Cold Case at Cobra Creek

Dugan yanked the wheel to the left to avoid crashing into the other vehicle, then swung the SUV to the side of the road and threw it in Park.

He jumped out and ran toward the burning vehicle.

The driver had shot at them. Tried to kill them.

Why? Because she was asking questions about her son?

She jerked herself from her immobilized state and climbed out. Dugan circled the car, peering into the window as if looking for a way to get the driver out. But the gas tank blew, another explosion sounded and flames engulfed the vehicle.

Sweat beaded on her forehead, the heat scalding her. She backed away, hugging the side of the SUV as she watched Dugan. He must have realized it was impossible to save the driver because he strode back toward her, his expression grim.

“Someone doesn’t like us asking questions, Sage. But that means we might be on the right track to finding some answers.”

Cold Case at Cobra Creek

Rita Herron

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Award-winning author RITA HERRON wrote her first book when she was twelve, but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded storytelling to kids for writing romance, and now she writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. She lives in Georgia with her own romance hero and three kids. She loves to hear from readers, so please write her at PO Box 921225, Norcross, GA 30092-1225, USA, or visit her website, www.ritaherron.com.

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Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Sage Freeport vowed never to trust a man again.

Not after the way Trace Lanier had treated her. Promises of love and happily ever after—until she’d gotten pregnant.

Then those promises had evaporated, like rain on a strip of scorching-hot pavement.

Her three-year-old Benji had never met his father. She’d worried about him not having a man in his life and done her best to be two parents in one. Still, she couldn’t throw a softball worth a darn, and baiting her own hook to go fishing at the pond literally made her feel faint.

Then Ron Lewis had come along a few months ago and swept her off her feet with his kindness and intelligence—and treated Benji like his own son.

Her gaze strayed to the tabletop tree she and Benji had decorated just yesterday. Together they’d made ornaments to hang on the tree, and when he was asleep last night, she’d wrapped his gift. He was going to be ecstatic on Christmas morning to find the softball and glove he’d asked for.

She pulled a pan of homemade cinnamon rolls from the oven to let them cool before her guests at the B and B she owned surfaced for breakfast, then went upstairs to check on her son.

Benji was normally up by now, underfoot in the kitchen when she was cooking—chatting and asking questions and sneaking bacon as soon as she took it off the pan.

But when she opened Benji’s door, he wasn’t in bed. A few toys were scattered around the floor, a sign he’d gotten up to play after she’d tucked him in the night before.

Figuring he was playing some imaginary game, she darted into his bathroom.

But he wasn’t there, either.

She checked under his bed and frowned. “Benji? Where are you, honey?”

No answer.

Her heartbeat stuttered for a moment, but she told herself not to panic. The inn was a big house. The B and B held eight rooms, although most of them were empty at the time. With the holidays approaching, most people were staying home, going to visit family or flying to some exotic location for a winter vacation, not visiting small-town Texas.

She peeked inside Benji’s closet but didn’t see him. Yet the dresser drawer stood open, and his clothes looked as if he’d pawed through them.

Probably to dress himself. He was three and starting to vie for independence that way. She just had to teach him how to match colors now.

Then she noticed his backpack was missing.

Her heart suddenly racing, she turned and looked at his room again. The big bear he normally slept with wasn’t in his bed. Not on the floor or in the room at all. Neither was the whistle he liked or his favorite red hat.

But his blanket was there. He’d never go anywhere without that blue blanket.

Fear seized her, but she fought it off.

Surely Benji was just pretending he was on a camping trip. He and Ron had been talking about hiking the other night. Ron had even asked Benji which one of his special friends/toys he would carry with him if he was going on a long trip.

The bear, whistle and red cap were on his list.

Her hands shaking as other scenarios taunted her, she raced down the hall to the empty rooms and searched inside. No Benji.

Hating to disturb the two guests she did have but panicked now, she knocked on the door to the Ellises’, an elderly couple on an anniversary trip. The gray-haired man opened the door dressed in a robe. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ellis, but have you seen my son, Benji?”

“No, ma’am. Me and Henrietta been sleeping.”

“Would you mind checking your room in case he snuck in? He’s only three and mischievous at times.”

He scratched his head, sending his wiry hair askew. “Sure.” He left the door open, and Sage watched as he checked under the bed, the closet and adjoining bathroom. “Sorry, Ms. Freeport, he’s not in here.”

Sage’s stomach knotted. If—no, when—she found Benji, she would explain that hiding from her was not okay.

She climbed the steps to the third-floor attic room. A woman named Elvira had chosen it, saying she needed solace and to be alone. The poor woman had lost a child, and Sage had given her privacy to mourn.

