“Hello again.”
I almost jumped off the damn rock, spinning quickly to come face-to-face with the male voice behind me. I instantly narrowed my eyes when they clashed with the dull blue eyes of the deputy who’d shown up on my doorstep that first night I returned.
“Deputy McDowell.”
He smiled. “I see you remember me.”
“I never forget a face or a name.” That particular trait had come in handy in my career. It somehow felt especially important now. I stared at the deputy, seeing he wasn’t on duty. He wore a long pair of hiking pants, a T-shirt, and a daypack. Similar to my own hiking attire.
“Came out to enjoy the trails on my day off. Gotta enjoy it while you can, you know?”
I nodded. “I suppose.”
His gaze narrowed a little as he stepped forward. “Ms. Taylor, I hope there are no hard feelings regarding the other night. I was just doing my job. We got a call at the station that someone was loitering on the Walker property.”
I frowned. “Loitering is an interesting term to use, considering I wasn’t even on the property for fifteen minutes by the time you showed up.”
It was his turn to frown.
“Our residents around Harlington are very safety conscious.”
I lifted my chin. “I’m very familiar with Harlington, Deputy. I spent a lot of my childhood here.”
His eyes widened in surprise. That was when I was sure he hadn’t grown up around here. Not that I knew everyone in town—I didn’t—but there was something about Deputy McDowell that told me he wasn’t from this part of Texas.
“It’s a good thing that you’re back. I’m sure your grandfather would’ve been happy to see you down here.”
“Don’t speak about my grandaddy,” I spat out without regard that this was a man who regularly carried a badge and gun. I didn’t like the way he spoke about someone so close to me, as if he knew him well. In fact … “Did you know my grandfather?” I asked.
For some reason, Deputy McDowell rubbed me the wrong way, but maybe he knew some information about my grandfather that I didn’t know. If he’d seen him in the days before his death, he could perhaps tell me something.
His strawberry blond eyebrows lifted. “We met in passing a few times. I didn’t know him well. I was the deputy called out to the scene of his death.”
I swallowed, not wanting to conjure up the image of my grandfather out in the woods, alone, for hours before being found. However, I needed to ask my next question.
“Was there anything suspicious to you?”
His face became serious. “Suspicious?”
I nodded. “Yes. I mean, did you notice signs of a struggle or see any bruising on his face or body? Anything like that?” My grandfather had been cremated right after his death, per his wishes.
“Ms. Taylor, I think you’ve been watching one too many true crime shows. Or those podcasts. Everyone thinks they’re a damn detective now,” he mumbled, but I heard him. “Your grandfather killed himself. It’s unfortunate, and I’m sorry to have to tell you that, but that’s my professional opinion. Not just mine, either. The other deputies on the scene pretty much concluded the same thing.”
I pushed out a breath, my hopes deflating. If a trained deputy, who was one of the first to discover my grandfather’s body out in the woods, believed he’d killed himself, then why did this keep gnawing at me?
“Thank you, Deputy McDowell.”
He looked at me for a long moment before finally nodding. “You enjoy the rest of your hike.”
I watched him walk off, but couldn’t peel my gaze away from him until he disappeared into the distance. A cold feeling crowded the center of my chest.
Sitting back down on the boulder, I finished my sandwich. It wasn’t until I took the final bite that I glanced down in my free hand to see that somehow I’d picked up the black rope I’d been toying with earlier. A feeling of calm and peace had overcome me, as it often did when I got lost playing and tying knots with this rope.
Strange.
I’d had that feeling come over me recently when I wasn’t playing with the rope when I was in the presence of …
“Son of a bitch,” I blurted out as a memory from my childhood struck me so profoundly my insides shook.
