Sloan slathered his hands with some liquid sanitizer that she had on top of the filing cabinet next to her pain meds. Taking a deep breath, he pulled over the chair and sat down so that he’d be at eye level with the bandage. It also put him at eye level with her stomach. And the bottom edge of her bra.
Purple lace.
Sloan couldn’t help it. He looked up at her, and when she followed his gaze, Carley narrowed her eyes to little bitty slits. “I haven’t had time to do laundry. It was one of the few wearable things that I had left in my lingerie drawer—and why I’m telling you this, I don’t have a clue. Because it certainly isn’t any of your business.”
To punctuate that, she snapped the upper sides of her top together so there was no visible purple lace.
But Sloan didn’t need to see it to remember that it was there. Nope. It was branded in his memory.
“I never took you for the purple-lace type,” he commented. Partly because it was true and partly because he wanted her mind on something else when he lifted that tape.
She’d already opened her mouth, probably to return verbal fire, but that tape pull had her sucking in her breath and wincing.
“Sorry,” Sloan apologized. “It’ll only hurt for a second.” He worked quickly, before she changed her mind, and he gave the bandage a slight adjustment. “There. Now it won’t pull at the skin that’s healing.”
She eyed him with skepticism and then tested it by rotating her arm. No wincing. No sucking in her breath. Just a relieved expression. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. But you know, if you were at your apartment resting, that bandage wouldn’t have shifted.”
“And you wouldn’t have gotten a cheap thrill of learning that I own a purple bra.” She buttoned her shirt as if she’d declared war on it. “By the way, you tell anyone about my choice of underwear and you’re a dead man.”
Puzzled, he stared up at her. “Why wouldn’t you want anyone to know that?”
She dodged his gaze and stepped back. “I don’t want to draw any attention to the fact that I’m female. I already have enough strikes against me without letting people know that I occasionally wear girlie stuff.”
Still puzzled, Sloan shook his head. “Why?”
“Because I’m not male. Because I’m the first woman in Justice to wear this badge. Because I don’t have the full support of this town.” She aimed her index finger at him. “Because I’m not you. And despite the fact you’ve been gone for years, most people still and always will think of you as the sheriff.”
Sloan wanted to deny it, but he knew it was true. Despite the advances in Justice, Carley was probably battling a gender bias. He’d been one of the guys. A good ole boy. Many people in town had no doubt thought that badge was made for him. His for a lifetime.
That acceptance hadn’t been extended to Carley.
“Just for the record,” he let her know, “you don’t have to prove anything to me.”
She frowned and then mumbled some profanity. After some posturing and a huff or two, the aimed index finger returned. “Let’s get something straight, Sloan McKinney. I want no camaraderie with you. None. And you don’t want that with me. Remember, you accused me of lying about your father. I accused you of being blind to the truth. I also accused you of being a jerk and an—”
“I get the point,” Sloan interrupted. Man, she made it easy to remember the anger. “So here’s the deal. I’ll work my butt off to solve this case as quickly as possible so we won’t have time to develop any camaraderie. Agreed?”
She agreed with a grunt and headed toward the back exit, where they’d entered earlier. Sloan was right behind her. Neither wasted any time once they were outside. They both started scouring the building for that first bullet.
Thanks to the blazing sunlight striking the brown brick exterior, it didn’t take Sloan long to spot it. He went to the window and there it was. A bullet lodged in one of the bricks that framed the window directly outside Carley’s office. This was obviously the first shot that the gunman had fired in the wee hours of the morning. The shot meant for Carley.
“I checked the exterior this morning, when I was looking at the surveillance camera,” she mumbled. “How could I have missed that?”
He could have stated the obvious—maybe she didn’t see it because she was exhausted and wasn’t medically ready for duty. But reminding her of that would have only started another argument.
Without touching it, Sloan examined the embedded bullet. A .38 slug. Another inch to the right, and it would have gone through the glass and hit anyone who might be sitting at Carley’s desk.
Sloan peered through the window and realized something else. Her high-back chair would have made it impossible for a gunman to see if she was there or not.
Carley obviously realized that, as well, because he heard the sudden change in her breathing. Sloan didn’t address her reaction. No sense touching on uncomfortable issues again. So he scanned the area to figure out what’d happened there.
“Sarah’s killer escaped into those woods,” he surmised, talking more to himself than her. “It’s the same path your shooter took.”
Carley made a sound of agreement. “And there’s evidence out there—footprints, possibly trace fibers, maybe even the bullet that injured me that night. It was never recovered. So maybe the killer planned to scour the woods to retrieve any incriminating evidence, and the camera got in the way.”
“Then why fire that first shot into your office?” Sloan asked.
She shrugged, hesitated, but Sloan already had a theory. Unfortunately he didn’t get a chance to voice it, because he heard footsteps.
He instinctively drew his weapon and stepped in front of Carley. To shield her. To protect her. It didn’t earn him any brownie points. She pulled out her own gun, huffed, mumbled something and then stepped out from behind him so that they were side by side.
It didn’t take long for their visitor to appear around the corner of the building. It was Leland Hendricks, and since he was a murder suspect, neither Carley nor Sloan lowered their guns.
“There you are, Sheriff Matheson,” Leland barked. He said her name as if she were some annoying insect that he was about to squash. “What the hell do you mean calling me in again for questioning? I don’t have time for this. I have a business to run. And until that grand jury says differently, I’m a free man.”
Carley slipped her gun back into her holster and tipped her head to Sloan. “He’s in charge. Yell at him.”
Sloan gave her an aw-jeez-thanks look before he turned his attention back to a possible killer.
The years had been kind to Leland Hendricks. Of course, money and massive ego probably helped. The graying hair and the wrinkles only added to his air of authority.
“You’re in charge?” Leland stared at him.
Sloan nodded. “You have a problem with that?”
“You bet I do.” He shook his head. “I won’t let you McKinney boys railroad me into taking the blame for these murders. I won’t become the scapegoat for your drunk of a father who can’t keep his pants zipped.”
It took some doing, but Sloan forced himself not to react to that. “You’re saying you’re innocent?”
“Damn right I am.”
“And what about the fake kidnapping of your own son? You’re innocent of that, too? Because Sarah, your dead stepdaughter, said differently.”
Leland probably didn’t want to react, either. But he did. Every muscle in his body seemed to tense. “It doesn’t matter what that witch Sarah