Speed Trap

Except he couldn’t. He needed answers, and Sheriff Scott had them. Facing his fears, he walked up the steps.

Inside the building, he found the door marked with the sheriff’s seal. He stepped into the room and saw a plump woman in her midfifties behind the counter.

Two deputies were seated at desks behind her. Garrett recognized Fred Lindholm, and his hands balled into fists.

The last time Garrett’s mother had called for help, Lindholm had been the one to respond. His help amounted to telling Garrett’s father to sober up and take it easy on his old lady. Less than a week later, Garrett’s mother left for good.

Maybe if Lindholm had done his job and arrested Garrett’s father, things might have turned out differently. The coil of anger and fear inside Garrett wound tighter, but he knew better than to let it loose.

At the desk next to Lindholm sat a younger man with short red hair and wide serious eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. His name tag said Ken Holt. Garrett didn’t know him, but if he was anything like Lindholm, he’d be a good man to avoid.

“May I help you?” the woman asked.

Garrett shifted his attention back to the receptionist. “I’d like to talk to Sheriff Scott.”

“She isn’t in right now. Can I take a message?” The woman smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She lifted a large pink leather purse to her desktop and began searching for something.

“When do you expect her back?” Garrett asked.

She pulled a stick of gum from her purse, unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth. “That’s hard to say.”

Behind him, he heard the door open and a cool voice he recognized said, “Mr. Bowen, what are you doing here?”

He turned around to see Mandy framed in the doorway. Once again he was surprised by how pretty she was. The very air around her seemed charged with rare energy. The nameless fear that squeezed Garrett’s throat eased.

He breathed in the scent of her freshly starched shirt. Beneath the smell of ironed cotton, he caught a subtle sweetness. Honeysuckle?

A tenacious vine with delicate flowers and a heady perfume that belied its tough nature. The description certainly fit the good sheriff.

Why did he find her so attractive? The answer eluded him.

He pushed the thought aside and got back to the reason he was here. “Why didn’t you tell me about Judy’s baby?”

Mandy walked past him and entered a nearby office. He followed her, determined to get a response.

A cluttered, heavy wooden desk occupied the center of the room. On the walls hung certificates and wanted posters and a large framed picture of a man in a police uniform with Mandy’s slender build and square chin.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she stood in front of her desk and regarded Garrett with a steady stare. He had the feeling she was stalling for time, searching for a way to respond.

“Where did you hear that she had a child?” Her tone was cold enough to frost the windows.

“Today when I called the minister she worked for to see about funeral arrangements, he asked about her son. Why didn’t you mention she had a kid?”

Mandy shrugged. “I didn’t think it was any of your business. You never mentioned she had a child.”

“I didn’t know.” He kept the bitterness out of his voice with difficulty. Judy had always said she didn’t want kids. Maybe she just hadn’t wanted his kids.

The pain of that thought made him flinch. “Is he my son?”

Mandy’s face softened for an instant, but the look was gone so quickly he wondered if he had imagined it. She shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

He stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Judy wasn’t home much the last month she lived with me. I think she was seeing someone else, but the baby could be mine. Can I see him?”

“No. This is still an open investigation.”

“Do you have any suspects? Besides me, that is.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the case.”

His bottled-up anger slipped its leash. “I didn’t have anything to do with Judy’s death. Are you even looking for the person who did?”

“I resent the implication that I’m not doing my job.” Her eyes snapped with suppressed irritation.

He couldn’t back down. Not now. “Resent away. I want answers.”

Mandy raised her chin. “Mr. Bowen, the best thing you can do is go home and let us do our job.”

Once again, the pretty sheriff was throwing up a roadblock. If she hadn’t been so eager to pin Judy’s death on him, he might have accepted her suggestion.

No, if he was going to get answers, he’d have to get them himself.

“I’ll find out what I need to know with or without your help, Sheriff.”

Mandy took a step closer. “Don’t get in my way, Mr. Bowen. If you do, you’ll regret it.”

THREE

“That one’s gonna be trouble,” Donna said as Mandy came out of her office to watch Garrett cross the street to his truck.

Mandy wasn’t happy he’d found out about the baby. It wasn’t like the child could identify his mother’s killer, but that didn’t mean he was safe.

She picked up the phone and dialed the number for the pediatric floor. Her encounter with Garrett brought her protective instinct rushing to the forefront. She needed to make sure Colin didn’t get any unauthorized visitors.

After leaving instructions with the nursing staff to notify her office if Garrett tried to see the boy, she hung up.

For the past two days. she’d spent several hours each evening with the baby, reading Mother Goose stories he couldn’t yet understand, singing songs that seemed to soothe him. This morning, she’d stopped in to visit before coming to work. Somehow, she knew she needed to see his bright eyes and dimpled smile before she started her day.

Colin had become firmly wedged in her heart. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea that he might be Garrett’s child.

Donna crossed her arms over her ample chest. “I don’t trust Mr. Bowen any farther than I can throw him.”

Fred and Ken came to stand beside Mandy. She looked at them. “Besides his arrest, what do we actually know about him?”

“Not much,” Fred admitted. “His old man drank like a fish. He hit hard times after his wife ran out on him about fifteen years ago. He had to sell off some of the ranch. He died about ten years ago. I hear Garrett’s been buying some of the land back, bit by bit.”

“He doesn’t go to church,” Donna interjected.

Mandy folded her arms. “I’ve seen his ranch. It isn’t exactly prosperous-looking. Where’s he getting the money to buy land?”