Out of sightdidn’t meanout of mindthough.
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 bysomeone 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.
