Page 39 of Fatal Deception
Against her own instincts, she went ahead and flicked the lock. Her brain was scrambled. Everything was…too much. Everything was…
Burning. She blew out a breath. No. Just the shed. Unlikely to spread anywhere else. But it was a threat orsomething, soCopeland was right to tell her to get a gun. She limped out of the kitchen and over to the closet in the living room. She kept most of her competition rifles in the basement, but she kept a handgun on the main floor and one up in her bedroom. Both locked away in safes, and not loaded, but it always made her feel safer.
She shoved the tubs of winter hats and a few board games to the side of the top shelf of the closet, typed in the code for the safe, then drew the gun out. Cursing her painful ankle, she went back to the kitchen, opened the junk draw and pulled out the box of bullets shoved to the back. She loaded the gun and then just stood there, looking out the window at the flames.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to be another thing being donetoher. Why? Justwhy? These strange, dangerous but petty things. Escalating in frequency. In danger. Nothing overt. No evidence left behind. Just constant attacks on her.
No, not even her. The house, the truck, the shack.
It’s my place.
Her place. Her ranch, and…everything that had happened so far connected tothat, didn’t it? Not her, theranch.
The power going out, the windows and her truck being shot up, the shed on fire. These were attacks on the property—but not on anything that she needed to maintain the cattle. Not on her actual person. These were petty things, things meant to make her feel fear.
But they weren’t hurting theranch.
And if she wasn’t here. If she was dead like whoever it was had tried to make it look like with the cremains and the gravestone, the ranch wouldn’t be hers.
But still, no one had tried tokillher. She could not make sense of it, but it felt like some kind of revelation. Nother. The land.
Someone wanted her afraid? Maybe someone thought she’d run away? It didn’t fully make sense, but she thought there was the seed of something there.
The flames still shot up into the sky. If Copeland was anywhere around it, she couldn’t see him. She didn’t know if she should feel relief about that or fear. Could something have happened to him?
She swallowed down the fear. This was his job. He knew what he was doing. She had to trust that. Even as her heart hammered against her chest and she imagined about fifty million different terrible things befalling him out there in the dark.
But then she heard a siren in the distance, and eventually began to see flashing red lights, even though the fire truck hadn’t appeared yet. She limped her way through the house to the front, only to remember there were boards there instead of windows now.
After a moment, the door jiggled, the knob turned. Terror clawed up her throat, but she reminded herself she’d given Copeland akey. Bad guys didn’t havekeys.
Copeland stepped into the dim entryway bringing cold air and the smell of burning in with him.
“Fire truck is here. They’ll take care of it.” He locked the door behind him before moving over to her. She watched as his eyes went to the gun, just a quick flick of his gaze. She didn’t know what he thought of it, but there wassomethingthere in his expression she really couldn’t read.
Didn’t matter. What mattered was— “Copeland. I don’t think this is about me. Not really.”
“Hell, Audra.” He stalked toward the kitchen.
She followed, trying not to wince at the pain. “No, listen to me. It’s about the ranch. It’s about…getting me off the ranch. So that’s about me, I guess, but if someone wanted me dead, theycould have done it quicker and easier before all this. All these scare tactics that haven’t caused me any actual physical danger. They don’t wantme—dead or alive. They want the ranch. Orsomethingabout the ranch. If I’m dead, I don’t own it, but they’ve only tried to make it look like I’m dead.”
He didn’t brush her off this time, though she wasn’t sure he was actually listening to her either. He studied her, and there was no glimpse of the man who’d let her into the secrets of his painful past, no signs of the man who’d kissed her until her knees were jelly. This wasDetective Beckett, and she was just a victim with information he wasn’t sure he believed.
“Who would want your ranch?” he asked, in that same detached manner.
“I don’t know.” She really didn’t. She didn’t have the biggest or best spread. There was nothing particular or special about the Young Ranch. It was just an old family ranch like all the rest of them in Bent County.
But she knew she was on to something, because he didn’t say anything. Didn’t argue with her. He was considering, pulling at that thread. Or she thought he was.
Then he pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table and grabbed her arm. He nudged her into it, holding her weight so she didn’t have to put any on her injured side.
“Stay off that damn ankle,” he muttered. “And start thinking about who’d want to scare you off this place so they could have it for themselves.”
THE FIRE WAS OUT, the firefighters and police that came were mostly dispersed now, but there was still one fire truck and one vehicle parked in Audra’s front yard, and two men standing there talking too quietly for Copeland to hear from his place on the porch.
He was bundled up in his own coatandAudra’s dad’s coat because, hell, it was freezing out here. His only consolation was that he’d convinced Audra to stay inside. He’d suggested she make some coffee to offer, which wasn’t exactly keeping off her ankle, but it was better than her standing out here.
One of the men was a firefighter Copeland thought was named Kline, if he remembered right, and the other man was Hawk Steele. Hawk was the fire inspector for Bent County. Lucky for Audra, he didn’t live too far away. His place on the Hudson property with his wife and kids was just outside of Sunrise, so he’d appeared on the scene before the firefighters had gotten the blaze under control.