The Woman Behind the Badge (Renegade Canyon #4)

Chapter One

It was the nightmare. But Deputy Livvy Walsh wasn’t dreaming. She was wide awake, on the job.

And the nightmare was right here, right in front of her.

Livvy gasped, staggering back a step. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take her eyes off the blond-haired woman lying in the rust-streaked claw-foot tub. She was dead—no doubts about that. There wasn’t a drop of color on her skin. But there was plenty of color on the sides of the tub and floor.

Blood.

Lots of it.

It pooled around the tub, the only item left in what had once been a bathroom in the abandoned house. Now the wood floor was warped and splintered, and the walls bore the holes from where other fixtures and such had been ripped out over the more than two decades since the place had been abandoned.

Definitely not a spot where someone would have settled in to take a long soak in the bath.

The back of the woman’s neck was resting against the curved rim of the tub, but her head was turned toward the door.

Toward Livvy. Her left arm was dangling over the side of the tub, her hand nearly touching the floor.

A bead of blood had dried on the tip of her index finger, and judging from the pool beneath it, this had been her position when she had bled out.

Livvy swallowed hard and tried to tamp down her heart rate, her breathing. She was nearly five months pregnant, and she had to calm down for the sake of her baby.

She had managed to steady herself some, but she got another hit of adrenaline when she heard the footsteps behind her. Livvy automatically drew her gun and whirled around, expecting some part of the nightmare she’d never been able to see. A part that terrified her even more than the dream itself.

“Whoa,” the man said when he saw her defensive stance.

Not the nightmare but rather her fellow deputy, Ethan Oakley. Of course, Ethan was more than that.

Way more.

He’d been a friend since childhood during their days at the Horseshoe Foster Ranch. He was also her partner at the Renegade Canyon Sheriff’s Office.

And he was the father of her unborn child.

But other than the one time Ethan and she had been together, he wasn’t her lover.

She definitely wasn’t the love of his life either.

Not even close. That distinction belonged to his late wife, and Livvy was certain no other woman, including herself, would ever usurp that place of honor in his heart.

Still there were times, in those unguarded moments, that Ethan looked at her with heat sizzling in his gray eyes. Usually just as fast, he could shut it right down. But there was no heat now. Just a huge amount of concern.

“Whoa,” he repeated, touching her hand to lower her gun. “The rest of the house is empty, but I’m guessing…” Ethan’s words trailed off as his gaze slid from her to the tub. And he cursed.

In a blink, he seemed to take in the entire room, including the dead woman. Especially the dead woman. Then his attention snapped back to her.

“It’s your nightmare,” he muttered.

Of course he knew about that. Best friends and all. And being a best friend and having a room just up the hall from hers at the Horseshoe Foster Ranch, Ethan had ended up rushing into her bedroom more than once to try to soothe her when the night terrors came.

Terrors filled with images of a dead blonde woman in a tub.

Blood everywhere. So much blood. And the woman’s lifeless blue eyes fixed on Livvy.

The dream had been with Livvy as long as she could remember.

Since she’d been six years old and had been found wandering around the small ranching town of Renegade Canyon, Texas.

There’d been blood on her hands and clothes.

But Livvy had had no idea how it’d gotten there.

In fact, she’d had no idea of anything. The first six years of her life were simply a blank.

They still were.

“Come with me,” Ethan insisted, slipping his arm around her waist, pulling her to him so that her face was buried against his chest. No doubt to shield her from seeing the body again.

He rarely touched her. Not since five months ago when they’d landed in bed and she’d gotten pregnant.

And that told her just how awful she must’ve looked for him to have risked that kind of close contact.

They’d learned the hard way that touching led to…

other things. Things that she knew caused Ethan so much grief.

It was the reason that Livvy usually refrained from touching him as well.

Clearly, though, this was an exception.

Livvy wasn’t even sure she could move on her own, and she very much wanted to step out of this nightmare. Ethan helped with that. He led her back into the living room, such that it was. It was as dilapidated as the rest of the house, but at least there was no blood here. No dead woman.

