Page 4 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed
“Reed, Sheriff McQueen,” Marcie greeted when they got closer.
She obviously recognized Hallie from either photos or she’d seen her when Hallie had come in for an interview. Marcie handed them each a bag containing sealed protective footwear that they both opened and slipped them on over their shoes.
Marcie tipped her head toward the interior of the house. “They’re in the kitchen.”
“Who called in the domestic disturbance?” Hallie asked, taking the question right out of Reed’s mouth.
“Anonymous call,” Marcie replied, stopping the tape arrangement to log them in on her tablet. That was a new procedure Owen had put into place. No more paper sign-in sheets to indicate who was entering and leaving a crime scene.
“We figured it was a hoax since there have never been any incidences recorded here,” Marcie added. “Also, because the owner lives alone.”
Yeah, Reed would have thought the same, but obviously there’d been some kind of disturbance if two people were dead.
With Hallie right by his side, they made their way through the foyer and into an open floor plan where the kitchen was immediately visible. Reed spotted Aaron, who was on the phone, but it took him a few more steps before he caught sight of the bodies.
Hell.
A man and a woman were in the breakfast nook. Blood spatter was on the walls, the table. Even the ceiling. The man had been shot in the head and was on the floor. The woman was slumped onto the table, her hand clutching a Glock, and the angle of the barrel would suggest, she had died from a self-inflicted wound.
Reed’s memories suggested otherwise.
So did Hallie’s because he heard the sharp gasp she made. And he knew why.
This scene in front of them, this nightmare, was nearly identical to the one they’d both seen a little over ten years ago. Back then, Reed had come across it when he’d tracked down a woman who’d gone missing and found her and her former boss dead. Even though the cops had thought it was a murder-suicide, Reed had kept digging, and it’d eventually led him to Hallie’s parents.
And that in turn had led him to the string of murders they’d committed.
“Someone staged this,” Hallie muttered.
“Yeah,” Reed agreed.
It was all here. The nice breakfast nook. The godawful amount of blood spatter. The Glock and the male and female dead. This woman was even close to the age of the original victim.
But who was she?
It was hard to tell because of the damage that had been done from the gunshot wound.
He didn’t want to go closer for fear of destroying potential evidence, but Reed leaned in and took a look at the note. It had indeed been taped to the back of the woman’s head. So, clearly the killer wanted them to know this was a reenactment of two of the McQueens’ murders. He hadn’t needed the note though to tell him that.
“There’s no blood spatter on the paper or tape,” Hallie pointed out. “And her finger isn’t on the trigger like the original victim.”
True, and there would have been blood if the note had been in place when the woman had been shot. And besides, why put a note on the back of her head if she was just going to shoot herself? That didn’t make sense. If the gun had slipped even an inch, the note could have been blasted apart as well.
“The CSIs and medical examiner are on the way,” Aaron let them know once he’d finished his call. “I haven’t touched the bodies so I don’t know if either of them have wallets with IDs on them.”
“We’ll leave that to the CSIs,” Hallie murmured, glancing around.
Reed was doing some glancing around, too, making a visual of the place, but he didn’t see anything to indicate a struggle. Of course, that would be checked, too, but he wasn’t expecting that to be the case. Not if the killer had wanted to stick to that particular detail of the original crime.
“This is like the murder you two worked on a long time ago,” Aaron said, his voice tentative. “It was a case study in one of my criminal justice classes at college,” he added when Hallie’s gaze snapped to him. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said quickly. “You’re right—this is eerily similar to the scene. My parents, Kip and Tami McQueen, were the ones who committed those two murders.”
Aaron seemed to release the breath that had been jammed in his lungs. “If I remember correctly, Tami and Kip had befriended the man, gained his trust and slowly robbed him of nearly everything in his accounts.”
Hallie nodded. “That was their MO. One of them would use their looks and charm to lure in a victim of the opposite sex, and once they had the money, then they killed the person and set it up as a suicide.”
Reed wasn’t sure how she managed to get all of that out without her voice wavering, but she did it.
