“Will you be needing anything else, Chief Marshall, sir?” Officer Magda Journey asked. His assistant was an attractive young woman with an impeccable record at the TSP and a cool manner he respected. Professionalism was what he prized in his people. Everything else was secondary. She’d been temporarily assigned to him before he’d arrived in Finley Creek, but she’d impressed him with her efficiency fifteen minutes after he’d met her. It would be a permanent position if she wanted it. Elliot was rarely wrong in his assessment of people, and he’d peeked at her personnel file, as well. Very impressive for someone of her age. He hadn’t accomplished half as much when he’d been in his mid-twenties.
“I think I’ll be good for tonight, Magda. Thank you.”
He needed time to process the changes life had brought him.
His appointment to the position had come directly from the governor of Texas. His cousin Marcus, the governor, had told him it was a last-minute replacement, and he’d snapped up the appointment without thinking it through. Now he was starting to question himself and the why of the position.
He’d certainly never made any friends in Marcus’s office. He and the governor weren’t exactly the closest of cousins, let alone friends. The biggest question he had was why Marcus had put him there.
Why any of it at all.
And what in the hell was he supposed to do here in Finley Creek now?
GABBY KENDALL DIDN’T know what to do. No real surprise there; that was kind of what Gabby was used to—was known for even. It was just the way things always ended up for her.
But this…this was a bit scarier than she had expected. She was fighting off a full-blown panic attack and failing. Miserably.
It had been ten years, three months, and sixteen days since her world had tilted on its axis and made her afraid of every shadow in the room. She’d thought she’d gotten herself past all of it. Thought she’d convinced herself the world was actually a pretty safe place after all.
The call from her stepfather had erased ten years of hard work in five minutes.
Gabby closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe again. To think.
It was just coincidence. If someone was gunning for her, they wouldn’t have far to look. Gabby had lived in Finley Creek almost her entire life. She was safe. They were not coming for her.
Of course…it could be because they hadn’t found her yet.
They hadn’t found her yet. If they were smart, they weren’t even looking. They’d probably faded into the evil-people sunset or been arrested on other crimes long ago. Maybe they had even been eaten by rabid coyotes or something.
Unable to make good on the promise to find her and kill her they’d made ten years ago.
Yeah, that was what she hoped. She’d just have to convince herself of that somehow.
Her partner pushed her own chair back and said Gabby’s name. Gabby looked at the redhead across the table from her. Brynna was staring at her. Again. Brynna stared at Gabby a lot. “What?”
“Something’s wrong. What?”
“Just some bad news from my stepfather. Nothing to worry about. Nothing that I can’t handle.” Breathe deep. Breathe deep. She didn’t have to have a total freak-out in the middle of the computer forensics lab.
Not exactly professional. And not exactly like it hadn’t happened before…even this week. She tended to freak out—a lot. Her teammates, at least, were used to it. And they had quirks of their own anyway.
“What is it? Tell me.”
Gabby thought about it and thought about not telling Brynna, but…Brynna was more than relentless when she was worried. It was the way her best friend was. “The Marshall killers may have struck again.”
Sara Marshall had been her best friend in the world all through junior high until they were sixteen—until Sara and three members of her family had been brutally murdered.
One night, when things had gotten particularly tough for Gabby, she’d broken down and poured out the entire story to Brynna and Brynna’s older sister, Melody. Their father had been friends with the murdered family. Mel and Brynna had been on their way to Sara’s house that night, too. It had been luck that their father had stopped at a gas station. If he hadn’t…Well, that was something Gabby refused to think about.
Gabby had needed that connection at first. That shared understanding of what was lost.
Their friendship had grown since then.
Her stepfather, Art, had always kept Gabby safe, and today’s phone call was just another way for him to do that. “In Oregon, there’s been a case that’s similar.”
“Similar, but not a guarantee. We see lots of similar cases in this business.” Brutally frank—that was Brynna’s way. “It doesn’t mean anything yet.”
Brynna always spoke the truth.
No, there was never any guarantees, but she knew the truth—until they had the killers in custody and could compare forensics, they had no way of knowing if it was the same or not. She’d just be left wondering, and wondering. Probably forever, wouldn’t she? “Still, it was enough to have Art calling me. Warning me.”
“I see. What are you going to do?”
Exactly what she had done every time a similar case hit Art’s radar. Absolutely nothing. “I’m not sure there is anything I can do. The case has been cold for ten years.” Gabby had never understood that. With such a high-profile case, she’d have thought it would have been at the front of the TSP’s caseload every day since.
It wasn’t. And in the five years she’d worked at the Finley Creek TSP, it had never been. Even though a good portion of the people at this branch had been there when the Marshall murders had occurred, it was rarely talked about. That was one thing she and Brynna had never fully understood. They talked about it a lot—but not usually within the walls of the TSP.
“The new chief starts today.”
Gabby
