantically interested in her, and although she enjoyed their evening conversations, she never allowed him to believe their relationship would be anything other than friendship.
The cost of developing anything meaningful with Cameron was too high. She might mess up, accidently share too much with him. He was a sheriff and as far as she knew, there was no statute of limitations on murder.
Chapter 2
Cameron sat in his office alone and sipped a cup of strong coffee, hoping for an adrenaline rush that would get him through the day. It was just after seven in the morning and he hadn’t gone to bed the night before until well after midnight.
He’d just collapsed onto the king-size bed when he heard a faint scratching on a door down the hallway and remembered he was now, at least temporarily, a pet owner.
He’d jumped out of bed and opened the laundry room door. Twinkie exploded out and raced to the front door, obviously in desperate need of a potty break.
Cameron opened the door, and watched the little mutt as she sniffed the grassy area until she found a place she liked. When she’d finished her business she came back inside and looked up at Cameron expectantly.
“Good girl,” Cameron had said, and Twinkie’s tail had wagged in response, then she raced straight to Cameron’s bedroom and placed her front paws on the edge of the mattress.
“Oh, no, little girl. That’s my bed.” Cameron got the four-poster bed from the laundry room and set it next to his. “This is Twinkie’s bed.”
The dog had looked at it as if she’d never seen it before in her life. Cameron ignored her, got into bed and turned out the bedside lamp. The whine began low in Twinkie’s throat as her front paws tap-danced on the side of the mattress.
After fifteen minutes of trying to be firm, Cameron had given in and pulled the pup on top of his bed. Twinkie immediately curled up at Cameron’s feet, her body warmth radiating through the blanket.
A spoiled tiny dog wasn’t exactly what he thought about when he considered bedmates, but for now the furry dog was all he had.
He’d awakened at dawn after a night filled with haunting visions of dead women, each of them pleading for justice. His nightmares had been a strobe-light event with the dead reaching out to him.
Now here he sat in his office, sipping coffee and waiting for it to be time for the staff meeting he’d called with all his deputies that would occur in another twenty minutes.
While the coffee sent a jolt of caffeine-driven adrenaline through him, it did nothing to make his thoughts any more clear as to solving these crimes. He didn’t expect his team to have anything to report to him to answer either of those questions. He reared back in his chair and released a sigh of weary frustration.
At some point today he needed to get out to his parents’ place. It had been a full week since he’d been there and he knew there would be things that needed to be done. Since his brother, Bobby’s, death, Cameron had been trying to help them around the ranch to fill in the shoes of the child they had lost.
The relationship between him and his father had become strained long ago when Cameron had decided to run for sheriff instead of staying home to help with the family ranch. With Bobby’s death the relationship had only become more difficult.
He sat for another fifteen minutes, then swallowed the last of his coffee and stood. Now wasn’t the time to think about family dynamics or anything else that didn’t pertain to murder. It was time to meet with his team and see if they could figure out how to stop this killer before he struck again.
Minutes later he stood at the head of a long table in the conference room, six deputies seated on each side of the table. They were an even dozen, all good men who made up the law in Grady Gulch and the surrounding area. Thankfully they were in charge of a small county.
“Morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s get down to business.”
For the next hour the men reported what had been done so far in the investigation into Dorothy’s murder. The neighborhood had been canvassed, friends had been interviewed and, just as he’d suspected, they had little to report.
Her neighbors had heard nothing throughout the night, friends indicated that they couldn’t imagine Dorothy having any enemies. Yada-yada-yada, Cameron thought. It was the same song, just a different victim.
No forensic evidence had been left behind, no fingerprints to process, no dropped glove or footprints to cast, this killer was definitely smart enough to cover his tracks well.
“There’s no question now that this killer is targeting the waitresses at the Cowboy Café,” Cameron said when the others were finished with their meager reports. “That’s the only connection that’s obvious between the victims.” He instantly thought of Mary and wondered if she was in danger, as well.
In her capacity as owner of the café she rarely worked the floor, but she did work behind the counter often and could be considered a waitress.
“Adam, I want you to check and cross-check the personal lives of these women and see if there’s anyplace else they connect besides their work at the café. Maybe they go to the same hairdresser or use the same gym. I want to know anyplace these women’s lives might intersect besides the café.”
“Ben,” Cameron said, directly his attention to Deputy Ben Temple, who he considered his right-hand man. “I want you to spend the next couple of days hanging out at the café. See if you notice anyone acting strange, if you see anyone who appears to be focused in on a particular waitress. The rest of you divide up and I want every friend and every neighbor or acquaintance from the previous victims reinterviewed.”
It was work that had already been done, but Cameron was grateful and proud that nobody on the team complained. Half the men he dismissed to go home and sleep, the other half who worked the day shift he dismissed to begin their work.
Once the meeting was finished, Cameron went back into his office and pulled on his jacket and his hat. He knew that it was important for him to be seen around town this morning, to assure the public that he and his men were working overtime to catch the evil that was at work in their town.
It
