“I have another set of shoes in the car,” Melba said.
“Good,” Eli replied.
“I’m going with you,” Dan stated, about to shut down Freddie’s freaky website and stand.
“Stay here,” Eli said. “See what else you can find.”
Dan growled in protest, turning in the chair to glower at Melba and Eli both. “I don’t like the feel of this. You two need professional backup.”
“We are professionals,” Melba retorted.
Dan looked furious, but he must have known, more than most, that it was futile to argue with Deputy Melba Summers when she was in cop mode.
Which was most of the time.
“That’s right,” Eli agreed, already on his way to the door.
Brynne and Sara were lurking outside, and they barely managed to get out of the way without being bowled over by the dynamic duo.
“Get your shoes,” Eli barked. “We’ll take my SUV.”
Melba pulled off her heels, tossed them aside and ran for the front door.
“For heaven’s sake,” Sara sputtered. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t have time to answer that,” Eli replied, sprinting after Melba. “Dan can fill you in.”
Brynne stood with her mouth slightly open and her eyes enormous in her pale face. Eli paused just long enough to plant a kiss on her forehead and give her shoulder a squeeze, hopefully reassuring her.
With a couple of minutes, Eli and Melba were in the SUV, speeding along the back road that ran behind Sara’s house toward the opposite end of town.
Melba, buckled in, shifted awkwardly in the passenger seat, trying to pull on one of her sneakers.
“Are you sure this is an emergency?” she asked, somewhat after the fact.
They weren’t using the lights or the siren, but, yeah, Eli read this as an emergency. He wanted to search the inside of that barn, get there before the backpack disappeared.
He said as much.
“Don’t we need a warrant?” Melba pressed.
“Not in this case,” Eli said. “That barn is part of the original McCall homestead. It’s on J.P.’s land.”
Melba blew out a loud breath, making her bangs dance on her forehead. “Why did I think that old eyesore had been torn down years ago?”
“Probably because it should have been. The McCall place is big, and parts of it are pretty remote. Most likely, J.P. forgot all about it, just like the rest of us.”
“But Freddie Lansing has been using it as a sort of hideout.”
“I hope to God that’s all he used it for,” Eli replied, as they shot past the city limits and onto the county highway.
“Do we need backup?”
“I doubt it,” Eli answered, “but it wouldn’t hurt to give J.P. a call, let him know we’re headed for his place and why.”
Melba nodded, punched in the number as Eli reeled it off, and waited. “Hey, J.P.,” she said, after a few moments. “This is Deputy Summers. The sheriff and I are on our way to that old barn on your land—yeah. Wait a second.” She turned to Eli, eyebrows slightly raised. “He says he’ll meet us there. Is that all right?”
Eli gave a raspy chuckle. “No,” he said, “it isn’t all right. But that won’t stop J.P.”
Melba relayed that information, then ended the call.
“He just laughed,” she said.
“Of course he did,” Eli answered.
They zoomed on, reaching the gate to the McCall place within minutes.
Probably because J.P. had been alerted, it stood open.
The tires rattled loudly as they crossed the cattle guard onto J.P.’s property. He co-owned the ranch with his two older sisters, neither of whom lived on the place, though they kept a vested interest.
J.P. managed the various enterprises ownership entailed, including mineral rights and several thousand head of cattle.
Eli didn’t slow down as he passed the spacious ranch house, a long, low structure of brick and wood, where J.P. lived alone, except for his dog, Trooper.
He was waiting at the base of his paved driveway, behind the wheel of the ancient white pickup truck he used strictly for ranch work, Trooper riding shotgun, and as soon as Eli and Melba passed him in the SUV, he pulled out behind them.
J.P. wasn’t a cop, but he’d had Eli’s back for as long as he could remember, as had Cord, and it was good to have him around.
Once they left the ranch road for the glorified cow path that led toward the original homestead, and the barn, the going was teeth-rattling rough.
“Sorry,” Eli said, glancing at Melba.
She jutted out her chin. “Worry about yourself, Sheriff. I’m fine.”
“You do realize that we’re on the same side, right?”
Melba sighed. “I’m still mad at Dan,” she confessed.
“Why?”
“Because he’s so damn smart.”
“You’d rather he was stupid?”
“No, I’d rather he was the slightest bit humble.”
Eli gave a loud guffaw at that.
A good thing, because it would be a while before he laughed again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BODY SWAYED gently between shadow and light, surrounded by shimmering dust motes. The scents of mildewed hay, mice and death mingled in the cold air inside the old barn.
Eli swore, and Melba released a small cry of startled dismay.
“Shit,” J.P. said, standing behind them.
“You have a knife in your truck?” Eli heard himself ask, as the initial shock of finding another body—the second in as many days—began to subside. “Get it.”
While J.P. ran for his truck, Eli slipped on a pair of gloves from his pocket and looked for something to stand on.
The rafters in that barn were high, and the rope was long, though not long enough to be accessible to a man standing on the ground. A pillowcase covered the head like a mask, but Eli knew who this was.
It was Melba who located a dusty trunk sheathed in cobwebs, pushed up against a far wall; the two of them hauled it into the center of the space as J.P. rushed back in with the requested knife.
Before Eli could scramble onto the trunk, J.P. did it. He moved with the practiced ease of a rancher’s kid all grown up.
As the body turned in slow half circles, he swore. Almost lost his balance on the trunk, which threatened to splinter beneath his weight.