Roxanne Rustand - Deadly Competition

It offered a perfect setup for his construction business—affordable and pleasant, with plenty of room to grow.

His thoughts were interrupted when a St. Tammany Parish patrol car pulled in, and he felt his heart tumble as both hope and dread settled into the pit of his stomach. He swallowed hard. “News?”

“Just checking in.” Sheriff Bradford Reed, never known to be a man who got excited about much except lunch, lumbered out of his cruiser with the deliberation of a man a hundred pounds too heavy and years past retirement.

A familiar wave of frustration took hold, and Clint had to bite back the words that would only antagonize Reed. “Nothing? No leads yet?”

Reed studied the storage buildings, garage and old hip-roofed barn, as if expecting Leah to appear. “Shelby still says she caught a glimpse of your sister, but I think that’s hogwash. If she could come back, she would’ve by now—if only for that little scamp of hers.”

Clint took a steadying breath. “Not if she heard that she was a suspect in multiple murders. Would you?”

“To clear my name if I knew I was innocent? Faster’n a gator on fresh meat, I would.” Reed’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the buildings a second time, then pinned his gaze on the second floor of the house. “Has she called you? Come by, maybe, needing a place to hole up for a while? She oughta know she’d be treated fair.”

The wheedling note in Reed’s voice set Clint’s teeth on edge. Fair was certainly the operative word. Reed didn’t expend much energy on his job because he was planning to retire soon. If he ever got a suspect in hand, Clint wondered if the man would even bother to look into any other possibilities.

“I haven’t heard from her, sheriff. Not even once.”

Reed’s gaze angled over to search Clint’s face. “You’d surely know ’bout the risk of being an accessory to murder and all…and hidin’ a criminal would compound it. Not that any man in his right mind would want to risk Louisiana hard time. Right?”

Clint clenched his jaw to hold back a sharp retort.

In January, the mayor had called in the FBI, since the kidnapping attempt and multiple Loomis murders could possibly fall under their jurisdiction as murder-for-hire. The team of special agents assigned to the case had been sent back to New Orleans after the leads faded away.

The trail was growing colder and might never be solved, now that it was back in Reed’s hands. He’d been barking up every wrong tree in the county all spring.

Last month, he’d even focused on sweet Shelby Mason, Leah’s best friend, and that had been beyond belief. The pretty little librarian wouldn’t swat a gnat, much less pull a trigger.

“Sooner or later, the killer will turn up,” Clint bit out. “But it won’t be my sister, and it won’t be me. Have you got any new leads?”

Reed shifted uncomfortably. “Since them agents went back to N’Awlins, things have been pretty quiet.”

“In other words, nothing has been done.”

The veiled insult went right over Reed’s head. “The case is still open. We can call ’em back in if anything develops.”

“What about your deputies? My sister is missing. Maybe she’s sick, or hurt. Maybe she’s being held against her will.”

Reed wore a badge and gun, signifying power and command in the parish, but if he’d ever been a take-charge defender of the law, those days were past. He held out both hands, palms up, as he edged back to his car. “We’re just doing our jobs, son. The Renault family wants answers about Dylan’s death, and I want that case closed, much as anyone.”

To the point of grasping at straws? Trying to pin the deaths of Leah’s husband and Charla Renault’s son on innocent people? And what about Angelina Loring, who’d been found floating in the bayou with a bullet wound in her back?

“I look forward to answers, too, sheriff.” Clint reined in his temper, knowing it would do no good to antagonize the man. “I want my sister found, and I want to see her name cleared. There’s no way she could be guilty of anything, and we all know it.”

“You might feel that way, son. But people can sure surprise you. Why, I remember back in ’72, when that youngest Gallatier boy—”

“If my sister shot someone and left under her own power, why would she leave a shoe behind? Someone attacked her, Reed. Maybe she was running in fear. Or maybe she was unconscious, and her shoe fell off when someone abducted her. Nothing else makes sense. Right there, you’ve got a big piece of evidence.”

“If I shot someone, I’d be in a mighty big hurry, too. I wouldn’t be stopping to go back after some ole shoe.”

Once Reed settled on an idea, he was like a Rottweiler with a favorite bone, and convincing him that other possibilities existed was flat hopeless. “There’s been too much sorrow in this town over the past four months. And right now, a killer is out there, figuring he got away with murder.”

“That’s why I’m still on the case.” Reed eased his bulk behind the steering wheel of the patrol car. “So if you hear from your sister, you’d best call me.”

Sparing him a brief nod, Clint spun on his heel and headed for the front entrance of the house.

He’d spent hours calling Leah’s old friends. Months of driving the back roads of the parish and combing the woods and bayou, looking for any sign of her. Praying for just a split-second sighting, the briefest contact, or the faintest clue. Anything to show that she was still alive.

But the chances diminished with every passing day, and if she did surface, Clint wouldn’t be calling the sheriff anytime soon. Leah was in big trouble. She needed a good lawyer, and she needed strong friends behind her, or she’d be facing charges for crimes he was sure she hadn’t committed.

Setting his jaw, he strode to the front door of his office building and slammed it, rattling the glass and drawing a startled look from Grace, his office manager.

“Well, aren’t we testy this mornin’?” Grace drawled, settling into her receptionist’s chair like an elderly hen arranging its feathers. “And here I thought it’d be a nice, quiet day.”

She’d worked for him over six years now, a rock in every storm…more like a doting aunt than hired help. Not a surprise, given that she’d lived next to his late parents and had known Clint since he was in grade school.

The good thing was that she was loyal, efficient and straightforward. The bad thing was that she was starting to talk about moving to Florida or Arizona when she reached her Golden Years—and at sixty-eight, she’d already reached them.

But if she hadn’t noticed, she wouldn’t be hearing the news from him.

“The sheriff stopped by.”

“And that was helpful because…”

“He just wants someone to drop halfway plausible answers in his lap so he can retire without a major case open.” Clint sighed. “He’s back to thinking Leah committed the murders, now that Shelby has been cleared.”

“He’d do better just to stay behind his desk and save the town gas mileage.” Grace flipped through a stack of phone messages, and then held them out. “Here’s something else to think about for a while.”

Accepting them, he thumbed through the slips on the way back to his private office. “I don’t want to take any calls for a while, okay?” he called over his shoulder. “I need to catch up on some things.”

“How’s that pretty little nanny of yours settling in?” she called out after him.

“Good.”

“Good?” She appeared at his door before he even reached his desk, an amused expression on her face. “This is Momma Grace you’re talkin’ to, sugar. You can tell me.”

“Mandy seems nice enough, and Sarah certainly likes her.” He shrugged, hoping she’d buy his casual dismissal. “That’s what counts the most.”