Page 23 of In Cold Blood (High Peaks Murder, Mystery and Crime Thrillers #1)

Inside it was a functional space with a utilitarian design.

It was divided into a reception area, a waiting room for visitors, and a work area for officers.

On one wall was a whiteboard with a bulletin board for important announcements and notices.

It was designed to be practical and efficient, but not overly comfortable or inviting.

Callie squinted at the fluorescent lighting that was making her head throb.

She reached for a bottle of Tylenol, unscrewed the top, and tossed two back before swallowing down a mouthful of water and adjusting her glasses.

“Another headache?” Deputy Hendrix asked, passing her desk and slumping down behind his own.

Distracted by what she was reading, she muttered, “It’s this new detox I’m on. ”

“I didn’t think you were one for all that hippie nonsense,” he said, munching loudly on an apple.

She swiveled in her chair. “When you’re breaking out in hives, you try anything.”

“That’s stress.” He tossed the half-eaten apple into a bin like he was part of the NBA. It landed with a hard thud and he raised both arms in victory. “And the crowd goes wild.”

“Did you read that article Lena Grayson wrote?” she asked.

He laughed. “Which one?”

Noah’s ex had made a name for herself in the county as a muckraker or as she liked to say, a truth-teller.

Like any good reporter, she’d become accustomed to writing pieces that either pointed fingers or uncovered problems. If there was dirt to be found, she’d find it.

To be fair, she was good at her job, maybe a little too good, but she wasn’t always right and this was one of those times.

Callie tapped the tip of her pen against the desk. “You remember that double homicide over at that new condo?”

“Yeah, the sheriff pulled me out of bed for that one. I still haven’t caught up on my sleep.” He yawned and fished into a drawer for some gum.

“Well, you’re going to love this,” she said, rolling her chair across the office and handing him a printout.

Hendrix sniffed hard and scanned it before laughing hard.

“What the hell? Accusing us of covering up crime at ‘ghost hotels.’ Whatever’s next?

” He handed back the article. “And to think her brother-in-law used to work here and her father is a lawyer. Puts the family to shame. Besides, isn’t there an unwritten rule about not slinging mud in your own home?

Now I understand why Noah’s marriage fell apart.

She was probably plying him for information. ”

Ghost hotels was a term that was associated with short-term vacation rentals.

The name came from the absence of management or anyone around to control guests.

It was a shady practice that had risen with the popularity of Airbnb.

Those with more money than sense would scoop up a unit in a condo or a suburban house in a quiet neighborhood and then rent it out short term for a weekend, or every day for a week.

Strangers would come and go, and more often than not they weren’t the quiet types.

Dwellings in quiet neighborhoods would be turned into party city and then if neighbors tried to intervene and ask for the music to be turned down, fights would break out.

Essentially the host would create rules and then expect the municipality to enforce them.

Domestic assaults, people running up and down the road, loud music, car tires spinning out, college drunks leaping off roofs, it had become an almost full-time job chasing them up.

While renting out a cottage was accepted, this wasn’t anything like that.

Units in condos and homes were being rented out per night without any oversight.

“She thinks that because we didn’t provide any incident reports regarding calls to any of these vacation rentals that they must have been buried so that we don’t steer people away from our… good community.”

He shook his head, chuckling. “Yeah, we don’t want the public to know and so they’ve instructed us to not write up these calls.

Like we haven’t got better things to do with our time.

Geesh. I must say she is a pushy one, isn’t she?

I always thought the Graysons were level-headed, now I have to wonder. ”

Across the room, the door to Sheriff Daniel Roberts’ office opened.

He came out chuckling with that spindly-looking fella from State in his shadow.

The stranger reminded Callie of a door-to-door salesman trying too hard.

He wore a black suit that was slightly too big and he looked like bones with a layer of thin skin.

Something wasn’t right with his diet, that was for sure.

Then again, hers wasn’t much better. Frequent stomach trouble and her eyesight had been plaguing her for years.

The doctor said it was the stress of the job.

At thirty-eight, with all the aches she was having, she didn’t even want to imagine what her retirement years would be like.

