Page 4 of Deputies Under Fire (Renegade Canyon #2)

Two unsolved murders.

That was the thought going through Eden’s head as she dealt with the chaos of the morning. Unlike other kinds of chaos, though, most of this was thoroughly enjoyable.

Not the pressing worry about the murders, of course.

Not her continuing battle with the grief over losing Mellie, either.

But rather the hectic morning routine of being a mom to a nine-month-old baby.

A baby who could crawl lightning-fast, babble nonstop and make a thorough mess of the blueberry oatmeal he was having for breakfast. Eden was mopping up some of that oatmeal on Tyler’s face while he wiggled and tried to duck away from the washcloth.

She turned at the sound of the footsteps, already knowing who it was. Leslie and Rory. Eden had heard the nanny letting Rory inside, which meant he was right on time. He’d never missed an 8:00 a.m. visit since she and Tyler had moved back to Renegade Canyon.

“Dada Dada,” Tyler squealed. He clapped his hands, flinging the oatmeal far and wide. Leslie laughed and hurried to get another wet cloth to help with the cleanup.

“Did he get any breakfast in his mouth?” Rory asked, going to Tyler and giving him a kiss on the top of his head. Rory also ended up having to pick a fleck of oatmeal off his own lips.

“Not much,” Eden muttered, looking up at Rory.

Their gazes met, and she saw what his smile couldn’t hide. He hadn’t slept well. With reason. They had another murder on their hands, and their prime suspect was his father.

Ike wasn’t exactly cooperating, either. He’d given “no comment” to every question in their interview with him, and when his trio of lawyers had arrived, they’d insisted the interview be postponed until this morning.

They’d had another demand, too. That any future questioning not be done by his son and his son’s former partner.

Legally, it was a valid request since it was a conflict of interest, but that could be said of everyone in the entire police department.

Ike knew every single one of them, and he didn’t get along with any of them.

Still, Ike didn’t have a personal connection to Deputy Livvy Walsh, and since she was on the day shift, anyway, she would be the one to conduct the interview.

In the meantime, Ike hadn’t been locked up because there hadn’t been enough evidence to hold him.

It hadn’t been easy for Eden to watch him just walk out of the police station.

It’d felt as if once again, she was letting Mellie down.

But she’d had to remind herself that Ike might not have been Mellie’s killer, and he might not have murdered Brenda, either.

“You okay?” Rory asked her, and he continued to study her. He was no doubt seeing the fatigue from the restless night she’d had.

“I’m fine,” Eden said. “You?”

He nodded, and their gazes continued to hold. And there it was. Along with the concern was the heat that neither of them wanted.

Really?

Now?

As she usually did, Eden silently cursed it and tore her attention from him. Sometimes, just looking at Rory fueled the attraction. Sometimes, it came no matter what she did or didn’t do.

“I can take over if you two want to go ahead and leave,” Leslie offered.

Their leaving definitely wasn’t part of the morning routine.

Usually, they spent several hours with Tyler in his playroom, or if the weather was good, they took him to the pasture to see the horse that Rory had given Tyler.

But that routine would have to be broken today since they needed to make another trip to the crime scene.

The CSIs were already there, and with some luck, they might have some info for them.

Eden nodded, stood and kissed her son. “Mama and Dada will be back,” she said, purposely not adding a soon to that.

Because Eden had no idea how long the trip would take, and after that, she wanted to observe Ike’s interview. Rory would no doubt want to do the same thing.

Rory gave their son a kiss, too, causing Tyler to beam a smile at him.

That was usual as well. Tyler clearly loved his daddy, and while Eden couldn’t say it was exactly comfortable having Rory around and in such close contact, she knew they were doing what was best for their son.

They were putting aside their differences and co-parenting.

Coinvestigating, too.

Which meant that close contact with Rory would continue for a while.

That also meant dealing with the constant rounds of this attraction that just wouldn’t go away.

Still silently cursing herself, they left the house, heading for his cruiser, which he’d parked in her driveway.

“I talked to Dewey Galway on the drive to your place,” he said, referring to the medical examiner, and Eden heard the dread in his voice.

“He’s still doing the postmortem, but he was able to tell me that the cause of Brenda’s death was the blood loss from the stab wounds. There were six of them.”

“Six,” she muttered. “A lot.”

