Page 2 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed (Hard Justice: Outlaw Ridge #6)

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Welcome back to hell, Hallie .

Reed was certain those words slammed into Hallie. They were sure as hell slamming into him.

And what did they mean?

Why had that note been left at a double murder scene? Reed didn’t know, but he figured they were about to find out when Hallie immediately turned toward the door.

“Where’s Walt Garner’s place?” she asked. There was a slight tremble in her voice that he was betting she wished wasn’t there. Yeah, this had shaken her all right.

“I’ll take you,” Reed insisted.

He was up on the duty roster for the next callout, and he needed to know what was going on. Added to that, he didn’t want Hallie to have to make this trip solo.

“Aaron and the new deputy, Marcie Gomez, discovered two bodies,” Reed told his fellow deputies as he grabbed cruiser keys from his desk. “Sheriff McQueen and I are heading there now.”

Shaw and Declan exchanged glances. “We’ll be right behind you,” Declan insisted.

Hallie didn’t refuse their help and neither did Reed. Since they didn’t know what they were dealing with, they might need all the help they could get. Aaron and Marcie had stellar credentials, but they were basically rookies at Outlaw Ridge PD. Reed didn’t want them to have to handle this solo.

Especially considering that note.

It felt like a sick taunt. Maybe even a threat. And it twisted at him to think there were people who might do this because of her parents. Except it might not even be that. It could be something else so that’s why Reed tried to shove aside any theories until he saw the scene for himself.

“What do you know about Walt Garner?” Hallie asked as they made their way outside to the cruiser.

“Not much, but that’ll change. Sentry,” he said, giving the command to his database app. “Background summary of Walt Garner, local resident.”

While the app did its thing, Reed filled her in on what he did know. “Walt is a retired CPA who moved to Outlaw Ridge last year. He had a house built on Carmichael Road.”

No need to explain what that was. It was very near where Hallie had been raised. In fact, the Garner house was less than a quarter of a mile from where she’d lived. That was yet another reason Reed had wanted to make this trip with her. A lot of bad memories could be triggered with this callout.

Reed drove out of town, heading toward an area where there were no subdivisions. Houses here tended to be on multiple acre lots, and some, like the Garner place, were tucked away behind the thick trees that dotted the area.

“Walt Francis Garner, born in Houston,” Sentry, the app, started.

“Age sixty-three. Son of Adele and Ben Garner, both deceased. Current address is 167 Carmichael Road, Outlaw Ridge, Texas. Never married. No known children. Owner of Garner Accounting Group for 34 years before he sold the company 13 months ago. Do you want other employment or college information?” the app asked.

“Not now,” Reed replied. “But do a thorough background on Walt Garner and send it to me.”

He closed the app and kept driving. It took him less than five minutes to reach the turn onto the narrow private road that led to the house, and it was only a handful of seconds before the cruiser and the two-story house came into view.

Not a mansion exactly, but it was one of the more expensive homes around here.

Reed came to a stop behind the other cruiser with Declan and Shaw doing the same behind him. Marcie was on the porch, and even though she was no doubt trying hard to cover it up, Reed saw the nerves. Her hands seemed unsteady as she stretched the crime scene tape on the porch railings.

Reed stepped out of the cruiser, the October breeze taking a swipe at him. It wasn’t cold but definitely not the scorching temps they’d been having.

“Reed, Sheriff McQueen,” Marcie greeted when they got closer.

She obviously recognized Hallie from either photos or she’d seen her when Hallie had come in for an interview. Marcie handed them each a bag containing sealed protective footwear that they both opened and slipped them on over their shoes.

Marcie tipped her head toward the interior of the house. “They’re in the kitchen.”

“Who called in the domestic disturbance?” Hallie asked, taking the question right out of Reed’s mouth.

“Anonymous call,” Marcie replied, stopping the tape arrangement to log them in on her tablet. That was a new procedure Owen had put into place. No more paper sign-in sheets to indicate who was entering and leaving a crime scene.

“We figured it was a hoax since there have never been any incidences recorded here,” Marcie added. “Also, because the owner lives alone.”

Yeah, Reed would have thought the same, but obviously there’d been some kind of disturbance if two people were dead.

With Hallie right by his side, they made their way through the foyer and into an open floor plan where the kitchen was immediately visible. Reed spotted Aaron, who was on the phone, but it took him a few more steps before he caught sight of the bodies.

Hell.

A man and a woman were in the breakfast nook.

Blood spatter was on the walls, the table.

Even the ceiling. The man had been shot in the head and was on the floor.

The woman was slumped onto the table, her hand clutching a Glock, and the angle of the barrel would suggest, she had died from a self-inflicted wound.

