Page 2 of Closer Than You Know (Vera Boyett #2)

Wednesday, March 5

Boyett Farm

Good Hollow Road, Fayetteville, 6:00 a.m.

Vera Boyett shoved a pod into the coffee maker and pressed the Start button.

It was cold. Too damned cold for March in southern Middle Tennessee. Thirty degrees, for God’s sake. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when she peered out the window over the sink, she saw there were at least six inches of snow on the ground.

“What in the world.”

Vera shook her head. It wasn’t like it didn’t happen. There was the occasional snowstorm in March—even in April sometimes. When forecasting this event, her favorite meteorologist had provided data about just how many times it had happened in the past hundred years. She doubted the statistics would do a single thing to make folks feel better. All the schools would be closed, as well as a good many businesses.

She exhaled a big sigh, leaned a hip against the counter. Chances were, it wouldn’t last long. By tomorrow the white stuff would be nothing more than an annoying memory for those who had to drive to work in it. Didn’t really matter to Vera since she had no particular place to be this morning. A little smile toyed with her lips. That was the best part of being self-employed.

The money was enough to get her through when her services weren’t needed. She worked from home, ensuring there was no overhead for the business: the family farm was paid for, so there was no mortgage or rent. She’d also paid off her SUV when she’d cashed out her 401(k), rather than rolling all of it over. She was in a good place financially. She’d barely noticed the loss of income after resigning from her position at the Memphis Police Department.

Life was good. No stress. No unattainable expectations. No more jaded outlook.

She bit her lip. That was the part that worried her. When things were going this well ... trouble was bound to be right around the corner.

“Don’t even go there, Vee.” She had never been very good at accepting how things were at face value. She was always looking for the hidden agenda or bracing for the other shoe to drop.

She supposed that was what happened when you spent fifteen years as a cop in a city like Memphis. You never assumed anything ... not if you were smart. The one time she had, her career had crashed and burned.

She forced the memory away. Not going there for sure.

The coffee maker sputtered and stopped humming, a sign her hot liquid caffeine was ready. Putting aside the notion that life was a little too good right now, she grabbed her cup and walked to the table, then slid onto one of the stools.

This was her routine every morning. She got up, brushed her hair, and—mostly to boost her self-esteem—added a touch of makeup. Sure wasn’t to impress anyone. She dressed comfortably, in jeans and sweaters or tees—sweatshirts if it was really cold. As winter had started to show, back in December, she’d even picked up a pair of boots. But mostly she wore her sneakers. Casual attire was the norm in Fayetteville. No one expected her to show up at a crime scene or even a conference room wearing a suit or a dress with heels. Thank God. She did not miss any aspect of those days.

There was something truly relaxing about the idea of spending the rest of her life in jeans. Gone were the days of dressing for the ruthless climb up the career ladder. She had learned the hard way that the higher she climbed, the farther she had to fall.

Okay, so she hadn’t quite killed off that jaded side just yet.

Truth was, she’d fallen all the way down from the high place she had achieved in her fifteen-year career. But, in true determined-female fashion, she had picked herself up and started over. Finding a new beginning could have happened anywhere, but she’d ended up back home in small-town Fayetteville. She surveyed the big country-style kitchen of the house where she’d grown up. She’d been here for seven months now. But her career debacle wasn’t the only reason she’d landed back where she started.

The thought of all those remains found in that cave—the cave she and her sister Eve had played in as children right here on the family farm—still shook her.

“Not going there,” Vera announced. Walks down memory lane were overrated.

Keeping the past behind her was, admittedly, a work in progress. And though she might never say it out loud, being here again had been good for her soul. She’d spent more than two decades after high school graduation immersed in the insanity of big-city living, first at university and then in an intense career. She’d never once considered that she could ever be happy living in a small town again—especially this small town. After high school she’d wanted only one thing: to get as far away from home as possible.

She laughed softly. Now, less than a week from turning forty, she was back here, living in her childhood home.

Forty.

