Jenna Ryan - Shadow Protector

“Go to hell,” Sig managed to gurgle. “She’s safe, and she will remember.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it. What she won’t do is live to testify.”

“I’m not telling you squat.”

“Not verbally,” the man agreed. His gun made a quiet popping sound as the bullet discharged into Sig’s throat. “But there are other ways, my friend.” He folded his latest victim’s body into the car, located his wallet and eyed the trash on the seat and floor. “Plenty of other ways.”

Sera could have slept for twenty-four hours. The twelve she got ended with a rough shake from Flo.

“Chief has to go to Casper for a meeting. You need to get up.”

She stuffed Sera’s clothes into a laundry bag, then picked up and examined her broken shoes.

“I can wear heels like this, but not Babe. She can hardly …”

“Walk some days. Got that, Flo.” Sera fought off the effects of her latest nightmare. She was sliding from the surprisingly comfortable bed when the stack of suitcases caught her eye. “You unpacked for me? “

“I don’t like ironing. What kind of doctor are you if you don’t do feet?”

“I can do feet.” In her dove-gray drawstring pants and white tank, Sera bent to look out the partly shaded window. “Will it be hot again today?”

“It’s July, isn’t it?” Flo dangled the strappy shoes. “You want me to see about getting these fixed?”

“Thank you.” Biting back a smile, Sera offered the expected trade. “Would you like me to look at your sister’s foot?”

“She’d appreciate that. But you tell Logan it was your idea. He said I wasn’t to pester you.”

“I will.”

Cinching the canvas bag, Flo started for the door. “Logan’ll be by in forty minutes. I’ve got flapjacks and blueberry syrup in the kitchen. Coffee too.” She paused on the threshold. “When?”

Rocking the tension from her neck, Sera headed for the bathroom. “If you’re talking about Babe, I can examine her when I get back from Casper, where I’m apparently going whether I like it or not.”

Flo gave a satisfied nod. “Do your whatevers fast, and I’ll feed you. Otherwise you’re at Logan’s mercy, and potato chips make a fine meal to him.”

“It’s a miracle cops live to retire.”

“That last word’s not one we use much in these parts, Doctor.”

Why wasn’t she surprised? Sera mused.

Still wondering where the normal people lived, she went into the bathroom to shower away her latest dream image—that of the Blue Ridge police chief’s enigmatic face.

“DON’T LET HER out of your sight, Fred.” Logan handed Sera a white hat with a braided black band, trapped her jaw and stared straight at her. “No guns, no clever tricks, no tricky questions. Agreed?”

She pulled free and smiled. “You have a very low opinion of me, Chief.”

“Must be the city cop coming out. I mean it, Sera.”

“Yes, I know. Go on.” She tried the hat for size and was pleased to discover it fit. “I won’t ditch your dispatcher.”

“Dispatcher slash senior deputy,” the man called Fred corrected. He gave his boss two thumbs up. “Don’t you worry, Logan. Me and the pretty doc’ll get on just fine till your meeting’s done.”

Sera turned to examine the window of a small shoe store. Why couldn’t the chief be more like his deputy? Huge, bald and in his late fifties, with a bull neck, a big belly and a smile as wide as the Platte River.

“You wanna walk, talk or shop, Doc?”

Fred’s question brought a teasing smile. “You’re okay walking the streets of the county seat in the company of a marked woman? “

“No killer with half a brain’s gonna shoot up a busy street at midday, Doctor—sorry, Serafina. That’s a pretty name, by the way. Mean anything special?”

The sun glinted off the roof of a white delivery van. Sera popped her sunglasses on. “It means my mother had high hopes for my future. Didn’t happen. I like Sera now.”

He regarded her from under his own hat. “You and your ma at odds then? “

“Fifteen years worth and counting. There’s no middle ground for us,” she added before he could press. “We didn’t see eye to eye on my future, so now we don’t see each other at all.”

“That’s a shame, and I can say that because Flo and me have a girl, maybe six years up on you. We see her, but every time we do, it’s either behind glass or on our doorstep in the middle of the night. She’s an addict. Addiction’s made her a thief. Thieving’s sent her to jail four times. Guess we shouldn’t throw stones considering our past, but we straightened out. I’m starting to think she never will. She owes money now, so I’m hoping against hope she won’t show up at Logan’s place. We live there, you know.”

“With Logan? No, I didn’t know. Or maybe I just didn’t think. It’s a big house.”

“Came with …”

“The job, I heard.” Hooking his arm, she asked, “Where does your daughter live, Fred?”

He snorted out a laugh. “Wherever the wind blows her. Like her ma and me that way. But you got your own problems, Doc. You don’t need ours heaped on top of them. Word is you’ve got someone after you, someone who likes to kill. Any thoughts on why a person would do that over and over again?”

“A few, but nothing that really works. Whoa …” Raising her sunglasses, she ogled a purse dangling near a shop entrance. “That is one über cool bag. Bet it costs a fortune.” She slipped around him and inside to flip the price tag. “Oh, yeah, fortune. Fourteen-ninety-five.”

“That doesn’t sound …”

“Fourteen hundred, Fred.”

When he gaped, she caught his shirt and drew him back out. “Breathe deeply. The feeling will subside.”

“Fourteen—fifteen hundred dollars? For a purse?”

“Well, it’s leather.” She glanced past him. “Dolce and Gabbana.”

“But that’s …”

“I know.” Aware of the sun’s increasingly strong rays, she steered him toward an outdoor café. “Do you like iced latte?”

“What?”

She grinned, then tugged on his shirt. “Coffee, cold, yummy. We can sit. You can tell me how you wound up in Blue Ridge and what it’s like to work for Logan.”

Fred ran a hand over his face. “Logan, right. Well, it’s good. Best straight job I’ve ever had. You probably know that Flo and me have done some shady things.”

“We all have a past, Fred. The present matters more, don’t you … think?” The last word emerged on a frown as a picture suddenly streaked through her head. Swinging away from the street, she pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to recapture it. “No, don’t hide. Let me see you.”

Fred came up behind her. “Are you okay? You want me to get Logan? “

Ignoring him for the moment, Sera struggled with the hazy image.

“Music,” she said at last and, pivoting, searched for the source. “There was music playing in the background the night Andi died.” She closed her eyes. “There’s something behind it.”

Fred sidestepped. “I’ll get Logan.”

“I need to hear it again.” When he started off, she trapped his arm. “I’m good, Fred, really. I just need the music back. I saw something for a second. A hand, I think. And some kind of motion.” She zeroed in on a muddy four by four truck. “That might be where it came from.”

“You sure it was music, Doc, and not what you were saying?”

She started for the truck. “What were we talking about, do you remember?”

“Coffee, wasn’t it? Or purses.”

She cut across the street, skirted a group of people waiting to board a Greyhound bus and wound up back at the sheriff’s office, where the truck was parked.