Chapter Five
Audra woke up the next morning with sunlight streaming on her face. She flew into a sitting position, glanced at her clock and swore.
It was almost nine o’clock. How had she overslept? She went over last night as she hurried to throw on some clothes and put her hair back into a tie. She’d cleaned up after her…very odd dinner with Copeland, then taken a shower, and…
She’d been so worked up about all the embarrassing things she’d said, and that stupid stumble in the stables, that she’d forgotten to set her alarm.
“I so do not have time to be so careless,” she muttered to herself, hurrying down the stairs. She didn’t have time for breakfast. She didn’t have time for anything.
It was bitterly, bitterly cold even with the sun shining, but Audra shoved out into the freezing bright and went through another day of relentless work, with few breaks, and definitely not treating her body like a temple. She knew something had to give, and yet she couldn’t find it.
But she made it through the day without incident. Got all the absolute necessities done just before darkness fell completely, then trudged home in the cold again and warmed up canned soup for dinner.
“I’m going to have that damn wine,” she announced to the quiet kitchen.
She puttered around, ate her soup and drank a glass of wine with it.
She read an email from Rosalie, smiled at the adorable pictures attached.
Rosalie and Duncan in front of the Colosseum.
Rosalie with a giant plate of pasta. A selfie, in which Duncan pressed a kiss to Rosalie’s scrunched-up cheek, some glittering Italian city in the background.
Audra brushed a tear off her cheek. She was so happy for her sister.
Rosalie absolutely deserved a loving husband, a fancy honeymoon and to look just that happy.
Ninety percent of the tears were happy ones.
But about ten percent were the aching from missing having her sister in this house, as a partner.
Everything kept changing. Everyone kept leaving.
Except her.
She blew out a breath, set down her phone and went about doing the dishes. She wouldn’t leave. This ranch was in her bones. It was her heart. Maybe some days it felt like a trudge, but the idea of leaving was too awful to bear.
So she’d weather the changes, be happy for her sister and take a long, hot bath with one more glass of wine. Because she deserved it.
Before she headed into the bathroom, she set her alarm for tomorrow. She couldn’t afford any more mistakes. A bath. One glass of wine. Then bed.
She made it scalding. Dawdled in the water. Sipped the wine until it was gone. Closed her eyes and relaxed until the water had chilled too much to stay in any longer.
She almost felt human, she decided, as she got ready for bed. The extra hours of sleep that morning had been perhaps a bit of a blessing in disguise. Now she just needed to find some time to go to the grocery store tomorrow and she just might be back on track.
She would be back on track. Unless something else happened, like an urn with her name on it, or property damage or—
“We are not thinking about that tonight. We are getting a good night’s sleep.” She backtracked through the house and made sure all the doors were locked and the security system was engaged.
Finally in bed, she snuggled in and instantly fell asleep. So instantly, she had no idea how long she’d been asleep when she woke with a start in the pitch-black. Her heart was racing. Had it been a dream or—
Something crashed, in the distance but not distant enough.
Glass breaking, and she was too familiar with guns not to know that was the exact sound that had woken her up.
Gunshots.
And then the glass crashing wasn’t so distant. It was somewhere in the house.
COPELAND WASN’T THRILLED by how little progress he’d made on Audra’s case, but a burglary had come up and Laurel had been in court, so he and Hart had jumped on it. Because Copeland could hardly tell Hart he was busy with another case when he couldn’t tell him what that case was.
Of course, technically, he could. He could rat out Audra to her extended family. It was no skin off his nose.
But he didn’t.
After they’d taken care of the burglary and Copeland was back in their office, he scowled. There were no returned phone calls from the cemetery or the crematorium. No new leads to follow, and that ticked him off.
He grumbled out his goodbyes, went home to his apartment in what citizens of Bent County considered the bustling metropolis of Fairmont. Hilarious.
He heated up the frozen meal, thinking about Audra and her homemade bread. When did she have the time? He didn’t know jack about making bread from scratch, but didn’t it take longer than running to the grocery store?
Well, maybe not if you lived out in the middle of nowhere, he supposed.
