8 Sweet Payback Read Online Free PDF Page B

a shout and I hear Jessie
groaning. With the flashlight I spot him lying on the ground. I run over there
but, Sheriff, my boy’s gone before I even get to his side.” Starkey’s voice broke.
    Beau gave him a moment, then the
medical investigator’s wave caught his attention.
    “Excuse me just a second,” Beau
told Starkey. “Wait right here.”
    Ben Alison had stepped down from
the ambulance and now he pulled Beau into the fire station, out of sight of the
crowd outside.
    “If this was a hunting accident,
it wasn’t someone hunting turkeys,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t tell you
caliber—Albuquerque will have to dig the bullet out and determine that.”
    “Bullet. Not bird shot.”
    “Exactly. By the size and shape of
the wound, I would venture a guess that it was a high power rifle. It suggests
someone followed them and was waiting to take his shot.”
      “A sniper did this?”
    “That’s what it looks like.” His
expression looked grim.

 
 
    Chapter
4

 
    Sam walked to the relief map that
hung in the recess under the stairs. Sembramos was only fifteen miles away,
probably twenty minutes by car, if Beau didn’t turn on his siren. She paced.
Worried. Realized how vital her work at the bakery was, keeping her busy and
sane while he did this kind of thing every day. There was no way she could
simply sit at home and wait for news.
    She started to dial her best
friend, Zoë, then remembered that she and Darryl had closed their B&B for a
month and used the spring lull for a much-needed vacation. Rupert, her writer
friend, had a rule about no phone calls before noon—mornings were the magic
hours during which he became Victoria DeVane ,
bestselling romance author. Secretly, of course. But she had to respect his
creative time, even on holidays.
    She called her own phone number,
Kelly’s now. If she was home it probably meant she wasn’t doing anything in
particular. Sam couldn’t honestly remember whether Kelly had mentioned Easter
plans or not. She drummed her fingers on the countertop, realizing there would
be no answer. What was she going to say anyway? I’m bored? I’m worried about
Beau? It didn’t seem fair to dump those things on her daughter. She hung up and
wandered upstairs.
    With nothing else to occupy her
mind, she started a load of laundry and gathered cleaning supplies. Dusting
furniture and scrubbing the bathroom would at least accomplish some needed
tasks while she continued to wish she was with Beau. She had planned to take a
few days off for spring cleaning—here was her big chance to get started. But it
didn’t feel like a satisfying way to spend the day.
    She had finished the upstairs
bathroom, her gaze lingering on that mysterious wooden box, when her cell phone
rang. She yanked it out of her pocket, thrilled to see that the readout said it
was Beau.
    “Hey there, sorry I didn’t touch
base sooner.”
    “You don’t owe me a
minute-by-minute account,” she said. “Just glad to know that you’re safe.”
    “I’m fine. Not so sure about the
town, though. But I’ll fill you in on that when I get home. It shouldn’t be too
late. They’ve just loaded the body into the medical investigator’s car and
he’ll be taking it to Albuquerque.”
    “So it wasn’t clearly an
accident?”
    He chuckled. “You’re learning a
lot about this stuff. No, the MI didn’t agree with that story. So, I’ve got a
whole lot more questions to ask.”
    Someone started talking to him so
he had to hang up, leaving Sam wondering how ‘whole lot of questions’ and
‘won’t be home late’ went together. She ran the dust cloth over the deep
grooves in her jewelry box, still thinking about her resolve to find out more
answers about it.
    She tossed her dust cloth down and
decided it was now late enough in the day to call Rupert. He knew a lot of
people in this town, and maybe she could distract herself from Beau’s case.
    “Afternoon tea? What a lovely
idea,” he said when she