Death on Heels Chapter 1 page 3

Death on Heels, Chapter 1, continued

Lacey was dizzy at the thought. Did I ever really know this guy? “Three women have been found. You think there are more out there?”

“God only knows, darlin’. Big county, size of Connecticut. Good place to hide a body. Five thousand square miles, a lot of it pretty desolate. Bodies don’t always get found. Some turn up a hundred years later. Course, in that case, they go to the state archaeologist, not the cops.”

By then, they’d be mummies, or bleached bones, like the carcasses of dead cows Lacey had seen on the western Colorado landscape.

“The wire story says the women were strangled,” she said.

Vic nodded. “The hyoid bone was crushed in each case.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “That’s a horrible way to die.” It was intimate and ugly. Lacey pictured someone’s hands around the women’s necks. But then the killer might not have used his hands. Maybe a rope, or— Stop, Lacey, she told herself.

Rae Fowler, Ally Newport, and Corazon Reyes. Their murders rocked that little Colorado town with a ripple of horror that grew with each death. In a small town, everyone’s private business seemed more immediate, Lacey knew. In a small town, the news was always personal, from the high school sports to the newest business in town, to random acts of graffiti. The locals took a personal interest in the news. And there’s little enough of interest in Sagebrush anyway, Lacey thought.

She recalled her Sagebrush reporting days. People thought nothing of stopping her in the grocery store or at the gas station to offer their personal and sometimes vivid commentary on her news stories. They told her when she got it right or wrong, they told her when they had something to add, and they told her what they thought even when they had nothing to add. It was exhausting.

Murder was not common in Sagebrush, and when it did happen it was most often a domestic dispute gone bad or a bar fight. Lacey remembered only a few murders in the entire county in the two years she had lived and worked there. It wasn’t like Washington, D.C., where murder was so routine most killings didn’t even make it to the pages of the major newspapers. Not even her own paper, The Eye Street Observer.

In Sagebrush, anyone who ever met Rae or Ally or Corazon—or Tucker—would have a story to tell. Everyone in town would be touched in some way.

“Tucker couldn’t have done this.” She took her boot away from Vic again and set it down on the suitcase to await its mate.

“You have to remember, Lacey, cops don’t arrest people without evidence. Not even small-town cops. I was a cop. I know. Cops hate to end up looking like idiots, believe me.” Vic reached out for her.

“Most of the time.”

“Lacey—”

“Don’t ‘Lacey’ me, Vic Donovan! I dated this guy for two years. Two years! If Cole Tucker is a killer, then I don’t know anything about anybody. I don’t know anything about myself. Or even about you. If I’m wrong about Cole, then I’m wrong about everything. I’m going to Sagebrush and I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

End of Chapter 1

Death on Heels goes on sale February 2012 at bookstores and online. Click the book cover below to go to my Buy my books page. Thanks for reading!

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