Page 6 of Fatal Deception
The current year they were in.
Mistake? Maybe. But he was starting to think thismistakewas something bigger. Something more sinister. It certainly felt a lot more threatening with those dates written out.
Even if he couldn’t imagine quiet and soft Audra somehow wrapped up in anything sinister. But didn’t he know looks could be deceiving?
He could leave his entire life behind, but he couldn’t leave human nature behind.
He looked around the cemetery again. Eerily quiet. Frigidly cold.
He needed to fill out the paperwork to have that grave dug up. To have whatever was buried there looked into.
And he needed to go have another chat with Audra Young.
Chapter Three
Audra worked herself to the bone again. After talking with Norman that morning and having to practically threaten him to give her the truth, he explained the damages he’d found. He’d even taken a picture of it and assured her that sometimes when the wire got a little lax, and the posts got a little old, a cow could do that kind of damage.
Audra smiled and agreed with him.
Even though she’d felt terrified. Because the picture was blurry, sure, but the way the post was out of the ground didn’t seem like acowdoing damage. Certainly not something she’d seen before in almost thirty years of being alive on this ranch.
It seemed like something ahumanwould do. And she thought Norman would have agreed with her if she shared any of the things she’d been dealing with lately, but she didn’t share. She kept it to herself.
She wanted to believe in coincidences, but they were adding up too quickly to manage. And she didn’t havetimeto do anything but let that worry and stress settle in the back of her mind as she went through her day. She skipped lunch again, but she’d eaten a big breakfast so she told herself it was okay.
When she trudged back to the house, frozen through and so far past hungry she felt a little nauseous, she noted there was a car in her drive.
This time, the visitor wasn’t Natalie—so no food, more’s the pity. Though she did still have some of what she’d brought over last night that she could warm up for dinner. Plus, she’d pulledone of her homemade loaves of bread out of the freezer this morning, so it should be thawed enough to make sandwiches. And there was some cookie dough in the freezer she could bake.
Once she was close enough to make out the fact it was a Bent County Sheriff’s Department cruiser with a man standing in front of it, she slowed to a stop.
Not just any man. Copeland stood there, leaning against his police car, the wind whipping through his jet-black hair. His gaze was on the mountains in the distance, where the setting sun made them look like golden sentries. The side of his face that she could see was hidden in shadow, but there was no denying the profile was impressive. Handsome. All sharp edges and strong lines.
He looked like a movie star. Playing an honorable but gruff police officer in the shadows of a beautiful landscape. If Franny had been here, she’d build a whole story about him. Tragic backstory for the gruffness. A shield to protect a hurting heart.
For a moment, just a fraction of a moment, really, she wondered if that was true. If all Copeland’s sharp, abrasive edges were simply hiding a hurting heart. If that was why he’d left Denver and plopped himself down in the middle of nowhere, where he hadn’t known a soul.
Ridiculous, of course, but the idea of thestoryof it, theromanceof it, cheered her up some anyway, so she started walking again.
“I’ve been waiting,” Copeland called out once he noticed her.
And right there, any romantic inklings were deflated in an instant.Thank you, Copeland, for your terrible attitude, clearly shielding nothing but typicalmalebaloney.
“You could have called me,” she replied once she got close enough not to have to shout. “I left my cell number.”
He shrugged. “I was already out and about.” He turned, regarding her with those dark, direct eyes. “Figured you’d be done mucking out stalls or whatever you do by dark.”
Out and about. Was he going to tell her she was worrying over nothing? Had he figured it all out so quickly that she would now feel like a total idiot? She braced herself for any and all conclusions, except…
“I’m still having trouble getting in contact with anyone at the cemetery. Through the number you gave me or anything online. But I did come across a reason they might have been trying to contact you.”
He held out his phone. She had to scoot closer to him and lean forward to see the screen. Her heart did an uncomfortable jerk in her chest. There on a gravestone was her name. And…
“That’s my birthday,” she managed to say, though she knew her voice sounded affected. Because shewasaffected. Especially by having a death year, like some kind of threat.
“I figured,” he said. He slid the phone back into his pocket, surveyed her again, but they were closer now. She could smell the faint hint of leather from his coat. “Older than you look.”
She fixed him with a glare. She supposed it was a compliment, but somehow his delivery made it seem anything but. “I guess I look pretty good for a corpse too.”