Page 40 of Her Baby, Her Badge

“He was injured, but he should be fine.” Dutton didn’t add more even when Wilson gave him a blank stare.

Wilson shifted to Grace. “I read the report you had Livvy send me about this Brian Waterson, aka Keith Cassaine.”

Good. Grace had asked Livvy to send it to him in case he had anything to add to the original reports. Wilson hadn’t been involved in the arrests, but he’d been a deputy then, and Grace had had Livvy contact all former deputies in case they recalled something that would help with the investigation.

“I have some vague memories of him and the teenage girl who died.” Wilson went on. “And I heard him threaten Aileen. But I haven’t had any contact with him in the past eleven years.” He paused. “You didn’t think I’d teamed up with him to kill those female cops, did you?”

There it was, that snark that had become Wilson’s default reaction when it came to her, and as Dutton had done, Grace went with a blank-stare response. Yes, she had to consider that Wilson might have joined forces with Brian, but that was a long shot. She figured either the killer was working alone, or had hired a henchman to do some of the dirty work.

Like assaulting Ike and blowing up a storage building in an attempt to murder Dutton and her.

Wilson huffed. “I’m not a killer, and while you’re obviously having trouble wrapping your head around that, I want you to know that I came here to help.”

“Help?” she asked, and Grace wished she’d toned down a smidge of the shocked tone. “How?”

“By letting one of your deputies take a sample of the carpet from my cruiser and my personal vehicle,” Wilson said. “That’ll rule me out as a suspect.”

It wouldn’t. The only thing it would absolutely rule out was that the fibers either did or didn’t match the ones taken from the fence post. It definitely wouldn’t prove Wilson’s innocence. He still had means, motive and opportunity. It was his image on the sketch the police artist had done. And he could have been the one who’d orchestrated the attack at the ranch.

But Grace didn’t spell out any of that.

However, her expression must have conveyed her suspicions about him because Wilson huffed again. “I had a second reason for coming here. I got a call from Cassie about a half hour ago, and she told me that the town council is meeting in the morning to discuss the recall process.”

Grace managed to get her cop face on in time before Wilson could see the gut punch that’d given her. “Oh?” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

Wilson attempted to hide a smile, but he obviously wanted her to see how pleased he was. “Yes. It’s possible that bymorning, a recall election will be approved and you’ll finally be on your way to being ousted as sheriff.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dutton hated the smug look Wilson was giving Grace. Hell, he hated pretty much everything about this jerk, whose pettiness over losing an election had caused him to launch this vendetta against Grace.

A vendetta that had caused Wilson to murder three women?

Maybe. There was plenty enough hatred for Wilson to do that and more. But Dutton recalled something. A little dig he could fire back at the jerk.

“I’ve heard you’ve got some serious opposition running against you in the upcoming county-sheriff election,” Dutton commented. “And you’re way down in the polls. I mean, it’s not looking good.”

As he’d hoped, that got Wilson turning his gloating face away from Grace and pinning his eyes on Dutton. “Serious opposition that I heard you funded.”

Dutton shrugged. “I know Jacob Morales,” he said, referring to the opposing candidate. “I’ve done business with him for years, and he’s honest and not prone to pettiness and grudges.” The remark hit home and caused Wilson’s eyes to narrow. “I haven’t kept my donations to his campaign a secret, but it’s not common knowledge, either. How’d you find out about it?”

Of course, it wasn’t just a simple question, and there was a whole lot of insinuation in it. Well, one big insinuation, anyway. That campaign contribution could be Wilson’s motivefor including Dutton in the death threat. Added to that, Wilson could have murdered his own deputy as a warped way of garnering some sympathy, which he might believe would help him in the election. Of course, if Wilson, Cassie and their cronies managed to oust Grace, then Wilson probably thought he could step into her job.

Dutton would do everything within his power to make sure that didn’t happen.

It was bad enough that Grace was facing this moronic recall threat because he’d gotten her pregnant. Bad enough that she was having to deal with that while also trying to stay alive and find a killer. It would be just one more layer of nastiness if Wilson somehow managed to take her badge.

“FYI, I contributed to Morales’s campaign, too,” Aileen said. “And I plan to officially endorse him.”

Dutton really enjoyed the flash of anger those words stirred in Wilson’s expression. But his enjoyment was short-lived. Because it was way too easy to fire up Wilson’s temper, but the man usually took that anger and aimed it at Grace. He didn’t get a chance to do that this time, though, because his phone rang. So did Grace’s.

Grace and Wilson took out their phones at the same time, and even though neither put the calls on speaker, Dutton could immediately tell that something was wrong.

“What? When?” Wilson demanded, and shock replaced the anger on his face.

“Read the note to me,” Grace said to the person who’d called her, and she was experiencing plenty of shock, too.

Hell, had there been another murder?

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