He felt it too. The weight of a truth they couldn’t yet name.
Sheriff Chase stepped back into the room, her boots echoing on the concrete floor. Wade was nowhere in sight. Her expression was tight, and the tension in her posture hadn’t eased since they first arrived.
Eli straightened. “Everything all right?”
Chase shook her head. “Wade’s secure in a holding cell. That’s not the problem.”
Delaney moved closer. “What is?”
The sheriff looked between them, hesitation flickering in her eyes. Then she exhaled and said, “I just got a call. There’s been a murder.”
----- ? ----
Chapter Thirteen
----- ? ----
Delaney stared at the laptop screen as the crime scene photos loaded one by one. Her pulse ticked harder with each image. Beside her, Eli leaned in, silent, his gaze steady and focused.
Grant’s body was sprawled in the narrow parking lot behind his office, the pavement dark beneath his head. A single gunshot wound had ended him.
“Back of the skull,” Eli said, voice low. “Execution style.”
Delaney nodded, jaw clenched. She clicked through the photos. There was no sign of a struggle. No weapon in sight. Whoever did this had planned it and gotten away clean.
Through the open door, she could hear Sheriff Chase’s voice in the bullpen. She was speaking with several deputies, her tone sharp, her instructions clear. The whole department felt on edge.
Delaney glanced toward the open door, then back at the screen. Noah had already left, headed back to headquarters to dig deeper into the details behind the murder and anything new that might surface about Grant or Wade.
And to arrange for Vivian to be brought in from the safe house.
That was necessary, not only so that the sheriff could do the death notification, but also because Vivian would have to be questioned. In cases like this, the spouse or significant other was always the prime suspect.
Vivian had an alibi, of course, since she was at the safe house with Olivia and two Crossfire Ops guards. Or rather that’s where Vivian was supposed to have been anyway. The woman was free to come and go, but even if she had stayed put, even if she had witnesses that she hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger, that didn’t mean she hadn’t hired someone to murder her fiancé.
But why?
Delaney could think of several reasons for that, but she could say the same for Lawrence who had clearly despised Grant. And that was the reason that Sheriff Chase would be bringing him in as well.
Eli shifted his position, the movement drawing her out of her thoughts and back to him. He leaned in and tapped the laptop’s touchpad, pausing on a closer shot of Grant’s face. Delaney swallowed hard, the image hitting harder thanshe’d expected.
Delaney stared at the screen as Eli paused the image of Grant’s body. The shadows made the scene even starker.
Eli leaned in and pointed toward the edge of the frame. “Look at the pavement. That’s old aggregate. You walk on that, it makes noise. Hard to sneak up on someone unless they’re completely distracted.”
She nodded. “And Grant doesn’t look like he was trying to run. His briefcase is still in his hand. Keys too.”
Eli shifted his focus to Grant’s posture. “And the angle of his head. He wasn’t looking ahead. It looks like he was turning back.”
She saw it then. His neck twisted just slightly, like he’d heard something behind him, maybe even someone he recognized.
“He knew who it was,” Delaney murmured. “At least, he didn’t feel threatened right away. That might be why he didn’t run.”
“Whoever it was got close,” Eli went on. “And didn’t give him a chance to change his mind.”
Delaney glanced out as the front door of the station opened. Noah stepped in first, his face drawn tight. Behind him were Vivian and Olivia. Olivia’s arm was around her mother, guiding her gently forward. Vivian’s eyes were red and puffy, her mascara faintly smudged, but she wasn’t falling apart.
“We heard,” Vivian said before anyone couldspeak. “Grant’s assistant called me. She found him after lunch.”
