Scent Of Danger. Terri Reed

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СКАЧАТЬ have hurt me. He’d been a friend of my nephew’s.”

      Sherlock lay down on the cement, with his head on his paws. Clearly the dog didn’t smell anything worth tracking.

      “Familiarity breeds compliancy,” Parker commented.

      She grimaced. “Cute.”

      “What do you mean ‘had been a friend?’”

      Sorrow darkened her expression. “My nephew was Daniel Jones.”

      A sad case. A cold case. Or was it? Parker had seen the damage done to Daniel Jones’s casket last month when it had been forced open and searched. “I hadn’t realized you two were related.” Empathy wove its way through him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

      She nodded, acknowledging his sentiment. “Was there a reason you showed up?”

      “I received a tip a drug deal was going down.” He braced himself for her reaction.

      Her mouth pressed in a firm line as annoyance darkened her eyes. For a long moment she stared at him. “What will it take to convince you the center is legit?” she finally asked.

      Good question. One he didn’t have an answer for. There was no reason not to believe the pretty detective was all she seemed. Hardworking, dedicated and professional.

      Maybe he was letting his own issues cloud his judgment. But that didn’t explain why she had a known drug user on the youth center’s property. “What was Zane doing here? And why were you asking him about your nephew?”

      Melody sighed and struggled to put her thought process into words. “I reached out to him. I admit it was a long shot, but it occurred to me since Daniel’s grave had been defiled last month that maybe the break-in had something to do with his case. Since I have the files and evidence from that night in my office, it made sense.”

      She sighed and leaned against the railing. “I was hoping Zane would have remembered something or would say something to help me figure out what happened and why Daniel’s grave had been tampered with after all this time.” Instead she was left with more unanswered questions.

      “I’m sure it must be hard not knowing who killed your nephew.” Sympathy tinged Parker’s voice.

      “It is.” Stinging sadness swept through her like a cold wind. “It shouldn’t have happened. If only something like the youth center had been around when Daniel had been alive, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten mixed up in drugs. Maybe he wouldn’t have been in the Lost Woods that night.”

      “I was there the night Daniel Jones was killed,” Parker confessed quietly.

      She sucked in a sharp breath. She knew that from the reports, but his statement hadn’t been any different than the other officers’. A burst of hope shot through her. Maybe he remembered something he hadn’t put in his report. Would he have the answers she sought? “Tell me what you remember. What did you see?”

      “Sherlock was on the trail of a scent, leading us through the woods.” Hearing his name, the dog rose to his feet, tail wagging, his big brown eyes on Melody. Parker adjusted his grip on the leash. “We found Daniel amped up on drugs and waving a gun around.”

      Melody tried to picture her nephew out of his mind and out of control, but the only images that came to her were of the quiet kid who always seemed slightly sad. Her heart ached for him.

      “Daniel shot at the captain.”

      She winced. “I’d read that in the reports.”

      “Captain McNeal put a bullet in the kid’s thigh as a means to stop him.”

      It had been the right move, considering he was firing on the police. What had he been thinking?

      “I know the reports said no one saw the shooter. But can you remember anything that might ID him?” Hope swelled, anticipation surged. She wanted to find and arrest the man who’d pulled the trigger.

      “No. I never saw him.”

      Disappointment flooded her veins.

      “It happened so fast. Whoever fired was good. We scoured the woods for shell casings. The sniper left nothing behind except the bullet that killed Daniel.”

      “And there were no prints on the .308 caliber bullet,” Melody stated flatly, adding to Parker’s assessment that the gunman had been careful.

      He shook his head. “Unfortunately not.”

      Melody’s fingers curled. Whoever had done the deed thought they’d gotten away with it, but she wouldn’t give up looking for the shooter, or finding out why Daniel was in those woods that night. “I’ve been working his case since I came on board. I wasn’t in Sagebrush at the time. I was a detective for the Austin P.D. But after that night...” She swallowed.

      Parker touched her hand. The warmth of his skin spread through her, chasing the cold away.

      “Your sister, Sierra Jones, died that night, as well,” he recalled gently.

      Sierra. A wrenching pain gripped Melody as it did every time she thought about her older sister. “The ME ruled Sierra’s death a suicide. She’d purposely overdosed on sleeping pills.”

      It was still so hard to accept. Her sister had been so full of life, so fiery.

      “What about Daniel’s father?”

      Melody shook her head. “Sierra would never say who he was.”

      “She didn’t know or just didn’t want to tell you?”

      “I think she knew.” It still hurt that her sister wouldn’t confide in her. Melody consoled herself with the fact that they were nine years apart in age.

      Compassion darkened his brown eyes. “I can’t imagine losing both of them in the same night.”

      “It was devastating. For both my mother and me.” As far as Melody was concerned, whoever killed Daniel was just as responsible for driving Sierra to end her life.

      His gaze took on a faraway look. “When my brother died I remember thinking how cruel life could be sometimes. How senseless.”

      Empathy twirled in her chest. He’d lost someone, too. “How did he die?”

      His gaze sharpened. “Drugs.”

      Her heart sank. “Oh, no. Was he an addict?”

      “No. He was fourteen and experimenting. The kids he was hanging with were on the edgy side, not overly bad kids but...it only took one time.”

      She sucked in a sharp breath. “One time?”

      “Yes.” Bitterness laced his tone. “He’d taken a hit of ecstasy that was bulked up with a lethal dose of MCPP, a pesticide.”

      She reached out to take his hand, the warm contact comforting. “I’m so sorry.”

      She didn’t know what else СКАЧАТЬ