Cowboy Truth: Cowboy Justice Association #3 (2 page)

Melissa and Mark were Ava’s lead characters. Both of them rookie reporters for a local paper. They were friends who spent their free time solving murders.

“A lot of crime in that small town you write about.” Her body brushed against him and his throat went dry.

Ava giggled. “I know. You’d think they’d slip into some existential void after seeing so many dead bodies, wouldn’t you?”

Logan didn’t know what an existential void was, but he’d seen more than his share of dead bodies.

“Seeing a dead body will change a person.”

Her brows pulled together. “Are you saying that Melissa and Mark aren’t growing enough with what’s happened to them in the first six books?”

Logan had no fucking idea.

“All I’m saying is that seeing death leaves its mark.”

Ava chewed on her lower lip, her frown growing deeper.

“How has it changed you?”

He was not going to have this conversation with her.

“We’re not talking about me.”

“We are now. I need to understand how this should change Melissa and Mark. I need for them to be believable.”

“Does it matter? I’m willing to bet the majority of the American population hasn’t seen a dead body except on television.”

“What about people who have?” she insisted.

“Then they have more important shit to think about than Melissa and Mark,” he countered.

They lapsed back into an uncomfortable silence and he let his gaze wander around the room. Lyle was dancing with his new bride. Aaron, the third Bryson brother, was dancing with Charlene but holding her at arm’s length. Aaron was a married man and didn’t need his wife’s wrath to come down on him.

Ava looked over her shoulder, her gaze following his. “You know those aren’t real, right?”

Logan shook his head, not following her for a second. When he realized what she was referring to, his face split into a grin.

“What would you know about Charlene’s boobs?”

“I know she went off to Dallas a few years ago to visit her cousins and came back with that rack strapped to her chest.” Ava sniffed. “I bet when she lies down, they stick straight up in the air. No way she sleeps on her stomach.”

They did stick up in the air, but Logan wasn’t going to say shit about it.

“You sound a little jealous.” He shouldn’t poke and prod at Ava but she’d brought it up first.

Her mouth fell open and her eyes narrowed. “I am not jealous. I don’t want anything fake on me. I’m only saying that you should know what you’re getting.” Her face relaxed into a smile. “You know – truth in advertising.”

Logan shrugged. “It’s not like she stuffed her bra with toilet paper. Besides, no man I know cares whether they’re real or not.”

Pressing her lips together, Ava shook her head. “You all think with your penises – that’s the problem.”

Logan laughed. “Penis? I thought only doctors talked that way. So formal and proper. But what else would I expect? I bet you’ve never even sworn in your entire life.”

Her cheeks turned a becoming pink. “I have. I can swear.” She turned and looked all around her before facing him to make sure no one was listening. “Shit. There, are you happy?”

“It sounded so natural, too,” he mocked as the song ended. He stepped back and she did the same. They stared at one another for a moment.

“Thank you for the dance.” Ava flicked a curl behind her ear. “It was nice seeing you, Logan.”

She was dismissing him, and that was fine and dandy. At the rate they were going, he’d get blamed for besmirching her lily white reputation by introducing her to four-letter words and heaven knew what else.

“It was nice seeing you, Ava. Save me a dance at the next wedding.”

The rest of the evening passed quickly, and despite a blatant invitation from Charlene, Logan refused her offer of a late-night skinny dip in the nearby lake. He wanted a hot shower and some quality shut eye. He suffered from insomnia and spent many nights wide awake, but he was just tired enough tonight to actually sleep. He wouldn’t fuck with the rare mood. Instead he planned to take advantage of it.

He pulled out of the Bryson estate and headed south toward his own small spread on the outskirts of town. Driving down the deserted stretch of highway, Logan began writing out his mental list of things to do the next day. This was one of the reasons he couldn’t get to sleep. His mind never fucking rested, constantly working on one puzzle or another.

The beep from his phone broke the silence, and he reached for his cell that he’d tossed carelessly on the passenger seat. He swiped the screen with his thumb.

“Wright.” He kept his eyes on the road, not bothering to look at the display. He didn’t get telemarketers or strangers calling him enough to worry about such things. People acted these days as if a stranger calling them was a goddamn crime or something. They needed to fucking relax and get a hobby. Not worry about petty shit that was going to shorten your life.

“Logan, turn around and head back to Bryson’s. I’ll meet you there.” It was Logan’s deputy Drake James on the other end.

Logan didn’t hesitate. Drake wouldn’t call unless it was important. Logan turned the SUV with a grunt of frustration. He wouldn’t be getting the sleep he was hoping for tonight. A couple of cowboys had probably had one too many and were throwing punches in the barn.

“What’s going on?”

Logan heard Drake’s indrawn breath. “It’s Bill Bryson. He was shot. In the head. I’ve called the state police and asked for their forensics team.”

Tightening his fingers on the steering wheel, Logan swallowed the shock that ran through his body. Instead his thoughts went immediately to Wade, Aaron, and Lyle. They were close to their father and this was going to hit them hard. Logan felt a lump rise in his throat as well. Bill Bryson had never been an easy man to know, but he had always treated Logan decently even when he’d been raising hell with Wade.

“I’ll be there in ten.” Logan shoved the phone into his pocket.