Reed’s memories suggested otherwise.

So did Hallie’s because he heard the sharp gasp she made. And he knew why.

This scene in front of them, this nightmare, was nearly identical to the one they’d both seen a little over ten years ago.

Back then, Reed had come across it when he’d tracked down a woman who’d gone missing and found her and her former boss dead.

Even though the cops had thought it was a murder-suicide, Reed had kept digging, and it’d eventually led him to Hallie’s parents.

And that in turn had led him to the string of murders they’d committed.

“Someone staged this,” Hallie muttered.

“Yeah,” Reed agreed.

It was all here. The nice breakfast nook. The godawful amount of blood spatter. The Glock and the male and female dead. This woman was even close to the age of the original victim.

But who was she?

It was hard to tell because of the damage that had been done from the gunshot wound.

He didn’t want to go closer for fear of destroying potential evidence, but Reed leaned in and took a look at the note.

It had indeed been taped to the back of the woman’s head.

So, clearly the killer wanted them to know this was a reenactment of two of the McQueens’ murders.

He hadn’t needed the note though to tell him that.

“There’s no blood spatter on the paper or tape,” Hallie pointed out. “And her finger isn’t on the trigger like the original victim.”

True, and there would have been blood if the note had been in place when the woman had been shot. And besides, why put a note on the back of her head if she was just going to shoot herself? That didn’t make sense. If the gun had slipped even an inch, the note could have been blasted apart as well.

“The CSIs and medical examiner are on the way,” Aaron let them know once he’d finished his call. “I haven’t touched the bodies so I don’t know if either of them have wallets with IDs on them.”

“We’ll leave that to the CSIs,” Hallie murmured, glancing around.

Reed was doing some glancing around, too, making a visual of the place, but he didn’t see anything to indicate a struggle. Of course, that would be checked, too, but he wasn’t expecting that to be the case. Not if the killer had wanted to stick to that particular detail of the original crime.

“This is like the murder you two worked on a long time ago,” Aaron said, his voice tentative. “It was a case study in one of my criminal justice classes at college,” he added when Hallie’s gaze snapped to him. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” she said quickly. “You’re right—this is eerily similar to the scene. My parents, Kip and Tami McQueen, were the ones who committed those two murders.”

Aaron seemed to release the breath that had been jammed in his lungs. “If I remember correctly, Tami and Kip had befriended the man, gained his trust and slowly robbed him of nearly everything in his accounts.”

Hallie nodded. “That was their MO. One of them would use their looks and charm to lure in a victim of the opposite sex, and once they had the money, then they killed the person and set it up as a suicide.”

Reed wasn’t sure how she managed to get all of that out without her voice wavering, but she did it.

“From what we know,” Hallie went on, “they murdered only one person at a time. But for their last one, the victim’s niece—who was a missing person at the time—had unexpectedly shown up so she was killed, too, and my parents tried to stage it as a murder-suicide. Like this,” she added in a mutter.

“You think the female victim here is related to Walt?” Aaron asked.

“Maybe, but not necessarily,” Hallie said, and she stopped and groaned before she turned to Reed. “Can Sentry give us info on Mr. Garner’s business and personal dealings? Anything that might have made him a target?”

“Of course,” Reed replied, taking out his phone to add that to the search perimeters of the background check. “Any idea why this would be happening now?” Reed had to ask her.

He had plenty of questions, but he started with that one. Because this scene had no doubt been specifically designed for her. Maybe to rattle her. To send her running. But that seemed extreme, so he went back to the possibility of this being some kind of threat to her life.

She shook her head. “Too many possibilities. This could coincide with the anniversary of the murder of one of my parents’ victims. Could be a copycat triggered because I’m back here in Outlaw Ridge.” Another pause. “Or it could be linked to my mother.”

Reed hadn’t expected her to add that last part. “How so?”

She gathered her breath. “Last month, Tami did an interview with an investigative journalist, and she’s claiming she was a battered spouse and didn’t willingly participate in the murders. She’s getting the attention of several groups who provide legal help to abuse victims.”

Shit. Reed had gone over every detail of the murders that Kip and Tami committed, and not once had this come up. Tami hadn’t mentioned it during the lengthy trials either.

“Eleven years,” Hallie added a moment later. “That’s how long the average Texas inmate stays on death row before exhausting all appeals. Judging from the legal hurdles left for her in the appeals process, my mother is about a year away from a lethal injection. I’d imagine she’s getting desperate.”

Reed was about to agree, but the sound stopped him. There was a slight click, followed by something much louder.

A thundering blast ripped through the house.

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