In Self Defence. Debra Webb

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      She had known the boy and then the man inside out. At least, she’d thought she had. But you never really know a person. Not really. When he’d married someone else—a pregnant-with-his-child someone else—Audrey had realized she could never trust anyone with her heart ever again. If Colt would break it, there was no hope with anyone else.

      True to her decision, she never had. In December she would turn thirty-seven. Forty was right down the road. In all probability she would never know how it felt to hold her own child in her arms or to share her life with a man she loved the way her mother had loved her father. Of course her career had been immensely fulfilling—until things had gone so very wrong.

      The newspaper would just have to be her baby, she supposed. Certainly the staff was like family. And she still had her mother. Well, most of the time, anyway.

      Rather than wallowing in self-pity, Audrey listened as her mother talked on and on about the distant past—the good days, she called them. The ones before that awful year of darkness that came after her father’s heart attack...and the secret that she and her mother would take to their graves.

      Some things had to stay buried. There was no other option—not then and not now.

      “Then you went off to become the celebrated investigative journalist,” Mary Jo said after a long pause, her eyes gleaming with pride. “Your father would have been so proud. He never wanted you stuck here running that damned newspaper. He wanted you to explore the world, to conquer all the glass ceilings.”

      Except there really was no choice now. Six months ago her mother had called with the news that Phillip was retiring and a developer wanted to buy the paper. Said developer planned to demolish the old building and start fresh—his words. That could not happen. Not in this lifetime. The building had to stay exactly where it was for the foreseeable future.

      “To tell you the truth, Mom, I was tired of all the travel and the limelight.” Audrey waved off the career that had once been her singular focus. “Let someone else have a turn at being the best.” She winked at her mother. “I couldn’t hog all the glamour forever.”

      Mary Jo smiled and patted Audrey on the leg. “You were always such a thoughtful girl. I’ll never forget the time you came home and bagged up all your clothes to take to that little girl whose house had burned down. I finally convinced you that we could take her shopping for new clothes. You really made your father and I proud. I know he has watched your career from heaven.”

      There was another secret Audrey planned to keep. Her mother would never know—nor would anyone else for that matter—that her career had gone to hell in a handbasket. She’d made a mistake. Ten years at the top of her game and she’d made a totally dumb, foolish mistake. She’d wanted the story so badly, she’d trusted a source without going through all the usual steps to verify that source. She had allowed her friendship with that source to guide her, and she’d rushed to beat everyone else. She’d screwed up.

      Big-time.

      Bottom line, she had no one to blame but herself. While she had been licking her wounds, her mother had called with news about Phil’s retirement. Audrey had done what she had to do. She’d zoomed home and bought out her uncle’s portion of the family business. With her savings basically depleted after that, she’d decided to stay on and try turning the paper around. No one knew how to lay out a titillating story better than Audrey. She could have the paper thriving again within a year. No problem. An entire human could be made in less time. Of course she could do it. It was the perfect distraction. If she was busy saving the family legacy, she didn’t have to think about the rubble that was once her career.

      Or the secret that no one else could ever know.

      Her mother laid her head on Audrey’s shoulder, exhaustion overtaking her now that the manic episode had passed.

      But it was coming home to do what must be done that served up another cold hard reality to Audrey. Her mother was not well. The forgetfulness and absentmindedness were not merely age or the overabundance of civic commitments to which she had obligated herself for the past thirty-five years.

      Mary Jo Anderson had dementia. If Audrey had come home more often, she would have realized the lost keys and missed appointments her mother had laughed about on the phone were more than forgetfulness. Far more. But she had been too busy with her illustrious career. She had called her mother every week, sometimes twice, but she hadn’t gotten home nearly as often as she should have.

      But she was here now. And as her father always said, “when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”

      Tonight’s shooting was a perfect example. Nothing promised a bump in circulation like a potential homicide.

       Chapter Three

      Colt leaned against the cab of his truck and blew out a weary breath. Burt had taken the body. Rather than deliver the outsider to a local funeral home, he was headed to the state medical examiner’s office to turn over the body for an autopsy. The department’s two-man crime scene unit had gone over the Sauder home with a fine-tooth comb.

      The biggest thing missing at the moment was Sarah Sauder’s husband. He was supposed to be headed home from a funeral he’d attended up in Hendersonville, but he still hadn’t made it back. Seemed to Colt that the man would have moved heaven and earth to get to his wife and children after hearing about the shooting. Sarah and the kids had apparently given up hope of his arrival, since they’d left and gone to her father’s house. The lights in the Sauder home were out now and the doors were locked up tight. Colt had suggested Sarah and her kids stay with family until they released the scene. There would need to be another look tomorrow for potential evidence. Not that Colt really expected to find any.

      The evening had been a tough one for Sarah. To have strangers walking through her home and touching her belongings was not something to which folks in the Mennonite community were accustomed. They were private people. Kept to themselves and stayed out of trouble. This was not the norm by any means.

      US Marshal Branch Holloway paced the road just far enough from Colt’s truck to ensure he didn’t overhear his cell phone conversation. Branch had an outstanding reputation with the Marshals Service as far as Colt knew, but something had landed him in Franklin County assigned to the federal courthouse last year. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. Winchester wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, and there damned sure wasn’t much of anything that rose to the federal level in Franklin County.

      Tonight, apparently, was an exception.

      Branch had said the victim was some button man for the Chicago mob. Beyond that he’d been pretty tight-lipped. Didn’t sit well with Colt. This was his county and by God he needed to know the full details of what had transpired in the Sauder home tonight. He had no intention of relinquishing control over this investigation until he had no other choice. The safety of the residents in this county was his responsibility, not Branch Holloway’s.

      Branch tucked his phone away and headed toward Colt. Colt pushed away from the truck and set his hands on his hips. “So what did your former boss have to say?”

      “I was right. The victim is Tony Marcello.” Branch glanced toward the darkened house. “This was no random break-in, Colt. Marcello is the kind of guy who does the dirty work. Collects on loans. Acts as an enforcer or bodyguard. Bottom line, he does whatever he’s ordered СКАЧАТЬ