Hitting the siren and lights, he pressed down on the accelerator. The last time he’d seen the dead body of someone he knew well he had been in the Persian Gulf. It hadn’t been a pleasant sight then, and it would be less so this time. He only hoped he could keep his friends from seeing their father’s corpse.

No one should have to live with the image of someone shot in the brain. The human mind wasn’t built for pictures like that. And the bodies weren’t built to withstand the bullets.

It was an ugly, no win combination.

Chapter Two

A
va couldn’t see a thing. She stood on her tip-toes and tried to peer around the wall of man standing in the doorway to the game room of the Bryson estate. Dressed in a charcoal gray suit and sporting a badge, he had to be over six feet tall with shoulders just as wide. He looked vaguely familiar and about her age. She had probably gone to school with him but drew a blank on his name. Currently he wasn’t budging an inch. When she’d tried to enter the room, he’d gently but firmly held up his hand asking her to step back into the hallway.

According to the buzz in the reception tent, someone had shot Bill Bryson in his own home while guests less than two hundred feet away danced and partied. Ava’s sister Mary and her new husband Lyle were understandably upset, although Mary seemed more upset that it had ruined her wedding rather than that her father-in-law was no longer breathing. Ava’s sister didn’t like it when things didn’t go as planned. Consequently, Mary was currently in the reception tent urging her guests to have more cake in some strange attempt at normalcy.

Lyle, on the other hand, was pacing up and down the hallway with his two brothers Aaron and Wade. All three men had grim, bleak expressions and Ava’s heart went out to them. She hadn’t really known Bill Bryson, but his sons seemed to have grown into fine men. Pillar of the community stuff.

Sheriff Logan Wright appeared at the end of the hall, his face carved from granite. He strode toward the library and brushed past her without a look or word, his attention elsewhere. The man in the doorway stepped back and they both went deeper into the room.

Ava edged into the library hanging back as far as she could in a shadowed area, but still close enough to see Mr. Bryson stretched out on the rug in front of the fireplace. Several lamps had been turned on but it was still hard to see, especially with Logan and the other man blocking a portion of the view. Logan knelt down about a foot away from the body examining the scene.

“No one’s moved him, Drake?”

“No. I secured the scene as soon as I heard the ruckus.”

Logan scraped a hand down his face and closed his eyes for a moment. “Holy fuck, who would want to do this to Bill? Shit, he and his ancestors practically built this town. This is going to kill Wade.”

Everyone knew Logan and Wade were friends and that it went back to childhood.

“Who found him?” Logan’s voice was tired and his shoulders stiff.

“Bryson’s brother, George. He said—”

Drake was interrupted by Wade, Aaron, and Lyle storming the room. They stomped up to Logan who had turned on his heel at the sound. He put his hand on Wade and Lyle’s chests, pressing them back.

“You don’t want to come in here. Trust me on this. You don’t want to remember Bill this way,” he urged, succeeding in pushing them back a few feet. “He wouldn’t want you to see him this way.”

Aaron stood motionless, a strange look on his face as he stood apart from his two brothers. From the angle he had, he was afforded the perfect view of the back of his father’s head.

What was left of it.

Aaron appeared shattered, his skin a ghostly white and his eyes almost unblinking. Logan turned from Lyle and Wade to see the expression on Aaron’s face and swore. Logan sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“I didn’t want you to see this.”

Ava shivered as the reality of the morbid scene seeped into her brain. This wasn’t a whodunnit party or one of the many police training simulations she’d attended. This was the real thing and Bill Bryson wouldn’t be getting up from the blood-soaked carpet. He’d be carried away in a coroner’s van leaving a grieving family.

She now knew what Logan had been talking about when they were dancing earlier. Seeing death did things to a person. She wouldn’t be the same Ava who had walked into this room five minutes ago, and Aaron would most certainly be a changed man.

George Bryson walked into the library, a highball glass in one hand, his features a ghastly color.

“Son of a bitch, will everyone please leave the crime scene?” Logan growled, frustration written in every line of his face.

No one moved. Swaying slightly on his feet, George came right up to Logan. “It was my brother and I’m the one who found him. I have a right to know what’s going on. Have you found who did this yet?”

George’s voice was almost shrill at the end of his question. It made Ava want to put her hands over her ears, but Logan didn’t even seem fazed.

“No, and you are hampering my investigation, George. Deputy Drake, will you please escort the family into the kitchen? I’d like them to wait there so I can get everyone’s statement. We also need to clear this room for the state forensics team. They should be here soon, and they won’t be happy that their evidence is being destroyed.”

Wade grabbed Logan by the arm. “I need to be here.” The words were choked and broken.

“You need to be with your wife and brothers,” Logan said firmly, placing his own hand on Wade’s. “Let me do my job.”

He said the last part more gently and Wade nodded, his shoulders hunched. Drake led the three brothers and the uncle from the room, George Bryson still muttering to himself and gulping back the amber liquid in his glass.

Ava let out her breath slowly, realizing she’d been holding it as the scene had unfurled. She’d been shown a more gentle side of Logan Wright. A side she’d never been privy to before, but then she’d never spent much time with him. He’d been four years ahead of her in school before leaving for the military. She’d left for college and eventually settled in Portland these last few years.

Standing in the middle of the room, he slowly seemed to become aware he wasn’t alone. His head swiveled and his gaze came to rest on her standing in the shadows. He frowned and pressed his lips flat.