Colton's Texas Stakeout. C.J. Miller

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      Jesse tried to remember what tasks Grace had been assigned for the day. Monitoring the cows? She could get kicked in the stomach. Repairing fencing? That was heavy, hard work. Grace was an experienced farmhand. Should he approach her? Let her know he could give her modified assignments? Offer her leave from work? Jesse knew nothing about babies and even less about pregnancy. What was the right thing to do?

      His conscience wouldn’t rest easy until he spoke with Grace. As not to alarm Noah or make the boy think he had caused any problem, he set down his clipboard. “I’ll be right back. Why don’t you give me a hand and take that bag of duck feed to the pond?” It was a task Noah loved, and it had gotten to the point that, when the ducks saw Noah coming, they flocked toward him.

      Noah grabbed the small bag of feed. “Okay. Be right back!”

      Jesse checked the task schedule. Grace was assigned to the horses that day. He found Grace right where she should have been, feeding the horses. “Hey, Grace.”

      She jumped at the sound of her name and turned. “Hey, boss.”

      “Everything okay?” he asked. He didn’t want to ask her directly in case she wasn’t ready to talk about it.

      Grace was smart. Lines formed around the corners of her eyes. “Noah told you.” She sighed.

      He didn’t want the boy in trouble. “He cares about you and so do I. I can pretend not to know until you’re ready to tell me. But I want you to know I have plenty of work that might be less taxing. But it’s up to you, okay?”

      Grace brushed her long brown bangs to the side. The rest of her hair was twisted on the back of her head and pinned. “The others will be upset if I’m given the easy work.”

      Jesse folded his arms. “There is nothing easy on this farm, and everyone knows it. Plus, I’m the boss. What I say goes. When Tom broke his arm last year in that car accident, no one said a thing when he was given work he could manage.”

      Grace’s eyes filled with tears, and she hugged Jesse. “Thank you.” After a couple seconds, she broke away and wiped at her eyes. “I’ve been tired and emotional. I was worried about telling you and the other guys. I don’t want anyone to think I’m getting special treatment.”

      “If anyone has a problem with your work, tell them to speak to me. Got it?”

      “Yes, boss,” she said with a smile.

      Jesse would leave it at that. He’d adjust the schedule going forward and keep Grace safe. Grace seemed to be unaware that Tom, his foreman, had a soft spot for Grace, and the other guys looked to Tom for guidance. Tom would be fine with whatever Grace did, and the other guys would follow his lead.

      As Jesse walked back to the barn, he thought again of the brunette police officer. He didn’t have a good reason to see her again. But maybe he’d go into town to buy a few fencing pliers to replace ones that had broken. If his path crossed with the police officer, it would be well worth the trip.

      * * *

      “Tough break in Rosewood,” Luis said, adjusting the air-conditioning in the car. It was eighty-three degrees, and it felt hotter inside the vehicle.

      Annabel set her iced coffee in the cruiser’s cup holder. “Yeah.” She didn’t want to talk about it. Annabel had agreed to read the letters sent from Regina to Matthew, less as a police officer and more as a relation to Matthew Colton.

      Though the police had been too late to catch Regina Willard, her room in Rosewood had convinced them that they had the right person. The walls in Regina’s room had been covered in the alphabet, written in red permanent marker, a bull’s-eye drawn beside each letter and newspaper articles of the victims posted on the walls. Hundreds of clippings, obsessive and disturbing. Regina used the same red marker and the bull’s-eye on the foreheads of her victims after she killed them. “Regina’s in the wind.”

      “We’ll get another break,” Luis said.

      Regina was no longer writing to Matthew Colton in prison. They had the letters and not much else. The FBI might find something in her room or perhaps they’d receive a tip on their hotline, but the more time that passed, the colder the trail grew. “Hopefully soon.”

      “What letter is she up to? G?” Luis asked.

      “G,” Annabel confirmed. The Alphabet Killer, while adopting some of Matthew Colton’s rituals, had added some of her own. She was killing women of a certain profile—long, dark hair, twenty to thirty-five years old—in letter order based on her victims’ first names. The police hadn’t caught the pattern until the killer’s third victim, Celia Robison, had been killed on her wedding day. She’d had a bull’s-eye center dot slightly off center to the left drawn on her forehead. Celia had been Sam’s fiancée, and her death had brought the serial killer case even closer to home. So close, in fact, the FBI previously suspected Annabel’s long-lost sister, Josie, of being the Alphabet Killer. Annabel was relieved the FBI had turned their attention away from Josie. No matter what rumors swirled about Josie, Annabel wouldn’t believe her missing sister was a killer.

      They had their father’s blood in them, undeniably, but each of Matthew Colton’s children had chosen honorable and respectable jobs on the right side of the law. Though she couldn’t know for sure, Annabel believed the same was true of Josie.

      The car radio beeped. Annabel answered and waited for the message and code and tried not to let disappointment nip at her. They had to investigate a missing cat. Again. Annabel hid her annoyance and ignored Luis’s grimace. He was an experienced cop, and before being paired with her, he’d worked much more interesting cases.

      After Annabel acknowledged the code and location, Luis made a U-turn in the direction of the house with the missing cat. “You realize this is the same dingbat who lost her cat last week?” Luis asked.

      “I realize it,” Annabel said.

      “Cat’s probably hiding in her house again,” Luis said. The last time Mrs. Granger had called them to help find her cat, Cubbles had been sleeping in a windowsill.

      “She called us. We need to take it seriously,” Annabel said.

      “Fine, but I’m not turning on the lights and sirens for this,” Luis said.

      “I agree. But we will check the windowsill first,” Annabel said.

      This was a familiar discussion between them. Luis had much less patience for calls he considered a waste of police resources. Some of the calls seemed silly, but she was eager to prove herself. They had to respond to calls—even the ones that were a waste of her time. If she could get the chief and Sam to see her as more than a rookie in need of protecting, she might prove to them she was capable of actual police work.

Chapter 2

      Ethan and Lizzie had invited the Colton siblings to their ranch house for dinner. Annabel didn’t know how Lizzie was managing to cook dinner for so many people when she was due to have her baby soon. Most days after work, Annabel was so tired she heated dinner in the microwave and had a glass of wine.

      Ethan and Lizzie were jazzed about their baby. It was almost hard to watch. They were in love, and after what they had СКАЧАТЬ