But Elvira didn’t answer. Sage let herself in and found a note from the lady saying she’d decided to leave early and didn’t want to disturb Sage.

Benji liked this room because the window offered a view of the creek behind the house.

But the room was empty.

Nerves on edge, she ran downstairs, once again checking each room and shouting Benji’s name. She rushed outside, wind beating at her as she searched the yard, the garden out back, the swing set, the fort and the tree house.

Benji was nowhere to be found.

Terrified, she ran back inside to call the sheriff. But the phone was ringing as she entered the kitchen. Maybe a neighbor had found Benji.

She grabbed the phone, determined to get rid of the caller so she could phone the sheriff. But his voice echoed back.

“Ms. Freeport, it’s Sheriff Gandt.”

Her stomach pitched. “Yes, I was just about to call you. My little boy, Benji... He’s gone.”

“I was afraid of that,” Sheriff Gandt muttered.

Icy fear seized Sage.

“I think you’d better come down to River Road Crossing at Cobra Creek.”

“Why?” She had to swallow to make her voice work. “Is Benji there?”

“Just meet me there.”

He hung up, and Sage’s knees buckled. She grabbed the kitchen counter to keep from hitting the floor.

No...Benji was fine. He had to be...

She grabbed her keys and ran outside. The minivan took three tries to crank, but she threw it in gear and tore down the road toward the river crossing.

As soon as she rounded the bend, she spotted flames shooting into the air. Smoke curled upward, clogging the sky in a thick, gray blanket.

Tires squealed as she swung the van to the shoulder of the road, jumped out and ran toward the burning car.

Sheriff Gandt stood by while firemen worked to extinguish the blaze. But even with the flames and smoke, she could tell that the car was a black Jeep.

Ron drove a black Jeep.

“Do you recognize this vehicle?” the sheriff asked.

A cold sweat broke out on Sage’s body. “It’s Ron’s. My fiancé.”

Sheriff Gandt’s expression looked harsh in the morning light. Then she saw what he was holding in his hands.

Benji’s teddy bear and red hat.

No... Dear God. Had Benji been in the car with Ron when it crashed and caught on fire?

Chapter One

Two years later

Dugan Graystone did not trust Sheriff Billy Gandt worth a damn.

Gandt thought he owned the town and the people in it and made no bones about the fact that men like Dugan, men who weren’t white, weren’t fit for office and should stay out of his way.

Gandt had even tried to stop Dugan from taking on this search-and-rescue mission, saying he could use his own men. But the families of the two lost hikers had heard about Dugan’s reputation as an expert tracker and insisted he spearhead the efforts to find the young men.

Dugan rode his stallion across the wilderness, scrutinizing every bush and tree, along with the soil, for footprints and other signs that someone had come this way. A team of searchers had spread across the miles of forests looking for the missing men, but Dugan had a sixth sense, and it had led him over to Cobra Creek, miles from where Gandt had set up base camp for the volunteer workers involved in the search.

Dammit, he hated Gandt. He’d run against him for sheriff and lost—mainly because Gandt bought votes. But one day he’d put the bastard in his place and prove that beneath that good-old-boy act, Gandt was nothing but a lying, cheating coward.

Born on the reservation near Cobra Creek, Dugan had Native American blood running through his veins. Dugan fought for what was right.

And nothing about Gandt was right.

Money, power and women were Gandt’s for the taking. And crime—if it benefited Billy—could be overlooked for a price.

Though Dugan owned his own spread, on the side, he worked as a P.I. His friend, Texas Ranger Jaxon Ward, was looking into Gandt’s financials, determined to catch the man at his own game.

The recent flooding of the creek had uprooted bushes and trees, and washed up debris from the river that connected to the creek. Dugan noted an area that looked trampled, as if a path had been cut through the woods.

He guided his horse to a tree and dismounted, then knelt to examine the still-damp earth. A footprint in the mud?

Was it recent?

He noticed another, then some brush flattened, leading toward the creek. Dugan’s instincts kicked in, and he shone his flashlight on the ground and followed the indentations.

Several feet away, he saw another area of ground that looked disturbed. Mud and sticks and...something else.

Bones.

Maybe an animal’s?

He hurried over to examine them, his pulse pounding. No...that was a human femur. And a finger.

Human bones.

And judging from the decomp, they had been there too long to belong to one of the two teenagers who’d gone missing.

The radio at his belt buzzed and crackled, and he hit the button to connect.

“We found the boys,” Jaxon said. “A little dehydrated, but they’re fine.”

Dugan removed his Stetson and wiped sweat from his forehead. “Good. But I need the coroner over here at Cobra Creek.”

“What?”

“I found bones,” Dugan said. “Looks like they’ve been here a couple of years.”