Out of sight didn’t mean out of mind though.

No. The images kept repeating in her head—the dead woman she’d just seen and the one who haunted her dreams.

“Wait here,” Ethan insisted, moving away from her and taking out his phone.

She heard him call dispatch to alert the sheriff, Grace Granger, that they had a dead body and not the vandalism that the anonymous caller had reported. Ethan and Livvy had responded to the call, not expecting it to amount to anything.

They definitely hadn’t believed they’d be stepping into a nightmare.

Hearing Ethan speak to dispatch gave Livvy a much-needed jolt.

Not from the too-familiar images of the dead woman in the tub but rather a reminder that she had a job to do here.

Another reminder that this wasn’t a nightmare come to life.

Someone was dead, and soon other responders would arrive.

More cops, the CSIs and the EMTs, though the latter would only be for the sake of protocol.

The woman was dead; she needed a medical examiner, not someone to give attention to those injuries.

“Grace will be out here in fifteen to twenty minutes,” Ethan relayed to Livvy once he’d finished his call.

“Fifteen to twenty,” Livvy had to repeat to get the words to sink in.

It was so hard to think, to settle her mind, but the short time frame meant the sheriff would be getting here as fast as possible.

The ten-mile stretch between this house and Renegade Canyon was a narrow, curvy road, where it was next to impossible to speed.

There must have been something in Ethan’s voice that conveyed the urgency here to Grace.

And not merely the urgency of a dead body.

After all, there was nothing they could do to save the woman in the tub. It was obvious she’d been dead for hours, maybe even a day or two. But Grace was likely concerned about having a pregnant deputy at the scene where there could still be a killer around.

That reminder of a possible killer still in the area gave Livvy another jolt, and she did something she should have already done. She made a sweeping glance around the house to see if she could spot any clues to help them understand what’d happened here.

“Did you see anything suspicious when you checked the rest of the house?” she asked Ethan.

“No,” he was quick to reply.

Ethan stared at her, studying her. No doubt making sure she wasn’t about to lose it.

That was the only downside to being pregnant. Sometimes people treated her as if she were fragile and might shatter. Livvy wouldn’t do that. Not just because of the effect it could have on her precious baby, but also because she was a cop.

A cop with serious emotional baggage, yes.

But the badge was important to her. And she could still do her job, now and after she had the baby. Doing that job meant dealing with this crime scene even if it was a trigger for that baggage.

“I need to look at the bathroom again,” Livvy managed to say.

“I can do that,” Ethan volunteered.

There it was again—that fragile stuff. “Thanks,” she said. “But I need to see it for myself. For the report I’ll have to do.”

Ethan sighed and scratched the dark stubble on his jaw. Stubble that was always there and made him look a little like an Old West outlaw. After a few moments of hesitation, he finally motioned for her to follow him. She did, all the while keeping watch around them.

Livvy took a deep breath, then a second one, before they stepped into the bathroom. She didn’t look at the woman again. Not yet. Instead, she focused on the room itself.

“No visible footprints,” she muttered. “Just smears.” Possibly caused by someone dragging something—like a body. Or by someone purposely trying to obliterate any evidence by raking something through the prints.

“No clothes either,” Ethan pointed out.

True. And the woman was naked. Which could mean two things: Either the woman had come here naked—not a strong possibility since it was chilly outside and there wasn’t a vehicle found in the vicinity of the house—or whoever put her in the tub had also taken her clothes.

Watching where he stepped, Ethan went closer to the tub, but Livvy stayed put. The only way she could do her job right now was to focus on the scene and not the dead woman.

“I believe she’s been stabbed in the chest and stomach,” Ethan said.

His back was to Livvy now, but she saw the rise of his wide, strong shoulders as he took his own deep breath. Like her, Ethan had been a cop for nearly twelve years, and while they hadn’t seen a ton of dead bodies, they had certainly seen more than their fair share.

