Cross Her Heart (Bree Taggert #1)(7)

“Fuss.” Matt repeated the command.

Brody obeyed but his body posture remained tense. He was acting as if he were back on active duty in a high-stress situation.

The master bedroom lay ahead. Matt debated taking the dog back to his vehicle, but he wasn’t armed. On the remote chance there was an intruder in the house, Brody would know, and the dog would have his back. Matt listened for a few seconds, but the only sounds were the low voices of the news anchors on the TV in the den. Brody wasn’t acting as if there was a threat, but the dog was agitated, whining and shifting his weight from side to side in lieu of pacing. His head bobbed and weaved like a professional boxer.

“Justin?” Matt called out, hesitant to invade the privacy of his friend’s bedroom. But Justin’s depression made him walk down the hall. The room was lit only by a small bedside lamp, but it was bright enough that he could see what lay in the middle of the room.

A dead body and a lake of blood.

Matt flinched.

He didn’t need to feel for a pulse. From the size of the deep-red stain on the carpet, he knew the person was dead. No one could survive that much blood loss.

The body was too small to be Justin. Matt used the flashlight app on his phone to better illuminate the body. Shock washed over him. It was a woman. She wore boots, jeans, and a sweater. Long, dark hair streamed out from under a knit cap.

He moved a few steps to the side and shone the light on her face. Matt inhaled sharply.

Justin’s wife, Erin, stared back at him with empty hazel eyes.

What is she doing here?

Brody whined, a thin, plaintive sound. Matt put a reassuring hand on the top of the dog’s head as he called 911 on his cell phone.

In rural areas, deputies wore multiple professional hats. Several deputies, including the current chief, also served on the county search-and-rescue team. Others were on the dive team. Several were volunteer firefighters. Matt had been an investigator and, later, a K-9 officer. As he gave the dispatcher the address, he put aside his emotions and viewed the scene like the detective he’d been.

Erin was on her side, her body curled around itself. From the size of the wound, Matt suspected she’d been shot. Blood covered her hands, which were near the wound in her chest. She hadn’t died immediately. She’d known she was bleeding out. She’d clutched the wound, maybe even tried to stem the bleeding. The heart stops beating at death, and it had taken a minute or so to pump a fatal volume out of her body. It must have seemed both a long and short minute to her. Matt took in the size of the bloodstain. It had been a futile effort. He hoped she’d lost consciousness quickly.

An image from their wedding flashed into his mind. Justin and Erin posing for a photo with her two kids. He closed his eyes for a second. Justin had mentioned that the kids hadn’t seen their father in years. No one even knew where he was or if he was alive. They could be orphans.

The 911 operator gave a response time of four minutes. Matt took two minutes to snap pictures of the rest of the room with his cell phone camera. He was no longer a deputy. Since the former sheriff’s death and the airing of the corruption in the department, many other deputies had left. There were a number of new hires, and of the longtime deputies, Matt didn’t know who he could trust. How many had known of the former sheriff’s crimes?

He was certain of only one thing. This would be his only chance to record the crime scene.

Justin hadn’t planned to live here long and hadn’t invested in much furniture. The bedroom held a bed, a chair, and a nightstand with a lamp. A purple puffy coat lay across the chair. It looked too small and feminine to be Justin’s. Erin’s? He snapped a picture, then took photos of a dark red smear on the doorframe and another on the wall.

On the floor in front of the bathroom door lay a towel. Matt stooped and touched the corner. Damp.

Matt ducked into the bathroom. Another damp towel hung over a rod mounted on the wall. He used the sleeve of his jacket to open the medicine chest, noting the extra toothpaste, a tube of mascara, and a lipstick on the glass shelf. In the cabinet beneath the sink, he found a hairdryer, a round hairbrush, and a box of feminine hygiene products. As he photographed everything, he wondered if the female items belonged to Erin or another woman.

A siren approached.

“Time to go.” He led Brody back out the way they had come into the house, taking more pictures on his way out. He followed his own tracks back to the sidewalk and waited, noting and filing details in his head. The front door had been locked. The back slider had been open, as if someone had rushed out of the house.

Who killed Erin? And where is Justin?



Two hours later, emergency vehicles clogged the street. Swirling red-and-blue lights reflected on the snow. A county CSI van was parked behind the sheriff’s department vehicles. The medical examiner had been the last to arrive. Uniformed men hustled back and forth from the house to their vehicles. Each doing his job, focused on a specific task. At the base of the driveway, a rookie manned the crime scene log, recording every person who set foot on the scene.

Standing on the sidewalk next to his SUV, Matt had never felt like more of an outsider.

Grey’s Hollow Chief Deputy Todd Harvey approached. Before the shooting, Matt had worked with Todd for years and was 80 percent sure he was trustworthy. Todd stopped in front of Matt and crouched to pet the dog. “How’s retirement, Brody?”

Brody leaned in for a scratch behind the ear. With a final pat, Todd straightened. “How long have you known Justin?”