Page 1 of Her Baby, Her Badge

CHAPTER ONE

The rain was washing away the blood.

That was Sheriff Grace Granger’s second thought as she panned her flashlight over the scene. Her first thought had put ice in every vein in her body—the woman was dead.

Correction: thecopwas dead.

The female officer was wearing a khaki-colored uniform, which meant she worked for the county sheriff and wasn’t one of Grace’s deputies in the Renegade Canyon Police Department. Still, that didn’t lessen the overwhelming grief and the sickening feeling of dread that Grace felt.

“Get the tower lights set up here,” Grace told her team of deputies, who’d responded to the 911 call with her. She pointed to two spots that were to the sides of the victim and far enough away from her that they wouldn’t destroy any potential evidence.

The generator-powered lights were necessary to illuminate the scene so it could be examined. However, Grace needed no such illumination to see the dead woman. Her flashlight and the headlights of the responding vehicles were doing an effective job of that.

“Another one,” Deputy Livvy Walsh muttered as she stepped shoulder-to-shoulder with Grace. She had no trouble hearing the slight tremble in her deputy’s voice.

“Yes,” Grace agreed. Her voice wasn’t especially steady, either. Hard to be steady when taking in the scene in front of them.

The dead cop had been tied to a fence post in such a way that her head stayed upright, thanks to the thick rope around her neck. The killer had left her in her uniform, but he or she had shredded it so that parts of the fabric flapped in the stormy wind.

Although Grace didn’t have any proof yet, the woman likely hadn’t died on the post. Not if her manner of death was the same MO the killer had employed on another officer who’d been murdered a month earlier.

In that murder, San Antonio Detective Andrea Selby had been stabbed repeatedly, and then her killer had tied her to another fence post that was about a quarter of a mile from this particular one. And even though there was no evidence to link Detective Selby to Renegade Canyon, her body had been left just outside the grounds of the McClennan family’s Towering Oaks Ranch. Which was in Grace’s jurisdiction.

And she had personal ties to the ranch.

Verypersonal ties these days, she reminded herself as she thought of the baby bump that her high-visibility raincoat was concealing. Yes, her unborn child was about as personal as it got.

Unfortunately, every personal tie she had was also mixed with some bad blood that extended back to three generations of the McClennans and her own family. If there’d been only one murder, Grace might have been able to consider the location of the body a coincidence. But with two, this was a message. Exactly what message, Grace didn’t know, but she needed to find out before another officer died.

“You okay?” Livvy asked her.

“No,” Grace admitted. She blinked away the rain that was slapping at her. “And I figure you aren’t, either.” It wasimpossible to look at the cop’s dead face and not see their own. Or future victims. “But we’ll do our jobs.”

Livvy made a sound of agreement that Grace knew wasn’t merely lip service. They would indeed do their jobs and hopefully stop this killer from claiming anyone else.

“Any idea who she is?” Grace asked, tipping her head to the dead woman.

“No. She doesn’t look familiar.”

Grace was about to agree, but the slash of more headlights and the sounds of engines behind her had Grace looking over her shoulder. When she saw who’d arrived, she silently muttered a thanks.

And then a groan.

The thanks was for the CSI team who had just arrived, and they began to scramble from their van. Grace had contacted them immediately after she’d gotten the 911 call that there was a dead body, because she’d known this would be a race against the elements to preserve the scene. The spring storm was hitting hard and fast, and what the wind didn’t destroy, the rain probably would.

Grace’s groan was for the two men who exited a shiny silver truck with the Towering Oaks Ranch logo on the door. The family patriarch and all-around thorn in her side, Ike McClennan. And Dutton, his son. Except Dutton was more than just that. He was the reason for those “very personal ties” to his family ranch.

Since she didn’t want any civilians trampling on the crime scene, Grace began to make her way to Ike and Dutton. With the glare of the headlights, it was hard for her to see Dutton’s expression, but she figured he’d be concerned. One of his ranch hands had no doubt alerted him to the cop activity outside the fence, and not only would he want to know what was going on, but he would also want to make sure she was alright.

“What the hell happened?” Ike snarled. His rough voice thundered through the night.

He charged toward Grace, his gestures and sounds reminding her of a snorting bull. Ike might be approaching the seventy-year mark, but he still looked plenty strong and formidable with his six-foot, three-inch height and beefy build.

While Ike continued to move toward her, Grace stared him down. Or rather glared him down. She’d had plenty of practice doing it, and though this situation shouldn’t be a confrontation, Ike usually managed to turn it into one any time she was involved.

“Well? What the hell is going on?” Ike persisted.

Dutton didn’t move in front of his father and didn’t do anything obvious to try to rein in the man. Grace hoped it stayed that way. Dutton, she knew, had a protective streak inside him. For their unborn baby. For Grace, too. But Grace didn’t want him acting on that. Tonight, she was the badge, and not his ex-lover and the mother of his child.

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