A foreboding washed over Dugan. Two years ago, a man named Ron Lewis had supposedly died in a car crash near here. Sage Freeport’s son had been with him at the time.

The man’s body and her son’s had never been found.

Could these bones belong to Ron Lewis, the man who’d taken her son?

* * *

SAGE SET A PLACE at the breakfast bar for Benji, then slid a pancake onto the plate and doused it with powdered sugar, just the way her son liked it. His chocolate milk came next.

The tabletop Christmas tree she kept year-round still held the tiny ornaments Benji had made and hung on it. And the present she’d had for him the year he’d gone missing still sat wrapped, waiting for his small hands to tear it open.

It was a glove and ball, something Benji had asked Santa for that year.

Would the glove still fit when she finally found him and he came home?

Two of her guests, a couple named Dannon, who’d come to Cobra Creek to celebrate their twentieth anniversary, gave her pitying looks, but she ignored them.

She knew people thought she was crazy. Mrs. Krandall, the owner of the diner in town, had even warned her that perpetuating the fantasy that her son was still alive by keeping a place set for him was dangerous for her and downright creepy.

She also suggested that it would hurt Sage’s business.

A business Sage needed to pay the bills—and to keep her sanity.

But she couldn’t accept that her son was dead.

Not without answers as to why Ron had taken Benji from the house and where they’d been headed.

Not without definite proof that he wasn’t alive out there somewhere, needing her.

Of course, Benji’s hat and bear had been found at the scene, but his bones had never been recovered.

Sheriff Gandt theorized that Lewis and Benji probably had been injured and tried to escape the fire by going into the creek. But storms created a strong current that night, and their bodies must have washed downstream, then into the river where they’d never be found.

She should never have trusted Ron with her son. It was her fault he was gone....

She refused to believe that he wouldn’t be back. She had to cling to hope.

Without it, the guilt would eat her alive.

* * *

DUGAN GRITTED HIS TEETH as Sheriff Gandt studied the bones.

“Could have been a stranger wandering through,” Gandt said. “Miles of wilderness out here. I’ll check the databases for wanted men. Criminals have been known to hide out here off the grid.”

The medical examiner, Dr. Liam Longmire, narrowed his eyes as he examined the body they unearthed when they’d swept the debris from the bones. Most of the skeleton was intact. Of course, the bones had decayed and been mauled by animals, but there were enough that they’d be able to identify him. That is, if they had medical records to compare to.

“What about Ron Lewis?” Dugan asked. “It could be him.”

Sheriff Gandt adjusted the waistband of his uniform pants and chewed on a blade of grass, his silence surprising. The man usually had an answer for everything.

Dr. Longmire looked up at Dugan, then Gandt. “I can’t say who he is yet, but this man didn’t die from a fire or from the elements.”

“What was the cause of death?” Dugan asked.

Longmire pointed to the rib cage and thoracic cavity. “See the markings of a bullet? It shattered one of his ribs. I can tell more when I get him on the table, but judging from the angle, it appears the bullet probably pierced his heart.”

Dugan glanced at Gandt, who made a harrumph sound.

“Guess you’ve got a murder to investigate, Sheriff,” Dugan said.

Gandt met his gaze with stone-cold, gray eyes, then glanced at the M.E. “How long has he been dead?”

“My guess is a couple of years.” Dr. Longmire paused. “That’d be about the time that Lewis man ran off with Sage Freeport’s kid.”

Gandt nodded, his mouth still working that blade of grass. But his grim expression told Dugan this body was more of a nuisance than a case he wanted to work.

“I’ll request Lewis’s dental records,” Dr. Longmire said. “If they match, we’ll know who our victim is.”

Gandt started to walk away, but Dugan cleared his throat. “Sheriff, aren’t you going to get a crime unit to comb the area and look for evidence?”

“Don’t see no reason for that,” Gandt muttered. “If the man’s been dead two years, probably ain’t nothin’ to find. Besides, the flood last week would have washed away any evidence.” He gestured to the south. “That said, Lewis’s car was found farther downstream. If his body got in the water, it would have floated further downstream, not up here.”

“Not if his body was dumped in a different place from where he died.”

“You’re grasping at straws.” Gandt directed his comment to the M.E. “ID him and then we’ll go from there.”

The sheriff could be right. The victim could have been a drifter. Or a man from another town. Hell, he could have been one of the two prisoners who’d escaped jail a couple years back, ones who’d never been caught.

But the sheriff should at least be looking for evidence near where the body was found.

Gandt strode toward his squad car, and Dugan used his phone to take photographs of the bones. Dr. Longmire offered a commentary on other injuries he noted the body had sustained, and Dugan made a note of them.

