Page 13 of Fatal Deception

Finally in bed, she snuggled in and instantly fell asleep. So instantly, she had no idea how long she’d been asleep when she woke with a start in the pitch-black. Her heart was racing. Had it been a dream or—

Something crashed, in the distance but not distant enough.

Glass breaking, and she was too familiar with guns not to know that was the exact sound that had woken her up.

Gunshots.

And then the glass crashing wasn’t sodistant.It was somewhere in the house.

COPELAND WASN’T THRILLEDby how little progress he’d made on Audra’s case, but a burglary had come up and Laurel had been in court, so he and Hart had jumped on it. Because Copeland could hardly tell Hart he was busy with another case when he couldn’t tell him what that case was.

Of course, technically, he could. He could rat out Audra to her extended family. It was no skin off his nose.

But he didn’t.

After they’d taken care of the burglary and Copeland was back in their office, he scowled. There were no returned phone calls from the cemetery or the crematorium. No new leads to follow, and that ticked him off.

He grumbled out his goodbyes, went home to his apartment in what citizens of Bent County considered the bustling metropolis of Fairmont. Hilarious.

He heated up the frozen meal, thinking about Audra and her homemade bread. When did she have the time? He didn’t know jack about making bread from scratch, but didn’t it take longer than running to the grocery store?

Well, maybe not if you lived out in the middle of nowhere, he supposed.

He settled himself on the couch, turned on a random sporting event and paid absolutely no attention to it, because his mind was occupied with Audra’s case. NotAudraherself. He had to understand the woman to understand who might want to hurt her, that was all.

He didn’t taste his dinner—there wasn’t much to taste anyway. He got out his laptop and did some more research into crematoriums, the systems in place to get someone declared dead, and made a mental note to call the vital-statistics department tomorrow.

It was late when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and wasn’t sure what to think of the unknown number, well past midnight, but it was the local area code. Too used to late-night calls for work, he answered.

“Beckett.”

“Copeland. Hi.”

He didn’t want to think about how easily and quickly he recognized her voice. “Audra. What’s—”

Before he could even finish, he heard a faintpop, followed by…crashing.

He jumped to his feet. “Was that a gunshot?”

“I… It appears someone’s shooting out my windows.”

“Did you call nine-one-one?” He was already strapping his own gun on and shoving his feet into his shoes on his way out the door.

She sighed heavily, and he was about to swear at her, but at least her answer was reasonable.

“Unfortunately, yes. They’re on their way, but I need you to keep Thomas out of it, okay? I don’t know how the police stuff works. When they call in detectives, and who or how, but—” Anotherpop. Anothercrash.

He was already in his car. “I’m on my way. Where are you?”

“Huddled in the bathroom upstairs. No windows. Lock on the door. I’ve got a gun. I could—”

“You’ll stay right where you are, you hear me?”

She sighed again. “Yes, that’s what the nine-one-one operator told me as well. Only she was nicer about it,” Audra muttered.

She sounded okay. Not hurt, not terrified. And still he flipped on his lights and ran code. Someone wasshootingat her house.

Played that one right, leaving her out there all alone, didn’t you?