Tanner scrubbed a hand over his face. “No, of course not. We’ll bring that person to justice. But damn it, Ronnie, the guy was twenty feet from Bree’s door.”
Owen the crime tech looked up. “I don’t think this guy was planning to attack the lady who lives here.”
Tanner focused in on Owen. “Why?”
“I don’t know if this is going to make it better or worse, but this guy wasn’t killed here. There would’ve been a crap ton of blood.”
Ronnie raised an eyebrow. “Crap ton? That a clinical term?”
“I’m just saying that if this guy was stabbed here, there would be blood pooling around him.”
Tanner looked around. He didn’t see any blood, either. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“One option is that guy could’ve been stabbed closer to town and just made it this far before giving up the ghost, pardon the pun. We’ll look for blood traces and see if we can follow it anywhere. Might get lucky and lead us to the actual murder scene.”
“That would be highly useful. But there’s another option?” Tanner asked.
Owen’s brows furrowed. “Well, the body could’ve been placed here. Unless we find some sort of blood trace leading from somewhere, then I would assume that the body was dumped here by the killer.”
Damn it, that was almost as bad as thinking a rapist had been on his way to Bree’s house. “Why would someone dump a body here?” Tanner barked. “Specifically at this apartment?”
Owen shrugged. “That I can’t tell you. Maybe because it’s pretty far at the edge of town and this just happened to be a convenient place, but...” He trailed off.
He wasn’t going to like what Owen was going to say, but the younger man still needed to say it. “You can tell me, Owen. I’m not going to kill the messenger.”
“You only dump a body in someone’s yard if you want it to be found. Otherwise, there’s ten thousand acres of national forests all around us. Why not drag it in there and leave it? Could be years before anyone found him.”
“So it was some sort of message to her?” Ronnie asked. “Does she have any connection to Joshua Newkirk?”
Tanner shook his head. “I’ve got no reason to think so, but I’ll ask.”
“For what it’s worth—” Owen crouched down next to the body again “—it’s a lot more likely that this has nothing to do with her. Somebody could’ve killed Newkirk and just decided to dump the body here before going any farther. Like I said, her apartment is on the edge of town, so dumping it here, in the dark, makes sense. I’ll know more in a few hours.”
Tanner and Ronnie stepped back farther so he could go to work. Ronnie slapped Tanner on the shoulder. “We’ll get answers.”
Tanner nodded. “I’ll ask Bree if she knew Newkirk.”
He turned back toward the house and found Bree standing in her back door, fully dressed but still with a blanket wrapped around her as if to ward off a chill. And who could blame her? There was a dead rapist a couple dozen feet from her house.
Tanner walked up to Bree. God, he hated that pinched look that was back on her features. It had been there so much when he’d first met her but had been gone for a while.
He wanted it gone again.
“Was it someone from around here? Someone we know?” she asked.
Tanner wrapped his arms around her. “No, freckles. Not anyone from around here.” He could feel some of the tension leak out of her. “Do you know someone named Joshua Newkirk?”
She pulled back so she could look him in the eye. “No. Should I?”
He believed her. She had no reason to lie about it, and he didn’t think Bree was very good at lying anyway.
“That’s the dead guy’s name. I was able to ID him pretty quickly because I arrested him a few years ago. Evidently, he’s made a few enemies since getting out of prison six months ago.”
And while Tanner was grateful a rapist hadn’t been on his way up to Bree’s back door, he didn’t like how any of this was feeling to him.
He prayed Owen’s last statement would be correct, and that Bree’s yard had just been a convenience. That it was just a coincidence that the body had been placed here.
Tanner wasn’t prone to believing in coincidences. Anger and frustration pooled inside him. She’d been through enough. He’d brought her to Risk Peak to keep her safe, and now this. The worst could’ve happened, and he wouldn’t have been able to prevent it.
He felt her small hands close over his fists.
“I’m okay. Whatever’s going on in that head of yours didn’t happen. You’ll figure out what’s going on and put a stop to it. Give yourself time.”
The trust in her eyes gutted him. He stroked his knuckles down her cheek. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, to assure her of, but the phone rang in his pocket. He grabbed it and saw it was Sheriff Duggan, his boss.
Bree waved at him to get it and turned and walked toward her bedroom.
“Sheriff Duggan.”
“I hear there’s a body in Bree Daniels’s yard.”
Tanner wasn’t surprised word had already reached her. Grand County wasn’t big enough that a murder wouldn’t be a big deal. “Yes, there sure is. I’ll do you one better. The body is Joshua Newkirk.”
“The convicted rapist?” She let out a curse. “And he was killed in Miss Daniels’s backyard?”
Tanner filled in his boss on all the details, including the lack of blood on scene.
“Tanner, I need you to be straight with me,” the sheriff said after he’d finished. “It’s no secret you’re involved with Bree. Do I need to pull you off this case? I’m worried you can’t stay neutral.”
“The guy is dead. I’m not sure my neutrality makes any difference.”
“You still have a killer to find, and it’s no secret you weren’t a fan of Newkirk’s.”
Tanner swallowed a curse. “I hope nobody was a fan of Newkirk’s. Just because I’m not sad he’s dead doesn’t mean I won’t bring down his killer.”
Sheriff Duggan was quiet for a moment. One of the things Tanner appreciated the most about the woman he’d worked for for over ten years was that she thought things through before she spoke.
But when she did speak this time, it wasn’t something he wanted to hear.
“I’m going to send Richard Whitaker out there. And before you start arguing with me, because I know you will, this is not a punishment or because I don’t trust you. He’s fresh eyes, and he doesn’t