Then Longmire directed the medics to load the body into the van to transport to the morgue, making sure they were careful to keep the skeleton intact and preserve any forensic evidence on the bones.

Dugan combed the area, scrutinizing the grass and embankment near where the bones had washed up. He also searched the brush for clues. He plucked a small scrap of fabric from a briar and found a metal button in the mud a few feet from the place where he’d first discovered the bones. He bagged the items for the lab to analyze, then conducted another sweep of the property, spanning out a half mile in both directions.

Unfortunately, Gandt was right. With time, weather and the animals foraging in the wilderness, he couldn’t pinpoint if the body had gone into the river here or some other point.

Frustrated, he finally packed up and headed back to town.

But a bad feeling tightened his gut. Gandt had closed the case involving Sage Freeport’s missing son and Lewis too quickly for his taste.

How would he handle this one?

BY LATE AFTERNOON, news of the bones found at Cobra Creek reached Sage through the grapevine in the small Texas town. She was gathering groceries to bake her famous coconut cream pie when she overheard two women talking about the hikers that had been recovered safely.

The checkout lady, Lorraine Hersher, the cousin of the M.E., broke in. “A body was found out at the creek. Nothing but the bones left.”

Sage inched her way up near the register.

“Who was it?” one of the women asked.

“Don’t think they know yet. Liam said he was checking dental records. But he said the man had been dead about two years.”

Sage’s stomach clenched. Two years? About the time Ron’s car had crashed.

Could it possibly be...?

Desperate for answers, she pushed her cart to the side, leaving her groceries inside it, then hurried toward the door. The sheriff’s office was across the square, and she tugged her jacket around her, battling a stiff breeze as she crossed the street.

Sheriff Gandt had been less than helpful when Benji had gone missing. He wouldn’t want her bugging him now.

But she’d long ago decided she didn’t care what he thought.

She charged inside the office, surprised to see Dugan Graystone standing inside at the front desk. She’d seen the big man in town a few times, but he kept to himself. With his intense, dark brown eyes and brooding manner, some said he was a loner but that he was the best tracker in Texas. Tall, broad shoulders, sharp cheekbones—the package was handsome. Half the women in town thought he was sexy, while the other half were afraid of him.

Dr. Longmire stood next to him, the sheriff on the opposite side of the desk.

All three men turned to look at her as she entered, looking like they’d been caught doing something wrong.

Sage lifted her chin in a show of bravado. “I heard about the body you found at Cobra Creek.”

Dugan’s brown eyes met hers, turmoil darkening the depths, while Gandt shot her one of his condescending looks. She couldn’t believe the man had ever been married and understood why he wasn’t anymore.

She had heard that he’d taken in his ailing mother, that the elderly woman was wheelchair-bound, difficult and demanding. Even though she disliked Gandt, she had to admit his loyalty to his mother was admirable.

“Who was it?” Sage asked.

Dr. Longmire adjusted his hat, acknowledging her with a politeness bred from a different era. “The body belonged to Ron Lewis.”

Sage gasped. “You’re sure?”

“Dental and medical records confirm it,” the M.E. said.

Sage’s legs threatened to give way. She caught herself by dropping onto a chair across from the desk. Tears clogged her throat as panic and fear seized her.

But she’d been in the dark for two years, and she had to know the truth.

Even if it killed her.

“Was Benji with him?”

Chapter Two

Sage held her breath. “Sheriff, did you find Benji?”

Sheriff Gandt shook his head. “No. Just Lewis’s body.”

Relief spilled through Sage. “Then my son... He may still be out there. He may be alive.”

Dugan and the medical examiner traded questioning looks, but the sheriff’s frown made her flinch. Did he know something he wasn’t telling her? Was that the reason he’d closed the case so quickly after Benji disappeared?

“Ms. Freeport,” Sheriff Gandt said in a tone he might use with a child, “Dr. Longmire believes Ron Lewis has been dead since the day of that crash. That means that your son has been, too. We just haven’t found his body yet. Probably because of the elements—”

“That’s enough, Sheriff,” Dugan said sharply.

Sheriff Gandt shot Dugan an irritated look. “I believe your part is done here, Graystone.”

Sage gripped the edge of the desk. “How did Ron die, Sheriff?”

“Ms. Freeport, why don’t you go home and calm down—”

“He died of a gunshot wound,” Dugan said, cutting off the sheriff.

Sage barely stifled a gasp. “Then the car crash...? That didn’t kill him.”

“No,” Dr. Longmire said, “he most likely bled out.”

Sage’s mind raced. Who had shot Ron? And why? “The shot caused the crash,” she said, piecing together a scenario in her head.

“That would be my guess,” Dr. Longmire said.

“Was there a bullet hole in the car?” Dugan asked Gandt.