He settled himself on the couch, turned on a random sporting event and paid absolutely no attention to it, because his mind was occupied with Audra’s case. Not Audra herself. He had to understand the woman to understand who might want to hurt her, that was all.
He didn’t taste his dinner—there wasn’t much to taste anyway. He got out his laptop and did some more research into crematoriums, the systems in place to get someone declared dead, and made a mental note to call the vital-statistics department tomorrow.
It was late when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and wasn’t sure what to think of the unknown number, well past midnight, but it was the local area code. Too used to late-night calls for work, he answered.
“Beckett.”
“Copeland. Hi.”
He didn’t want to think about how easily and quickly he recognized her voice. “Audra. What’s—”
Before he could even finish, he heard a faint pop, followed by…crashing.
He jumped to his feet. “Was that a gunshot?”
“I… It appears someone’s shooting out my windows.”
“Did you call nine-one-one?” He was already strapping his own gun on and shoving his feet into his shoes on his way out the door.
She sighed heavily, and he was about to swear at her, but at least her answer was reasonable.
“Unfortunately, yes. They’re on their way, but I need you to keep Thomas out of it, okay? I don’t know how the police stuff works. When they call in detectives, and who or how, but—” Another pop. Another crash.
He was already in his car. “I’m on my way. Where are you?”
“Huddled in the bathroom upstairs. No windows. Lock on the door. I’ve got a gun. I could—”
“You’ll stay right where you are, you hear me?”
She sighed again. “Yes, that’s what the nine-one-one operator told me as well. Only she was nicer about it,” Audra muttered.
She sounded okay. Not hurt, not terrified. And still he flipped on his lights and ran code. Someone was shooting at her house.
Played that one right, leaving her out there all alone, didn’t you?
“I’ll be there in…” Too long. Why did she live all the way out in the middle of nowhere? “A while. Stay on the line with me until the police get there. Were they sending county or Sunrise?”
“I’m not sure. She… The dispatcher wanted me to stay on the line, but I wanted to call you so you could stop Thomas from getting involved.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a damn martyr?”
He took her silence to mean yes. He floored it down the mostly empty highway, knowing it would take too many long miles to get there. Hart wouldn’t have been much closer. Hopefully the 911 dispatcher sent someone from Sunrise. If that tiny department even had someone working night shift.
“Just…stay on the line with me. Go through the whole thing. Start to now.”
“I woke up…something woke me up. I assume it was a gunshot, because I heard a crash, but it was outside.” She sounded clear, careful.
Not scared. He’d take that as a good sign.
“But then…the second one. It was definitely a window in the house. Everything’s locked up.
I set the security system before I went to bed. ”
Copeland screeched a turn onto the highway that would lead him out to her place, gripping the phone between his shoulder and his ear. His heart pounded like a maniac, a fear he didn’t want to untangle clutching his chest. But she kept giving him a calm, clear rundown.
“I knew it was a gunshot the second time, so I grabbed my phone, and got a gun out of my bedroom safe. I didn’t think I should look out the window if they were shooting at them, which is the only thing I could figure would sound like crashing, so I went into the closest room without windows.
The upstairs bathroom. I called nine-one-one first, then I called you.
I should call the Kirks. I don’t think they’d hear anything all the way over there, but if they did… ”
“You’ll stay on the line with me, Audra,” he said firmly. What if someone got in? What if someone shot her?
He didn’t like all the what-ifs jangling around. That wasn’t what being a cop or detective was about. She’d given him the facts, and he was worried about the maybes.
Unacceptable.
“They’re here. The police, that is.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, something about the pounding and people yelling ‘Bent County Sheriff’s Department’ tipped me off. No one’s made a shot for a while now. I’m getting off and going to talk to them.”
“Audra…” He didn’t know what to say, and she was quiet, waiting for him to say something. “I’ll be there in a few,” he muttered, then hit End, tossed his phone in the passenger seat and gunned the engine again.
It took what felt like forever, and he knew he should take a minute to take a breath, calm down. Adrenaline was pumping and he was likely to lash out at the wrong people, but when he realized that only two deputies were standing outside Audra’s house, any fear of lashing out disappeared.