Watch Me (Last Stand #3)(41)
Author: Brenda Novak

That didn’t bring her the relief he’d hoped. “But I was afraid…I thought you were dead, too.” She gulped for breath. “Or that you were lying on the ground somewhere, b-bleeding, and I w-wouldn’t f-find you in time.”

She’d heard the gunshot and, when he didn’t return, assumed he’d been shot. That was why she’d come after him, dragging a gun she wasn’t strong or healthy enough to lift.

“I’m safe. I’m here.” Gathering her to him, he held her tightly, telling her not to worry, that everything would be all right.

She started to calm down, but he didn’t let go. He needed her for comfort as much as she needed him. No matter what he did, he couldn’t block out the image of Amy’s lifeless body dumped near his neighbor’s long, winding drive, bathed in her own blood.

Cain had realized Ned wouldn’t take the news well. But he hadn’t expected the police chief to break down in tears. Because he and Ned had never liked each other, Cain didn’t know what to say—what to do—when the other man’s shoulders began to shake and he buried his face in his hands. Standing to one side, he waited for Ned to come to grips with his grief.

It was Sheridan who stepped forward to offer him solace. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured over and over, rubbing his back. But when Ned looked up, he didn’t acknowledge her.

“Why was Amy here?” he demanded, wiping his eyes.

“She said she was making sure whoever attacked Sheridan wasn’t coming back,” Cain told him, “but I don’t know why she chose tonight. Maybe she’s been patrolling regularly. Or maybe someone called her.” He shrugged. “We didn’t have the chance to say much. I went to see why everything was so quiet, found the dogs out cold and bumped into her while I was trying to figure out what was going on.”

“You didn’t ask her to come here?”

Cain chafed beneath such visible signs of Ned’s grief. He hated tears, even from a woman. They made him feel so helpless. “No. As soon as I realized she wasn’t the one who drugged my hounds, I knew someone else must be around. Then there was a shot and a bullet whizzed past my ear.”

“So you sent Amy back to her car? That doesn’t make sense.”

She was a cop, she had a gun—and he’d been concerned about leaving Sheridan unprotected. “No. I didn’t even know where she’d left it. I told her to go into the house and stay with Sheridan. I have no idea why she didn’t.”

“She never came to the door,” Sheridan said, sounding as mystified as Cain felt. “I heard two gunshots, several minutes apart. That was it. No one knocked or called out.”

When Ned didn’t speak, Cain reluctantly met his red, swollen eyes. “What?”

“You never saw anyone else out there? Never spotted a vehicle?”

“Only Amy’s cruiser. It’s parked thirty yards or so from the turnoff to Levi Matherley’s place, right by…right where it happened.” His voice softened. Ned’s job required him to go to the crime scene, where he’d meet the coroner and begin gathering evidence. He’d have to see his dead twin’s body, document the scene with photographs, write notes about it….

“That’s awful convenient, don’t you think?” Ned’s gaze lowered to Cain’s shirt. Until that moment, Cain hadn’t noticed that he had Amy’s blood smeared across his chest. He’d rolled her over and pulled her into his arms to see if there was any hope. And then all hope had disappeared.

“What’s convenient?” Cain heard the suspicion in Ned’s voice but managed to hang on to his temper by telling himself that Ned wasn’t thinking clearly. He was reacting to the pain and grief.

“People keep getting hurt up here. But you never see a damn thing.”

“I live on 200,000 acres of forestland. How am I supposed to see everything?”

“It all happens within a mile of your house.”

“That’s not fair,” Sheridan said. She tried to hold Cain back, but he stepped close to Ned, anyway.

“What’re you saying?”

Fresh tears filled Ned’s eyes but his voice remained truculent. “I think it’s strange, that’s all. That Amy was killed here, of all places. That there were no witnesses again. And that whoever did this had no compunction about killing a human being, yet merely tranquilized your precious dogs.”

Cain clamped his jaw shut so he wouldn’t say anything that could make the situation worse.

“What, no excuses?” Ned taunted.

With a sigh, he stepped back. “It wasn’t necessary for him to kill the dogs. He rendered them useless a far easier way.”

“It would’ve been just as easy to shoot them.” His eyes narrowed. “Unless whoever did this loved them too much.”

“What if he was trying to set me up? Then he’d know better than to kill my dogs,” Cain said. “Listen, you’ve blamed me for every bad day Amy’s ever had, and I’ve let you do it. I wasn’t a good husband, didn’t love her the way she wanted me to, wasn’t interested in trying to patch things up. I take responsibility for all of that. But I didn’t kill her, Ned. If you continue to plow through this investigation with blinders on, you’re going to miss something important. And none of us can afford that.”

“Cain’s right,” Sheridan said. “You have to forget about holding a grudge. Try to be more objective.”

“Just stay the hell out of my way,” Ned snapped at them. “Whoever did this is going down, even if I have to kill him myself.”

The slamming of the door echoed in the ensuing silence.

“It’s not every day you hear a police chief threaten murder,” Sheridan said as Ned’s engine roared to life.

Cain couldn’t conjure up a smile at her sarcasm, so he shook his head. “Poor dumb bastard. He’s so busy trying to punish me he could be brushing elbows with his sister’s killer and never know it.”

Cain had often wished he’d never have to see Amy again, but he hadn’t wanted anything like this. Her death was so sudden, so senseless, so…unbelievable. It was disgusting, too. He already knew he’d never forget the sight of her, missing one eye and half her head.

After checking his dogs for the fifth time to make sure they were all breathing and beginning to revive, he drifted around the house, searching for something to occupy his mind—the newspaper, paying bills, generating invoices for his sideline veterinary business. He couldn’t focus long enough to finish a single task, however. He heard the police outside, digging that bullet out of the siding on his house, and wondered what was happening at the murder scene. And his thoughts kept returning to Sheridan. She’d gone to bed shortly after Ned’s departure, but she wasn’t asleep. Cain could hear her tossing and turning, knew she was as unsettled as he was. She’d left her door open as if she didn’t want to be alone, and he felt the same way.