Page 1 of Deputies Under Fire
Chapter One
It was like stepping into hell.
The memories immediately slammed into Deputy Eden Gallagher. The stench of the mold and decay in the barn. The dank chill crawling over her skin. The autumn wind moaning through the cracks in what was left of the walls.
And the still-dark stain on the cracked concrete floor.
Once, it’d been more than a stain.
It’d been fresh blood, and there had been a body, too.
“Mellie,” she muttered, not able to suppress saying the name of the woman who’d been her mother in every single way that mattered.
Five months wasn’t nearly long enough for the grief to have passed. Or for the memories of seeing Mellie’s body not to cause a jolt inside her.
“You don’t have to be here,” her fellow deputy, Rory McClennan, insisted. “I can call in someone else.”
Except he was more than her fellow deputy. A whole lot more. Rory was technically her boss at Renegade Canyon PD since he was the acting sheriff while Sheriff Grace Granger was on maternity leave.
Rory was also the father of her nine-month-old son, Tyler.
So, yes, a whole lot more.
Even though Rory and she weren’t a couple any longer, and they hadn’t been since before Tyler had been born, he wouldn’t have any trouble realizing that she was far from okay. He waswell aware this place held the hellish memories that were causing her breath to go thin and her heartbeat to race.
“It’s my shift,” she said, barely managing to get out the words. “I can do my job.”
She hoped.
For Rory to call in someone else, it would mean a deputy would end up coming in on their night off. That was because only Rory, Bennie Whitt and she worked the swing shift, 4:00 p.m. to midnight, and Bennie was manning the office. She and Rory had opted for the swing shift so they could spend a good portion of the day with their son, and while those hours were generally quiet in their hometown, that hadn’t been the case tonight.
A call had come in at nine thirty, forty minutes earlier, through Dispatch. A frantic ranch owner, Fran Cagel, had said her golden retriever had come home with blood on its feet and fur. According to Fran, the dog often came to the old barn since it was only a couple of acres away from her ranch.
Of course, it was entirely possible that the retriever had gone elsewhere since he’d been off-leash and roaming, as Fran had said was his routine. But after Rory and Eden had used a simple test to confirm it was indeed blood on the dog, they’d arranged for the sample to be picked up by the county lab to see if it was human. They had also contacted the town hospital in case someone injured showed up.
So far, nothing from the hospital, and while waiting for the lab results, they’d come here.
To hell.
To the place where Mellie had died. Or rather, where her body had been dumped.
Since they didn’t know who’d killed her, or why, that only added to the nightmarish memories. It was bad enough when someone was murdered, but it was worse when there was no justice.
Especially when Eden was in the business of getting justice.
That failure had given her plenty of sleepless nights.
“Let’s just get this done,” Eden insisted, a reminder to herself to get her focus back on the job.
This should be a quick in-and-out, where they could determine if the blood had indeed come from here. If it hadn’t, then they could search the surrounding area. But since it was already dark and the barn was out in the sticks, it’d be morning before a search team could start.
Stepping over the spot where Mellie had been found, she and Rory fanned their flashlights around the barn. It had probably once been impressive, with its massive arched top window above the entrance and the twelve stalls, six on each side. The glass was now broken, the remaining bits hanging on to the frame like loose, jagged teeth. And the rest of the place, well, there was nothing impressive about it.
“This should have been torn down years ago,” Rory muttered.
Eden made a sound of agreement. If it had been, then Mellie wouldn’t have been dumped here. Of course, that wouldn’t have stopped her from dying, but at least she wouldn’t have ended up here in this rot.
“I’ll make another request,” Eden assured him. Though her previous request had generated no results.