She tried to look busy as Roberts made a beeline for her.

“Thorne.” He made a gesture with a wave of the hand. “This is Owen Parish from State Police. You’re being assigned to assist him with Luke’s case. Show him around. Give him whatever he needs. Well, you know the drill.”

Oh, they knew the drill, well enough. Hendrix had told her what it was like.

State would blow in and out of the office like tumbleweeds and act like they ran the joint.

Okay, maybe not all of them but he’d encountered his fair share of ego-driven jerks with a chip on their shoulder.

The Sheriff’s Office worked with multiple departments as and when needed, though the degree of involvement and cooperation varied based on the incident.

Sometimes State worked side by side with them, other times they assumed sole control of an investigation if it was a police-involved shooting or an in-custody death.

She feigned a smile and gave a nod.

Callie stood up and shook his hand. The shake was sweaty and weak, and he didn’t look her in the eye. Never a good thing. It certainly was different compared to her run-in with Luke’s brother. She’d seen confidence in him.

“Happy to help.”

Roberts waved Parish back into his office and just like that introductions were over.

Behind her, Hendrix chuckled. “Give him whatever he needs.”

“Oh, shut up,” Callie said with a grin as she retook her seat.

“I can see you two warming up to each other this evening. Perhaps over a bottle of Chardonnay?”

“And hell will freeze over. ”

Ten minutes later, she had her face buried in work when Hendrix piped up again.

He tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey. Heads up,” he said in a quiet voice.

Callie turned to see Noah Sutherland enter the lobby.

He approached the main counter and spoke with Maisie Callaway, the receptionist and mother figure to most of them in the office.

Callie caught his eye. She shuffled paperwork and then shifted it below a mound of folders she had to get through that day.

She lifted her eyes every few seconds and strained to hear what he was saying.

He was a fine-looking man, much like Luke.

Six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a strong, chiseled jawline.

He had wavy dark hair and piercing green eyes.

He carried himself with confidence and authority that commanded respect.

Still, there was a hint of vulnerability in his expression that made him approachable.

That day he was wearing a tailored suit that hugged his body.

It was strange to see someone who was the spitting image of Luke.

She and Luke had been close. Nothing that would have put his marriage in danger but there had been some flirting.

But she’d always been the one to put the brakes on and remind him that he had two kids at home and a good wife who loved him.

Boredom. That’s what it was. Nothing more.

Hours of spending time with each other at work, more than at home, it was to be expected that office relationships would happen.

But unless a deputy was single, they usually ended the same way — in divorce and misery. She couldn’t keep track of those who had divorced their partners in the time she’d been a deputy.

Relationships in the Sheriff’s Office were a revolving door.

Maisie put down the phone and hit the buzzer to let Noah in. As he walked through the office, he glanced her way, smiled, and gave a short nod. Hendrix gave him a casual salute. They watched him like two hawks as he approached the sheriff’s door and knocked.

A moment later Noah closed the door behind him.

“Oh, what I would give to be a fly on the wall in there,” Hendrix said, rolling across to where she was. The two of them stared for a moment.

Their sergeant, Anita Emerson, sidled up behind them with an armful of folders in hand. “Don’t you two have duties to get done?”

Hendrix cleared his throat and grabbed his hat off the desk. “Yeah, was just on my way out.”

Callie returned to thumbing her way through papers, one eye watching the window that gave her a clear shot of the three of them in the office. Roberts noticed and got up and shut the blinds.

Noah didn’t expect to see Parish inside Sheriff Roberts’ office but there he was with a smug grin on his face. If it wasn’t for his respect for Roberts, he might not have shown restraint.

“Noah, great to see you. We were just talking about you,” Roberts said.

“Good things I hope,” he replied, cutting Parish a sideways glance.

“Please, take a seat.” Roberts gestured to the empty chair beside Parish.

The room was as he remembered from his youth when his father held office.

Except now the wall was adorned with framed photos, awards, and new floating shelving full of law books and folders.

It looked more welcoming than his father’s.

Noah gave the chair a gentle tug, pulling back a few inches. It scraped against the floor and Parish shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

He gave a nod. “Parish.”