Nate stepped beside him.

“The bones in her wrists are broken,” Frank said softy. “She tried so hard to get out that she broke her bones. Those are the handcuffs Jake got for me. He etched my initials on them.” His voice was rising. “They were on the wall but they disappeared in the storm. Jake said I took them. And he said I took the chain saw. All I did was get mad. Why didn’t I put them together with Leslie’s disappearance?” Frank looked at Nate, his face red with growing rage. “If I’d been smarter, faster, maybe I could have saved her. There was air in that trunk. I bet there was enough air in there that I could have—”

Nate grabbed Frank, pinning his arms down. It was an unbreakable grip. Frank fought him. He twisted and turned, kicked, but Nate held him. Frank was strong but Nate was stronger and he didn’t let go.

Tears came, but Frank kept fighting.

Behind them, Jamie had arrived and was filling a syringe, but Nate shook his head. Frank needed this release.

Slowly, Frank began to weaken, his energy gone. His face was buried in Nate’s shoulder and tears had soaked the cloth. When Frank was near to collapsing, Nate nodded to Jamie.

“I’m going to give you something to relax you,” Jamie said and gave Frank the shot. It took both of them to hold the older man when he started to fall. An ambulance pulled up, and the EMTs put Frank onto a stretcher.

He held up his hand for them to stop, and Nate stood by his side. “Sorry for it all.” Frank’s voice was slurred. “But you found her.” With trembling hands, Frank removed his sheriff’s badge from his chest and held it out to Nate.

“I can’t take that.”

“You think those guys in their fancy jackets are going to let you hang around without any authority?”

“Rowan will—” Nate glanced over his shoulder at his cousin. Already, Rowan had changed into the agent he was. No, he wouldn’t let a civilian hang around. Nate took the badge and, groggily, Frank smiled in satisfaction.

At last, Frank let his body give in to the sedative and his eyes closed. “Now maybe the town bastards will leave our Terri alone.”

Nate nodded at the “our.”

“I’ll make sure they do. Rowan and I will make you proud.”

Nodding, Frank gave a weak smile. “Poor Leslie. We all loved her so much. Who would do this to her?” They loaded Frank into the ambulance.

“Yes. Who would do this to her?” Nate whispered as he walked back to Rowan and the other agents and the car. Who would murder the mother of a small child and—

Nate cut off his thought because standing to one side of the growing crowd was little Della Kissel—and from the way her eyes were glittering, she was spreading her venom. He didn’t have to hear her to guess what she was saying. Probably something on the lines of “Leslie had an argument with her lover. She deserved what she got.”

Nate could feel the badge on his chest as though it were a brand. At the moment it felt like it was glowing—and it weighed about a thousand pounds. While wearing the badge, he couldn’t do what he wanted to do, which was threaten the dreadful little woman so strongly that she shut up. Scare her to silence.

Ah, he thought, if he was sheriff maybe he could lock her up.

And be like Sheriff Chazen?

He took a breath. Diplomat, he told himself. I am a diplomat and Della Kissel is an enemy warlord. He went forward.

Chapter 20

It was early evening before Nate could get away to go to Terri’s house. During the long day he’d frequently glanced toward the house to see if she was watching. But he never saw her or Thorndyke. Busy as he was, he wondered what the two of them were doing there. Alone.

Nate had introduced himself to Frank’s three deputies, all of them young and eager to follow his lead. Nate wanted to tell them he knew nothing about investigating a murder, but he looked into their eyes and didn’t say that. It was clear they didn’t either.

By six, everything had been cleared away from the old dock. Rowan had called his father and asked for help in getting an immediate forensics report. “I’m calling in every favor I can,” he told his dad. “But I need help.”

Kit said he’d do all he could.

Nate drove to Terri’s house, then sat in the car for a few minutes while he gave himself courage. The medical examiner had arrived and from his quick examination of the skeleton, he’d been able to tell of the horror Leslie Rayburn had gone through in her attempt to get out. As far as they could tell, she’d been handcuffed, her ankles tied together, probably gagged, then thrown into the trunk. Maybe she’d been held in there and her car parked on the dock while someone cut the pier’s big posts.

Whatever happened, it had been long enough that Leslie’d had time to fight so hard that she’d broken both wrists and an ankle. All done while she had a deep gash on her head.

“With a dent like that in her skull, she must have been bleeding a lot,” the ME said.

Now in the car, Nate removed the badge from his shirt. Sheriff Chazen hadn’t even looked for Leslie. Hadn’t believed all the people who said she hadn’t run away.

Tags: Jude Deveraux Summer Hill Romance
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