“Who would do that?”
“I don’t know. Had to be someone who either lured him out here on false pretenses, or someone who knew he was heading here for a location scout.”
“Who would know that?” Drayton asked.
“Probably everybody at the fashion show. He was off the chain when I tried to talk to him, babbling about how he was double-booked.”
Drayton touched a hand to his chest. “And you’re sure he’s been shot?”
“Pretty sure.” Theodosia re-aimed her flashlight at Fox’s crumpled body. “From what I can see, he was nailed center of mass. Directly through the heart. Are you okay?”
“Not really.” Drayton ran a visibly shaking hand through his hair. “I feel . . . creaky.”
“Take a couple of deep breaths, okay?” There was a low rumble of thunder off in the distance, and Theodosia peered up at a sky lightly salted with stars. Low, gray clouds were starting to drift in. Maybe a line of showers on the horizon? No, guess not. She was just feeling . . . jumpy.
Drayton gulped air and swallowed hard, working to compose himself. Finally, he said, “Do you think Fox was killed by the same person who shot Nadine?”
Theodosia gave a disheartened shrug. “It’s possible.”
He straightened up and looked around. “Does this mean that Fox didn’t kill Nadine?”
“Fox still could have shot her,” Theodosia said. “But now we know . . .” She inclined her head in the direction of the corncrib. “We know there’s another killer out there somewhere.”
“You think maybe it’s Fox’s partner in the dope deal?”
“No idea,” Theodosia said. Then she reconsidered her words. “I suppose it could be. No, it probably was.”
“What are we going to do now?”
As if on cue, the wail of a siren rose and fell in the crisp night air. Then it was joined by two more sirens, a virtual cacophony of noise, followed by distant strobes of red and blue lights that glimmered through the scrim of trees.
“Sweet dogs,” Drayton cried. “It looks as if the police are on their way and about to storm this place!”
“They can’t be coming here!” Theodosia cried. “I haven’t made a call yet, and I doubt we tripped any alarms.”
“Must be Sheriff Burney,” Drayton said. “This is his jurisdiction.”
Theodosia gazed over at the driveway where lights bobbed and blinked liked crazy, motors roared, and cars slewed toward them. The lead car cut hard to the left, swerved past her Jeep, and then plowed through the weeds, headed in their direction.
“I’m still puzzled. There aren’t any neighbors around for miles,” Theodosia said.
“Well something tipped them off!” Drayton looked at his watch, as if that would somehow explain things, then threw up his hands and said, “That’s it, we’re going to be arrested for the murder of Eddie Fox. We’re going to jail, the police will take those awful mug shots, and we’ll have to wear orange jumpsuits.”
“I doubt that’s going to happen.” Theodosia had to almost shout to be heard above the sirens.
“No? You’d better pray that Haley can scrounge up bail money for us,” Drayton said as the lead car rocked to a stop ten feet from them.
But it wasn’t Sheriff Burney who jumped out. It was . . .
“What are you two doing here?” Riley shouted. His face morphed from a hard mask to one of utter surprise.
Drayton raised his hands. “Don’t shoot. It wasn’t us that killed Eddie Fox.”
“What!” Riley screamed.
“Eddie Fox. We found his body,” Theodosia yelled at him. “Stumbled across it by accident.”
“Hold up, guys,” Riley said to the four uniformed officers that had followed him in. They stopped in their tracks and lowered their guns. Then Riley peered at Theodosia. “First I need you to answer my question. What the Sam Hill are you doing here?”
“Um, we were looking for Eddie Fox?” Theodosia said.
Drayton cleared his throat and pointed at the corncrib.
Riley strode forward and peered into the corncrib. He focused his larger, more powerful flashlight on the crumpled body and said, “Congratulations. I’d say you found him.”
But the surprises didn’t end there.
Two minutes later, while Theodosia was offering a hasty explanation to Riley, Sheriff Burney came roaring in.
In his khaki uniform, a pearl-handled revolver hung on his hand-tooled leather belt, and standing six feet two, the sheriff was a formidable presence as he rushed toward them.
“What in dang tarnation is going on here?” Sheriff Burney demanded.
Theodosia held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Not my doing,” she said.
“Then why are you here?” Sheriff Burney demanded. He looked around, perplexed. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been a homicide,” Riley said.
Sheriff Burney took a step back. “What?”
“Drayton and I drove out here because we wanted to talk to Eddie Fox,” Theodosia said. “Kind of intercept him.”
“Because he was doing a location scout here,” Drayton added.
“And we found him shot,” Theodosia said. “Dead.”
“In there,” Drayton said, pointing.
“They’re here because they’ve been investigating,” Riley said. He didn’t cut a forbidding figure like Sheriff Burney, but he was radiating disappointment mixed with a serious amount of anger.
“We can’t help that we found Fox,” Drayton said, trying to smooth things over. “We wandered around the place and—boom—there he was. Dead as a doornail.”
Sheriff Burney ducked into the corncrib to see for himself. He came out looking somber. “Dead just like that?” he asked.
“Yes, just like that,” Drayton shot back.
Burney pulled off his Smokey Bear hat and scratched his head. “Well, shoot.”
“Please don’t,” Drayton murmured.
Theodosia turned to confront Riley.
“How did you know to come out here?” she asked.
“We got a phone call,” Riley said.
“So did my office,” Sheriff Burney muttered.
Theodosia stared at them. It was starting to become clear to her that this whole thing had been a well-calculated setup.