Something like defeat sagged her shoulders.

“Forty.” It sounded old. Not to mention she had spotted a gray hair this morning. Since she had blond hair, it was harder to see, but it was there. Despite the old saying that plucking out one would cause six more to show up for its funeral, she had ripped that sucker out with a vengeance. Although she loved dressing comfortably and forgoing all those old makeup routines, she was not ever going to be happy with gray hair.

Down deep, where she hid the things she didn’t want to look at, the idea of forty prompted some of those old feelings of failure and unfulfillment. But a quick reminder that she did not need anyone or anything else to be happy with herself usually did the trick.

As if to challenge her assertion, the image of Gray Benton flashed in her mind.

She rolled her eyes at the dirty trick her mind liked to play. Bent was the sheriff. Yet another of the unexpected discoveries when she came home seven months ago. Bent had been Vera’s first love and one more of the many reasons she had fled this place.

So much for not taking that walk down memory lane. Frustrated with herself, Vera stood and wandered to the back door, then stared out through the panes of glass that made up the top half. So weird to see snow at all, but especially this much. The backyard was white. The trees and shrubs ... her mother’s potting shed—they were all topped in a thick blanket of white.

Depressions or dips in that solid mass snagged her attention. She frowned and pressed closer to the glass to stare at the inconsistency. Tracks, she decided. Something or someone had walked through the snow. The tracks were too large to be from a deer or a dog. She grabbed her coat from the rack next to the door and stuffed her feet into her boots.

Outside, the wind was stronger than she’d expected. She grimaced and eased carefully down the steps in deference to the slippery conditions. The tracks in the snow were definitely human shoe prints. Big—probably male. They didn’t come up the steps to the back door. Instead, they went to the pair of side-by-side windows that looked into the kitchen. The trampled snow in the area suggested the trespasser had lingered at the windows for a bit.

What the hell now? She’d had way more than her share of snooping reporters and other lookie-loos over the past few months already. Enough was enough.

Irritation flaring, Vera stepped back inside and grabbed her father’s shotgun from behind the door. Then she followed the tracks. The cold seeped through her coat and into her bones far more quickly than she had expected as she trudged along. The temperature wasn’t as low as it could be, but the wind gave the cold a sharp bite.

The tracks passed the potting shed and well house without veering off and led straight toward the barn. She was out of breath by the time she opened the double doors of the big old structure. Though she had restarted her workouts a few months ago, trudging through the snow and cold was a little tougher than a typical run on the treadmill.

No tire tracks that she could see. Evidently, the trespasser had parked at the road and snaked his way through the woods and into the barn on foot, then walked to the house. Unless he had arrived before the snow, then waited. If that were the case, maybe the tracks were a message. She’d been sent a few since her return. You didn’t help bring down bad guys without making an enemy or two along the way.

Vera flipped the switch for the lights inside the barn. With the fixtures hung so close to the cavernous ceiling, the combined glow still left far too many shadows. Not to mention that the array of farm equipment and other junk provided way too many spots for hiding. She braced the butt of the shotgun against her shoulder, held the barrel at the ready, and performed a walk-through. She didn’t really expect whoever had been here to still be in the barn, but the question was, had he taken anything?

Or left something?

She would prefer the former to the latter. Better a thief than someone setting a trap.

She looked through each stall, the tack room, and the larger side of the space, which had once housed cows and horses but now served as storage. Her search revealed nothing out of place. She stared upward for a moment before walking to the ladder that ascended to the loft. She climbed it slowly, considering the shotgun she carried. Once her head was higher than the floor, she scanned the space. A few bales of old hay but nothing else.

She climbed down. Settled one foot back on the ground, then the other.

A crash made her jump around to face the front.

It took a moment for her heart to calm and her brain to assimilate the realization that the wind had blown hard enough to send one of the doors slamming shut.

Damn. “You need more coffee, Vee.”

She shut off the lights, closed the remaining door, and headed back to the house. She stalled long enough to take a few pics of the tracks with her cell phone, zooming in to get the tread imprints.

