Page 52 of Her Baby, Her Badge

“It’s not Aileen,” the deputy shouted.

The relief was instant in everyone at the scene but especially for Grace. The fight in her body drained away, and on a hoarse sob, she dropped her head onto his shoulder. Dutton felt her trembling when his arms closed around her.

Because she was no longer looking out the window, she didn’t see the double takes Bennie and the other deputies seemed to have when Bennie inched a little closer to the body, fanning his flashlight over it.

“It’s Wilson Finney,” he said, causing Grace’s head to whip up and snap back toward Bennie. “A gunshot wound to the head.”

“Wilson?” Grace muttered, and Dutton knew her mind was whirling with the reasons for him to be murdered.

“No,” Bennie amended a moment later. “He sure as hell looks a lot like Wilson, but it’s not. Should I glove up and see if he’s got an ID on him?”

Grace hesitated, probably because touching the body could destroy possible evidence. But there was a bigger picture here. The identity of this man might lead them to Aileen because Dutton wasn’t buying that this guy wasn’t connected to Aileen’s abduction.

“Do that,” Grace instructed. “Just be careful and make sure there aren’t explosives or some kind of firetrap rigged around the body.”

That put some alarm in all the deputies, and Rory went to join them in using their flashlights to search the area. While they did that, Dutton eased his door open so he could be ready to assist Bennie, Ellie and Rory because this would be the perfect time for the killer to attack. Across from him, Grace did the same thing.

“I don’t see anything,” Rory relayed to her.

With that go-ahead, Bennie handed his flashlight to Ellie and put on a pair of latex gloves he took from his pocket. Dutton glanced at the deputy as he went closer to the body. His steps were slow and cautious, and like Dutton, Bennie and everyone else were volleying looks around the pasture and the trees.

It didn’t take long for Bennie to ease a wallet from the dead guy’s pants, and he opened it. Ellie turned the flashlight on what had to be a driver’s license.

“His name is Teddy Lunsford,” Bennie declared. “Thirty-one. His address is in San Antonio.”

Grace yanked out her phone and did a search on the man. Dutton watched as Lunsford’s photo popped up. Oh, yeah. Helooked like Wilson. Maybe not an identical-twin kind of thing, but this guy could be Wilson’s cousin.

“He’s got a record,” Grace added, and she cursed under her breath. “Eight years ago he was arrested for blowing up his ex-girlfriend’s car and setting a fire ring around her house. She escaped, and there were no injuries, which explains why Lunsford only served six years in prison.”

Well, that explained two of the attacks. Lunsford had likely done the one at the ranch and the cemetery. But there was something Dutton wasn’t seeing in the report Grace had accessed.

“He doesn’t have any obvious connection to our suspects,” Dutton muttered. “Or to your mother.”

Aileen hadn’t been the one to arrest him. Cops in SAPD had. And Lunsford had served his time in prison hours from Renegade Canyon.

“No, nothing obvious,” Grace agreed. “But there could be something.”

She stopped, and he could feel the hope draining away. She had needed there to be something to help them find Aileen.

“Keep searching him,” Grace told Bennie. “See if he has car keys because he could have a vehicle parked nearby. My mother could be in it.”

That was possible, but it led Dutton to a whole bunch of questions. Would Aileen still be alive and had Lunsford been the one to take her? Also, why had Lunsford been killed? Was he a loose end that the killer had wanted to eliminate? If the last was true, then Aileen would likely be considered a loose end as well.

Bennie resumed his search of the body while Grace continued to go through Lunsford’s background. Dutton was reading it as well, while throwing glances out the windows.

“Keys,” Bennie called out. He held them up and pressed the keypad, no doubt to try to figure out if the vehicle was nearby.

It was.

The short beep sounded through the night. And it was close.

“I think it’s on the trail just across the road,” Dutton said, pointing in that direction.

Bennie double-tapped the keypad again and got the same beep from the same location Dutton had pointed out. Grace started the cruiser but then stopped. Dutton soon saw why when he spotted the movement in the rearview mirror.

A man.

He was behind the cruiser and coming straight toward them.

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