Cold Case at Carlton's Canyon

No one would stop him from finding answers.

Wood floors creaked with his boots as he entered, the pale yellow walls and artwork reminiscent of days gone by. A row of black and white photographs of the town and the canyon lined one wall, rugged landscapes on another.

A noise echoed from the back and he frowned. Heated voices. A man’s.

No, two men’s.

He rapped on the wall by the door leading to the back. A minute later, a woman appeared wearing the sheriff’s uniform.

A petite woman with lush curves and hair the reddish-brown color of autumn leaves. Amanda Blair. Rather—Sheriff Amanda Blair.

Her looks sucker punched him again.

Eyes the color of a copper penny stared up at him, a strained look on her pretty face.

“Hello, ma’am.” He tipped his Stetson. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Sergeant Justin Thorpe with the Texas Rangers.”

She looked him up and down, and for the first time in his life, he wondered if he came up lacking. Not that he usually cared about a coworker’s opinion of him, but something about her made him want her admiration.

But her look gave nothing away. “Yes, I remember.”

He couldn’t tell from her tone how she meant the comment. But it didn’t sound good.

“Did someone call you about coming here today?”

He frowned, confused. Maybe she’d already heard about the body they found. “No, I needed to talk to you about the missing-persons cases.”

“You heard about Kelly Lambert?”

“Kelly Lambert?” Justin tried to remember the names of all the women on the list so far, but hers didn’t ring a bell. Had she received word about the identification of the body before he did?

Her expression clouded. “The girl who just disappeared last night. Her father and fiancé are in my office now.”

Justin’s gut clenched. That explained the raised voices. But Kelly Lambert wasn’t the woman they’d found in the creek because that woman had been there for months.

Which meant Kelly Lambert might still be alive.

Dammit, he and Sheriff Blair needed to find her before she ended up dead like the poor woman they’d just dragged from the water.

Chapter Two

Amanda fought the fluttering of awareness that rippled through her at the sight of the tall, dark handsome Texas Ranger. She’d met him briefly once when Sheriff Camden from Camden Crossing had asked them to confer on the case involving his sister, and had finally managed to get his sexy image out of her head.

Now he was here. Back. Planning to work with her.

And dammit, she needed his help.

She couldn’t help but stare at him. He towered over her, his massive shoulders stretching taut against his Western shirt, his green eyes a surprise with his dark coloring and black hair.

She sized up his other features—a chiseled jaw, a crooked nose that had probably been broken and a cleft in his chin. By themselves his features didn’t stand out, but the combination made him look tough, rugged, a man not to be messed with.

But that silver star of Texas shining on his shirt reminded her that he was here on business.

Amanda never mixed business with pleasure.

She’d worked too hard to overcome the stigma of being a female in a man’s world and couldn’t backtrack by getting involved with a coworker.

No one would respect her then.

“I think we’d better start over,” Sgt. Thorpe said. “You said that another woman has gone missing?”

Amanda nodded. “Kelly Lambert. She didn’t make it home last night and her father and fiancé haven’t heard from her.”

“So it’s been less than twenty-four hours,” Justin said. “Too early to file a report.”

Amanda shrugged. “Actually it has been over twenty-four hours. They haven’t heard from her since early yesterday morning. She’s been planning her wedding, and she never made it to her bridal shower this afternoon. A shower she was supposedly excited about.”

“Maybe she got cold feet and ran off.”

“It’s possible, but I didn’t get the impression that she was that kind of girl from her father and the groom-to-be.” Amanda folded her arms. “Wait a minute. If you didn’t know about Kelly, why are you here?”

The Ranger’s mouth twitched. “Because the body of a young woman was discovered in Camden Creek earlier.”

Amanda’s chest started to ache. “You think it’s Kelly?”

Suddenly a choked sound echoed from behind her, and Amanda spun around to see Mr. Lambert and Kelly’s fiancé standing at the doorway.

“You found her?” Mr. Lambert asked in a broken voice.

Kelly’s fiancé, Raymond Fisher, paled. “Please, God, no...”

Amanda tensed and glanced at Sergeant Thorpe. “Mr. Lambert, Mr. Fisher, this is Sergeant Thorpe with the Texas Rangers. Sergeant Thorpe?”

Justin motioned with his hands as if to calm the panic in the men’s eyes. “We haven’t identified the young woman yet, but it’s not Kelly. The ME thinks this woman has been dead a couple of months.”

Relief mingled with horror on the father’s face. “But you think this woman’s death is related to Kelly’s disappearance?”

The fiancé stumbled forward and sank into a wooden chair near the desk. He leaned his head on his hands, a sob escaping. “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

Amanda’s mind raced to the missing-persons file on her desk. Carly Edgewater and Tina Grimes were recent names on the list. It could be one of them.

But compassion for the fiancé and Kelly’s father forced her to keep her thoughts to herself. She was a professional. Her job was to find answers.

She also needed to keep these men calm. If Kelly had been abducted, they might know something to help track down the kidnapper.

“It’s too early to tell that,” Amanda said as she patted Fisher’s shoulder. “Right now all we know is that Kelly didn’t show up for her bridal shower and hasn’t contacted you. Maybe Sergeant Thorpe is right and Kelly just needed some time alone. She could have ducked out to think things over before the wedding.”

“No,” Fisher said with a firm shake of his head. “Kelly wouldn’t run out on me. She loved me, and I loved her. She was excited about the wedding.”