Corden shrugged. “Discussion of rights never hurt anyone.”
“Yes, but they tend to alarm people.”
The chief pulled his gaze from the group of people fanned out around them, his dark eyes tinged with a bleak edge she’d never seen before. “Maybe it’s time people got a bit alarmed, Detective Granger. Alarm makes people careful.”
“You think the Reynolds family needs to be careful?”
“I think we all do.”
He patted her shoulder before taking off back into the melee. His first stop: the FBI’s lead field agent that managed the Bureau’s work in the Pass.
The remaining coffee in her thermos lid had gone cold and she tossed it on the ground. On a sigh, her break at an end, she resolved to follow her chief back into the teeming throng that worked in and around the fence line. Tate and Ace had kept their distance, leaving to talk to their staff after the chief had arrived. The large black truck that bumped over the uneven land in the distance indicated they were back.
The sight of the brothers filled her with mixed emotions. Tate left her with any number of disparate feelings, but her world was always better when he was in view. It was ridiculous and stupid—and a horrific curse to bear—but it didn’t make it any less true. Yet something about this scene, and the swirling sense of menace, had every instinct she possessed screaming for him to get away. Hell, the man would probably hang around just to make her mad.
And she didn’t want him here.
She’d studied blood spatters in college and something about the patterns on the ground haunted her. It suggested the use of a knife with powerful force. She’d leave the specifics to the forensics experts but it didn’t sit well.
Could it be an animal?
Even as the wishful thought hit her, she knew the truth. Someone had been harmed terribly on Reynolds land. And with the obvious pain and suffering they’d have sustained, she couldn’t honestly say if the person was better off dead or alive.
* * *
Tate couldn’t tear his gaze off the view through Ace’s front windshield. “It looks like a war zone or some creepy movie set.”
“I think before this is over we’re going to be wishing it was make-believe,” Ace said.
He couldn’t argue with his brother’s statement, or the increasingly disturbing sense that something was very, very wrong. He and Ace had given their employees a lowdown of the high points—namely the concern someone had run drugs through Reynolds land—but had pointedly kept any mention of violence or possible death from their comments at the Chief’s request.
Then they’d gone into the house and filled in Hoyt and their baby sister, Arden, sparing neither the full details of the morning.
He and his siblings managed to get on pretty well in the sprawling confines of the ranch house, but they also knew how to get under each other’s skin. There were times Tate wondered what they were all doing now that they were full-grown, living under the same roof, yet he couldn’t imagine it any other way. After their parents had died, they’d somehow found the ability to move on, all while doing it at Reynolds Station.
And at a time like this, he appreciated the benefit of all of them being together.
Arden could take as good a care of herself as Hoyt and Ace, but Tate couldn’t deny the overwhelming need to keep an eye on her. And he felt better knowing it was his family doing the protecting.
“Do you think they found anything yet?” Tate asked.
“Hard to say.” Ace pulled up behind a line of government-issued cars and put the truck in park. He made no move to get out.
Fingers tapping against his thigh, Tate fought the nagging weight of idleness. He preferred action to sitting, and allowing strangers to mill over his land was the equivalent of being stung to death by bees. Nerve-racking and painful.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around here all day waiting for something to happen.”
“Then let’s go. We don’t need to be here. Belle will call if—” The rest of Ace’s words were lost in the heavy shouts and loud barking that rumbled in through the open windows.
Tate was out and headed for the group of people, uncaring what he might find. He was done sitting around and done imagining what might have taken place on his family’s land.
His land. More, his home.
The shouts continued as the assembled cops tumbled through the cut fence and into the ravines that peppered this part of the Pass. Another bark went up, followed by the heavy cries of a dog on the scent, and Tate kept pace behind them, Ace on his heels.
Was it possible they’d found something? He’d been out here early this morning all on his own. Had he been that close to such violence? Worse, was it possible he interrupted something?
He and Tot were generally in sync with each other. And even though he worked with the horse regularly, Tot’s feral upbringing ensured a keen awareness of his surroundings.
Was it even possible they both could have missed something early this morning?
Questions without answers kept pace with Tate’s heavy trudge over scrub grass and into the rocky slide of one of the ravines. He nearly stumbled on a loose bed of rocks but caught himself, arms windmilling to stay upright.
Tate had barely righted himself when everyone in front of him came to a hard stop behind the K-9 unit. The team had canvassed the ground as a pair, but the dog had come to a quick stop, dropping to his haunches. His handler was already praising his partner’s skills as the rest of the police team closed in around them.
The steady hum of conversation that filled the air ceased. The dog’s panting was the only sound floating on the morning breeze until Belle gasped. Tate’s gaze shot to her first until he saw how her attention was focused on something near the dog.
It was only then that he saw the body that lay nestled in a ravine, its throat slit.
Belle fought the urge to avert her eyes as she took in the dead body. The poor man was horribly mutilated, the slash across his neck the most obvious wound but not the only one. His hands were badly bruised and she could see two of his fingernails had been torn from their beds.
Tamping down on the rising slick of illness that threatened her empty stomach, she forced herself to think of her job. And the oath she’d taken to protect others.
And knew, beyond a doubt, she and her fellow officers had failed to uphold that collective promise with this man.
With the same precision she and Julio had reviewed the edge of the Reynolds property, Belle began the slow perusal of the site. She took in the broader swath of land, then worked her way determinedly through those quadrants, looking for clues. Unlike the lone patch of blood spatter, this area had dozens of points of interest. Spilled blood. Dirt covering a good portion of the body. And a clear trail of where the dead man had been dragged to the ravine.
Who had done this?
Her earlier conversation with Tate whispered through her mind. The assumption drugs were to blame for the cut fence seemed like an obvious answer, but was it? Drugs brought untold violence—she’d seen her fair share of it—but this was brutal.
Savage.
And a sight that would haunt her nightmares for a good long while.
She felt him before he spoke, the large presence at her side coupled with