“Yeah. Not what the ME would call a frenzy, and in fact, he thought the killer might have been trying to avoid any major organs. For instance, there were no wounds near the heart.”

She gave that some thought as they stood outside the cruiser. “So the killer didn’t want her dead right away. He wanted her to suffer?”

Rory shrugged. “Or the killer didn’t know what he was doing.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why stab a woman six times and leave without making sure she’s dead?”

Yes, that was puzzling. Unless the killer did indeed believe she was dead.

Or perhaps he’d been interrupted and had had to flee.

Though Eden couldn’t imagine what kind of interruption would pull a murderer away from his prey when they were in such a remote location like the barn.

Still, it was possible the dog had startled him or had become aggressive, causing him to run.

“Brenda had also been drugged,” Rory went on. “She’d been roofied.”

Eden silently groaned. Rohypnol was a fairly easy drug to obtain, and it was even easier to slip into a drink. So did that mean Brenda had been in close contact with her killer, close enough for the killer to have spiked her drink?

She continued to mull over that scenario while she told Rory about a call she’d gotten earlier from the sheriff. “Grace is champing at the bit to come back to work,” she told him. “But thankfully, Dutton convinced her to stay put.”

“Yeah, I talked to Dutton on the way over. The doctor won’t clear Grace for duty yet.”

Not a surprise, since she’d needed a C-section to deliver her son, Nash, only three weeks ago. Grace needed to recover and spend time with her newborn.

“I also got a call from SAPD this morning,” Rory went on as they got in the cruiser and started the drive to the barn. “Brenda had a stalker. A guy named Carter Rooney. She had a restraining order against him.”

That got Eden’s attention. “An ex-boyfriend? And was there violence involved?”

“Not a boyfriend and no record of actual violence. Carter claims Brenda ruined him financially.” Rory paused. “However, he has left threatening voice mails and texts for Brenda, and he doesn’t have an alibi for last night. SAPD will be questioning him.”

“Good.” And since Eden still had plenty of contacts at SAPD, she shouldn’t have any problem getting a recording and summary report of that interview. “We’ll need to talk to Carter as well,” she added.

“Yes. I’ll set that up for later today. Depending on what comes out of his interview with SAPD, we might have to go to him.”

She made a sound of agreement. There might not be enough compelling evidence to force Carter to come to Renegade Canyon. Still, it would be worth the drive to talk to him in person.

Rory took the turn off the main road and onto the ranch trail.

Where they immediately hit a huge pothole.

The surface of the trail had gotten worse since their trip here the night before, no doubt from the influx of traffic.

First the killer, then Rory and her, followed by the ambulance and now the CSIs.

They were still a good quarter of a mile from the barn when Rory’s phone rang and Dispatch popped up on the dash screen. Rory answered it right away on speaker.

“Deputy McClennan, you have a call from a Diedre Bennington,” the dispatcher said. “She wants to talk to you.”

The name was vaguely familiar to Eden, but she couldn’t quite recall who the woman was. Rory didn’t seem to have that problem because he muttered some profanity under his breath.

“Put the call through,” he instructed and glanced at her. “Diedre is another of my dad’s ex-girlfriends. In fact, he was having an affair with her at the time my mother died.”

Sweet heaven. Eden groaned. She had always known Ike was a jerk, but she hadn’t known that he’d cheated on his dying wife.

“There’s bad blood between Ike and Diedre?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Rory confirmed just as the woman’s voice began to pour through the speakers.

“Rory,” she said with a whole lot of rushed breath in just that simple greeting. “I heard about the dead woman. The second one. Both enemies of your father. Am I next?” Diedre blurted. “Is Ike coming after me?”

“There’s no indication of that, Diedre,” Rory commented, but there wasn’t much assurance in his voice. With good reason. Ike might be doing just that. Eliminating some old grudges.

Including the one he’d had with Mellie.

But as a cop, Eden had to look at the whole picture here. And set aside her personal hatred for Ike. A person didn’t just start a killing spree unless there was some kind of trigger. She just wasn’t seeing that.

Not yet, anyway.

But she made a mental note to look into Ike’s finances and health. Getting bad news about those things could sometimes send a person over the edge. Also, with his seventieth birthday coming up, Ike could feel he was running out of time to settle some old scores.

“Have you arrested Ike?” Diedre asked.