Tin God Read Online Free PDF Page A

in Roselea, a killer was hiding. Had Royce murdered Rebecca, or were the rumors true? Snitches of dinner conversation mentioned rumors of Rebecca having an affair. Jaymee had no idea if that were true, but she couldn’t blame the woman. Royce Newton obviously didn’t love her as much as he wanted everyone to believe.
    Headlights blinded Jaymee. She stopped in mid-stride, holding up her hand to protect her eyes. A quick flash–the blink of the high beams. The vehicle sped up and headed toward her with purpose. Instinct told her to run, but her feet were glued to the sidewalk. The sound of her pounding heart drummed in her ears as images of Rebecca’s body splayed over her blood stained sheets robbed her of any rational thought.
    The car was close now. Minivan. Silver. Shaggy-haired driver.
    The van rolled to a sharp stop, and the passenger window slid down. Her brother leaned across the front seats, his angry expression evident in the glow of the van’s interior lights.
    “I cannot believe you’re walking home at night.”
    Jaymee tried to slow the rapid staccato of her heart. “What was I supposed to do? Click my heels together and say ‘There’s no place like home?’”
    Darren rolled his eyes to the van’s cushy ceiling. “For Christ’s sake. Get in.”

3
    Nick Samuels hated mornings. Stumbling around the small kitchen, he willed his heavy eyelids to stay open. Coffee. Must have it. He dug the bag of filters out of the drawer and dropped the entire thing on the floor.
    “Goddammit.”
    Working as an investigative reporter for Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger gave him the chance to cultivate his night owl tendencies, but he had to meet with his editor today, so he was up early. If he’d even slept. It had been one of those nights filled with twisted dreams and heartbreaking memories. Twice, he’d woken up in a cold sweat. Four years and the pain still burned raw.
    Trying to wake up, Nick leaned against the counter while the coffee brewed. A tension headache had already started. He rubbed the creases between his eyes with his knuckles and sat down at the bar that served as both a table and sometimes an office. He popped his laptop open, waited as the machine took its time loading, and logged onto the newspaper’s website.
    Hazy fragments of last night’s dreams floated through his mind. Same ones he’d had since his wife’s murder. Lana, running through the field she’d been found in, looking over her shoulder as her killer closed in. Her face bore the same terrified expression she’d had in the morgue when he identified her.
    The images never changed, and they rarely left Nick alone for more than a few nights at a time. He’d be stuck in this purgatory until Lana’s murder was solved.
    He tapped the track pad to scroll through the stories. It was an election year, so the front page centered on political bullshit. Couple of stories on a zoning issue the city council was fighting over. A robbery.
    A grainy, black and white picture on the left of the page caught his eye. The ropelike tension in his forehead exploded across his face and into his neck. Nick sucked in a breath, his gut retracting as though he’d been slugged. Lana. She was on the front page of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger again. He’d been jettisoned back to four years ago when his life shattered.
    Except it wasn’t Lana.
    A smiling woman with honey-blond hair gazed back at him, eyes blue and piercing. Pouty, pink lips, perfectly shaped nose. She could have been his dead wife’s sister.
    Nick snapped his head back and forth, tried to control his breathing. He wiped his clammy hands on his legs.
    Wife of former prominent Jackson attorney found dead in couple’s Roselea home.
    Roselea .
    The room spun.
    Lana’s childhood home .
    A tourist darling, historic Roselea was the kind of town Northerners pictured when they thought about visiting the old south. It also had one of the lowest murder rates in the state.
    Lana had been killed four years