“Does 5:00 a.m. count as morning? Or is it still the night before?” She tried to lighten the heavy mood.
“Technically, I think it’s still the night before,” Lopez agreed.
Everyone was up early and taking extra shifts in order to ensure the town’s safety.
“Do we know the exact timeline for when the small-animal killings began?” she asked Zach. He’d been working on the case with a volunteer. Lone Star Lonnie was also a close family friend and foreman of KR, Kent Ranch, one of the largest and wealthiest ranches in the state of Texas.
“We’ve been able to reach back as far as a year ago with the help of a forensic team out of Fort Worth,” Zach responded.
The twisted psycho who had been dubbed the Jacobstown Hacker had begun killing small animals a year ago? The man had moved onto a heifer, butchering its left hoof and then leaving the poor animal to bleed out and die near Rushing Creek on the Kent Ranch.
There’d been more heifer killings after that, spaced out over weeks. It appeared that the twisted jerk had begun on small animals like rabbits and squirrels before moving on to bigger game. All the animals he’d butchered had been females, which had been a warning sign to all the women in town. And he graduated to killing a person—Breanna Griswold.
An investigation revealed that the twenty-seven-year-old victim had been in and out of group homes in Austin for the seven years of her life leading up to her last. She’d grown up in Jacobstown but had moved away during high school. Courtney remembered her from years ago. Breanna had moved back to town a couple of months before her murder.
She was a loner, known to sleep in random places around town when she was on a bender. She was murdered with the same MO as the animals—a severed left foot.
With Breanna’s recent murder and the fact the killer was still on the loose, everyone seemed on edge. Courtney started working the clicker on the pen in double time.
“Do you mind?” Deputy Lopez motioned toward the noisemaker in her hand. Lopez was average height, in his mid-thirties and had dark hair and eyes. He was medium build and had a pronounced nose.
“Sorry.” Courtney released the pen, and it tumbled onto the desk. Her unsettled stomach made all kinds of embarrassing sounds. For the second time this morning, Courtney thought she might throw up on the deputy who was seated next to her.
She was pretty certain that Lopez would not be amused. She’d been on the job a few weeks now and was still getting her bearings in the small, tight-knit sheriff’s office. Coming home to Jacobstown was supposed to be a safe haven from her stressful job working for Dallas Police Department as a beat cop...
An involuntarily shiver rocked her as she thought about the past, about what had happened in Dallas.
“We’re no closer to finding answers. Breanna deserves better from us.” Zach tapped his knuckles on the table. Everyone knew the victim and her circumstances. Her only family, a mother and a brother, had walked away from her and moved to Austin years ago. Breanna had tracked them down there, but rumor had it she became homeless shortly after.
Her mother had a reputation for drinking and using physical violence on her children. Even so, every mother—even the bad ones—deserved justice for a murdered daughter. Breanna had been a grown woman who made her own mistakes, but people cared that she was gone. The horrific murder had rocked the bedroom community.
Another bout of nausea struck, and Courtney’s breakfast threatened to make another appearance. She glanced up in time to see Zach staring at her.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine.” She could only hope this would pass soon. “I’m sure I ate something bad at the potluck yesterday. I should know better by now, but I can’t resist beef and bean taco casserole.”
“You’re braver than I.” Lopez cracked a smile, breaking the tension. Courtney glanced at the scar on his neck. He’d taken a bullet trying to protect a mother and daughter a few months ago, when the quiet town had experienced its first crime wave since the Hacker began his work.
“I stick to vegetables and dessert. No one ever got sick from eating raw carrots,” Lopez touted.
“No one ever enjoyed them, either.” Courtney smiled, but it was weaker than she wanted it to be. She couldn’t force it right now through another wave. Acid burned her throat, and it was taking all her energy to keep from losing it.
“Tasted fine to me.” Lopez shrugged.
“We’re short on solid leads.” Zach steered the meeting back on track, and the mood immediately shifted to all business. Zach had mentioned that she’d be a good addition to his team when he hired her. The Jacobstown Hacker was all anyone could think about, he’d said. The town needed someone with big-city experience. People were getting anxious. Everyone was willing to pitch in to help, which created a whole different kind of chaos. A volunteer room had been set up in the office down the hallway, where folks volunteered to man the tip line.
The fact that people cared about each other was one of the many reasons Courtney had moved back to Jacobstown. She’d missed that small-town feel when she lived in a big city. The sheer volume of cases in Dallas caused law enforcement to focus most of its energy on high-priority cases. Whereas here at home, even the marginalized were cared for. People looked out for each other as best they could, and that included every resident. Even the ones who seemed intent on harming themselves.
Courtney had friends here. She’d been good friends with Zach’s younger sister, Amy. She’d also been close to Amy’s cousin Amber Kent at one time. But Courtney didn’t want to think about the Kents. Especially not Jordan, who’d been two years ahead of her in school when they were all kids. He’d also ignored her for most of