On the back steps, she stamped her feet to rid her boots of the excess snow, then went inside. She locked the door and set the shotgun aside. She’d just gotten her coat hung up when the doorbell rang. Given the hour—not quite seven in the morning—and the snow, she was surprised to have a visitor.

Taking her time, she made her way to the front of the house and peered out a window to see who was on her porch.

Bent.

The usual trickle of heat rushed through her. It annoyed her immensely that even after all these months, she hadn’t gotten past that initial reaction each time she encountered him. It wasn’t like he was naked, or all dressed up. For God’s sake, he wore jeans—always. This morning he’d added a denim jacket with a sherpa lining over his usual Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department shirt. But she knew, damn it. She knew it was the cowboy hat and those well-loved boots that gave him that little extra something . Something she refused to define.

Maybe if she wasn’t so deep in denial about her physical needs ...

“Stow it, Vee,” she grumbled as she unlocked the door. She plastered on a big smile and opened it. “Morning, Sheriff. You’re out early.”

A smile stretched across his lips—slow, easy, as if he had all day. He removed his hat, like the gentleman he was, and gave her a nod. “Morning to you, Vee. You mind if I come in?”

“Sure.” She backed up, opened the door wider. Once he was inside, she closed out the cold air. “You up for some coffee?”

“Actually”—he held his hat in his hand and pinned her with the blue eyes that had always made her weak—“I need your help.”

So this was work. Okay. Good. “Let me get my coat.”

On the way to the kitchen, she grabbed her cell phone, tucked it into her back pocket, then pulled on her less-than-sexy boots and retrieved her coat. Like the boots, the down-filled lightweight jacket was a purchase she’d made after moving here. Also like her boots, it was black. She might not be fashionable, but at least she matched.

“What happened?” she asked, pulling on her coat as she walked back toward Bent.

“You been keeping up with the Time Thief case?”

“I have. Sort of. We talked about it that once.” There had been three disappearances so far.

“We have another one.”

She frowned, reached for the buttons of her coat. “You’re not calling in help from TBI?” He’d mentioned something to that effect before.

He nodded. “I did, but as you know, it might be another day or two before they get here. Right now, we have nearly every deputy in the department, as well as borrowed personnel from Moore and Franklin counties—not to mention community volunteers—all working to find our latest victim.” He shrugged. “We’re doing all we can, but the victim’s mother asked me to see if you would get involved.”

Her recognition as a crime analyst—one who often consulted with local law enforcement—had heightened her profile around town. Not that her assistance had offset the other less-than-flattering stories about the notorious Boyett sisters. Some folks would never change their minds about the past. Didn’t matter really. When those same folks called on Vera for help, she simply reminded herself that even the most devout churchgoers would call on the devil himself if necessary when tragedy struck.

“Who’s the victim?”

“Nolan Baker.”

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. Baker was the local reporter who’d harassed her younger sister Luna to no end during the investigation into the cave remains. Vera knew him, all right. Knew his parents, too—in particular, his mother.

“His mother asked for me?” Considering that Elizabeth Baker—Bogus before she married—had made Vera’s life miserable back in high school, she couldn’t help feeling surprised.

“She did,” Bent confirmed. “She’s really worried, as you can imagine.”

Vera did another of those slow nods. “Anything different this time?”

If the perp followed his usual MO, Nolan was in no serious danger. But that could change in a heartbeat.

“Apparently, the perp or someone who knows the perp set up a meet this time. Claimed to have information for Nolan. There was a friend with Nolan—Joel Keeton. He was left unconscious at the scene. He has a concussion, but he’s fine otherwise. Unfortunately, it was dark, so he didn’t see anything.”

The information gave Vera pause. If the perp had changed his MO, there was a distinct possibility that he was escalating. Never a good thing.

“Take me to the scene. Then we’ll talk to the friend.”

If this Time Thief had decided to change his game, Nolan Baker might be in far more trouble than anyone realized.