“We need to go outside and look around,” he suggested, tipping his head to the window. Like some of the walls, it was a wide-open hole with the glass and the frame long gone.

Livvy understood the need for them to check for a vehicle or any evidence that should be preserved, but she suspected Ethan was also eager to get her out of this room. To put a little distance between her and this visual nightmare.

She felt as if she had gone on autopilot as she followed Ethan outside into the cold, damp air. The air was equally cold and damp inside as well, but at least with the brisk November-morning breeze, there wasn’t the smell of blood.

They made their way through what had once been a side yard, careful of each step. Mindful, too, of their surroundings. This part of Texas was renowned for its beautiful views and limestone bluffs, but there wasn’t much beautiful about the land that surrounded the one-story wood-frame house.

Nature had reclaimed most of the yard so that it was now just weeds and what was left of a decaying picket fence. What Livvy didn’t see were any of those weeds trampled. And they likely would have been had someone recently walked through here.

She glanced across the gravel-and-dirt road and saw the field of dead cornstalks. Acres of them. There were no other houses in sight, but she made a mental note to find the owner of the property to check if he or she had seen anything out of the ordinary.

“How close does this come to matching your nightmare?” Ethan asked, and she could hear the hesitancy in his question. Maybe he thought talking about it would just keep it fresh in her mind.

But it was always on her mind.

“Very close,” she admitted. “The woman’s face is different, but the hair color is the same. Ditto for the way she’s positioned in the tub.” She glanced around, frowned. “Actually, this feels familiar, too.”

He stopped and turned to her, and the concern was all over his face. “Are you…remembering?”

She was quick to shake her head. “I’m not sure the recurring nightmare has anything to do with my past.”

But the odds were that it did. It was likely that she had experienced something. Some kind of hell that no six-year-old kid should ever have to experience.

Ethan made a sound that could have meant anything and got them moving again. “I think you should sit out this investigation.” He glanced at her stomach, and while he didn’t come out and say Think of the baby, she thought that was what he meant.

Livvy wanted to sit it out. Mercy, did she. She wanted to distance herself from what she’d seen in that bloody bathtub. She wanted to shove it all aside and never see those images again.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

The images were there now, and while it wasn’t something she could explain, the dead woman felt like her responsibility. And maybe that hadn’t been by accident.

“You and I are the only deputies in the station at this time of morning,” Livvy said.

Not super early. It was already eight. But it’d be another hour before a third deputy came in. Grace would have no doubt called to have that deputy come in to cover her or else left the dispatcher in charge so she could make the trip here.

“And you think—what?” he asked. “That the anonymous call was specifically meant to get you here to this place, to see that body?”

He made it sound a little far-fetched, but it didn’t feel that way to Livvy. This felt like some kind of setup. A taunt or a trigger. Something designed to rattle her to the core.

But why?

And better yet, who would do that?

Those questions repeated in her mind as they made their way to the back of the house. Still no sign of a vehicle, but Livvy spotted something: The weeds here had indeed been trampled on. The makeshift trail went from the porch to the woods behind the house.

Livvy slid her hand over her weapon again. Ethan did the same, and they both peered out into the thick trees and shrubs. She didn’t see anyone, but a sound caught her attention.

A sort of rustling.

At first, she thought it was the breeze teasing the dead leaves that remained on some of the trees. But the sound had come from her right, and Livvy pivoted there.

And she saw the piece of paper on the back door.

The wind was having a go at it, and the bottom was flapping around, threatening to rip off the single nail that was holding it in place. The paper wasn’t weathered but rather crisp and white. Definitely something that had been recently placed here.

Keeping an eye on their surroundings, they went closer and cautiously made their way up the rickety steps. There was no blood here but more of those smears as if someone had wanted to make sure they’d left no footprints behind.

“Hell,” Ethan muttered when they were finally close enough to the paper.

She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. Because her throat had suddenly clamped shut. Oh, God.

The words practically jumped off the paper at her.

Livvy, it’s time you remembered. Time for you to confess that you’re a killer.