WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK FROM
Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served.
Dive into action-packed stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Solve the crime and deliver justice at all costs.
6 NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE EVERY MONTH!
Conard County Justice
by Rachel Lee
Chapter One
Cat Jansen was sitting at the front desk in the Conard County Sheriff’s Office when trouble came through the door.
Rotation had brought her to this day of desk duty in the office. She wasn’t expecting to be too busy, which was one of the reasons she had decided to stay in this county after her mother’s death two years ago.
She had previously worked for a sheriff in Colorado but had left the job to come to Conard City to care for her ailing mother. Cancer was a brutal disease, and all Cat could say for the months she’d spent nursing her was that her mother hadn’t been alone. Then she’d taken a job as a deputy to the sheriff here. Today she busied herself with a day of paperwork and a few relatively minor complaints.
Until the big guy in an Army uniform walked through the door. She took a rapid inventory as best she could. Major’s oak leaves, a stack of colorful ribbons. He pulled off a tan beret as he entered.
His dark eyes reflected cold anger. More worrisome than rage, the coldness suggested a determination that wouldn’t quit. Oh heck, she thought. What had made this guy look like this?
“Are you the desk officer?” he asked in a deep voice, suggesting a rumble of thunder in the distance.
“Yes, I am.” An imposing man. And whatever had brought him so far out of his way was likely a serious problem.
“I’m Major Daniel Duke. My brother, Larry, was murdered a week ago.”
Well, that explained the steel in his dark eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she replied. “How can we help you?” But she had an idea. Definitely trouble. She could feel it brewing like a building storm.
“I want to know how the investigation is going.”
“It’s going.” She wasn’t permitted to give him confidential details of an ongoing investigation.
“Are you checking into the possibility of a hate crime? My brother was gay.”
A bald accusation phrased as a question. If she hadn’t felt so disturbed and chilled by the look in his eyes, she might have done more than sigh.
“Of course we are,” she answered. “I knew Larry. We’re not overlooking anything, believe me. But in all honesty, we’ve never had a crime of that type in this county.”
“Not yet,” he said flatly.
Which was a point she couldn’t argue. This county evidently always seemed peaceful until something blew up. It wasn’t as frequent as in heavily populated areas, but it still happened.
The major was framed against the front windows, the bright spring sunlight now casting him in silhouette. Not comfortable for her to look at.
She pointed to the metal chair beside her desk. “Sit, please. I’m having trouble seeing you.”
He came around immediately and sat. Now she had a clear view of his face. It had the chiseled appearance of someone in prime physical condition, and sun had put some slight lines at the corners of his eyes. He looked as unyielding as the concrete she suddenly imagined him walking through. She suspected he wasn’t going to hang around just to identify Larry’s body, which hadn’t yet come back from the medical examiner, and arrange a funeral. No, he had other things on his mind.
“I’m not going to leave this town until the murderer is caught.”
“We’ll find him,” she said with more confidence than she felt. So far they hadn’t uncovered any clues. At least none they could yet recognize. Maybe the ME would find something.
“You find him, or I will.”
Whoa. She felt her first stirrings of sympathy sliding away into apprehension. “Let us do our job. You do realize that anything you find probably won’t be usable in court, because you won’t have a warrant. You certainly don’t want to get in our way or get yourself in trouble with the law.”
He didn’t answer immediately. When at last he spoke, his voice was clear, flat, hard. “I don’t care what happens to me. This is about my brother. He deserves justice. The dead should get that. Justice. That’s one of the things Larry believed.”
She saw pain pass over his face, quickly erased, and she sensed that this wasn’t about his brother’s death. Not exactly. Something else was going on here.
She also wondered what could be done about this man. He’d only said he wanted to find the murderer. He hadn’t said he was going to do anything illegal in the process. What were they to do to prevent him? Jail him without a charge?
Never. So they were stuck with this cannon. Whether it was a loose one or not, she had no idea. She did suspect that a Ranger could probably cause more trouble than a typical man on the street.
“You need to talk to the sheriff,” she said, ticking possibilities over in her mind. “If you coordinate your efforts with ours, there may be a way for you to satisfy yourself.”
“Is he here?”
“He’s at a county board meeting.” To discuss funding for expanding the department by a couple more cops, hoping to get funding for a better dispatch situation. Sticking communications over in the corner with the coffee machines was becoming a problem. They needed better equipment, a place to put dispatch out of the line of fire and noise in the front office. She’d been kind of startled when she began working here to realize that the department had been so small for so long they were stacking most duties all in one room. Time to move into the twenty-first century.
But that didn’t answer her immediate problem. She tried to lighten things a bit. “He said he’d be gone an hour nearly an hour ago. Given it’s the supervisors and it’s about money, it may become
