He just wondered if she’d let him stick around long enough to be there when she let it all go and decided to move on with her life.

He hoped so. It was crazy to feel this way after only a week. But, God, he hoped so. Because he had the feeling that, with her, he could move on with his own, too.

“You really think I’ll see somebody from Hope Valley on here?” Mr. Rhodes asked. Sitting at the table, he watched Stacey open the video file and cue it forward to the point where they’d left off.

“I don’t know, sir. There’s a chance.”

“This is shopping mall footage,” he said, nodding at the screen. His voice lowering, he asked, “Is this related to that little Maryland girl whose body they found in the woods Monday?”

Stacey had told him the bare bones, but she obviously hadn’t told her father everything. Just as she’d promised.

Dean nodded once.

The older man shook his head in visible disgust. “I’ll prop my eyes open with toothpicks if I have to. I promise I won’t miss a face.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Stacey said, bending to kiss his cheek. “Normally I’d say to take it slow and easy and don’t overdo it. But today…”

He patted her hand. “I’ll overdo it as carefully as I can.”

Thanking him as well, Dean said good-bye to the other man and walked out of the house, standing on the front porch. Stacey came out a moment later.

“So this is where you grew up, huh?” he asked, staring across the rolling green lawn. The huge trees, a pond at the base of a nearby hill, and the old red barn in the distance gave the whole place the feeling of an Americana painting.

Maybe it suited her father. Maybe it had once suited her. But not anymore.

“Yes. My grandparents built it.” She walked down the stairs, tugging her keys out of her pocket. “I couldn’t wait to live anywhere else when I was a kid.”

“It’s rustic,” he said as they got into her squad car.

“That it is.”

“You’re not.”

She had just put the key into the ignition, but paused and glanced over at him. “What?”

“This isn’t you. You might have stepped right back into the lifestyle when you came back here, but here’s not where you belong.”

Her jaw flexed and she jerked her head forward. She pushed the ignition key a little too hard, grinding the engine, then thrust into reverse and backed up. “What do you know about where I belong?” she asked as she pulled out of the long driveway.

He didn’t answer, instead countering with a question of his own. “Are you telling me that when this is all over you’ll be perfectly happy going back to writing speeding tickets and reassuring old ladies who hear raccoons in their garbage cans at night?”

Her lips quirked the tiniest bit. But she was too stubborn to admit he was right. Not yet, at least. She was intuitive and bright, but never accepted anything at face value. She looked at every side of things before conceding a point. Which was, honestly, an asset in their profession.

He said nothing more. He didn’t need to. She’d look at all sides and concede the point. Sooner or later.

Or else kick his ass to the curb for trying to force her to do so before she was ready.

Another voice interrupted the silence in the car. “All units.”

She glanced at him, then grabbed her radio handset, fumbling it a little, as if unused to getting calls. Judging by what he’d seen of the town, he understood why.

“I’m here, Connie; come back.”

“We’ve got reports of shots fired, Sheriff. Repeat, shots fired.”

Any hint of a smile left her mouth, and the color drained out of her face as if someone had pulled a plug on it. Shots fired. Damn. He could only imagine when she had last heard that call.

“The address?” Stacey barked, immediately alert and ready. No more hesitating, no more fumbling; she was all business.

The dispatcher gave her the information. The street name sounded a little familiar, though he couldn’t immediately say why.

Stacey, however, obviously knew it. Her mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Then she floored it.

Since they’d been at her father’s place, a couple of miles outside of town, they weren’t the first to arrive. She spotted two other squad cars in the driveway, lights still flashing. From up the street came the sound of another siren: the volunteer ambulance crew. Per the last radio call, there was at least one known casualty.

Leaping out of the car immediately after she swung onto the lawn, she didn’t even pause to shut the door. Nor did she wait for Dean, who came on her heels. Her fingers unsnapped her holster as she ran, her Glock in her hand as she darted toward the porch, her eyes shifting as she tried to spot her men.

No one was outside. The front door stood open.All was deadly silent, the late afternoon saturated in tension.

Then someone spoke. “Please just put it down. Put the gun down. You know you don’t want to do this.”

Mitch Flanagan. He stood right inside the open door, his own weapon drawn, his bad arm down at his side. He’d come back on duty a day early, and she thanked God for it. Other than herself, she couldn’t imagine anyone better to have arrived first. Especially because right beside him was another deputy, a rookie named Joanie who’d been on the job for less than a year. Joanie’s weapon was also drawn, but she looked a whole lot more nervous.

They both faced someone inside the house. Stacey strongly suspected she knew who that someone was.

Quietly stepping onto the porch, she caught Mitch’s eye. He glanced back and forth between her and the armed perp, murmuring, “The sheriff’s here. Why don’t you let her come in? You can talk to her. See how we can fix this situation.”

He was good. Calm and reasonable, he tried to soothe the shooter, gain his trust. Which immediately tipped her off more to what was going on. Whoever the perpetrator was, his weapon was not aimed at her deputies. Because Mitch wouldn’t be trying to talk to him; he’d already have shot to kill. He was too damn good not to.

Suicide. She knew before she stepped into the door that whoever had fired the shots now had a gun to his own head. And she could imagine why.

Then she stepped inside, saw who it was, and realized she’d been wrong. Totally, horribly wrong.

The body lay on the floor a few feet from her deputies, inside the living room of the small, shuttered house. He was sprawled on his back, arms and legs splayed.

There could be no question he was dead. Half his face was gone. Blood and brain matter thickly coated the worn carpeting, splatters of it on the walls and on the small shepherd and shepherdess figurines on the nearby table. Not to mention the woman sitting beside it.

“Winnie?” she said softly, moving inside.

She fought to control her shock and mentally readjust to the situation. After hearing the address, she’d been sure that Stan had finally gone too far and killed his wife.

Not this.

Winnie Freed sat on her dingy sofa, motionless and silent. In one hand, she held the same framed picture of her daughter that Dean had commented on last weekend. In the other, a semiautomatic. It was aimed at her own head.

“Please put the gun down. Let’s talk about it.”

The woman appeared to be in shock. She didn’t look up, simply staring at the face of her lost child. Her bottom lip was swollen and bloodied. One of her eyes had been recently blackened; Stacey had no doubt by whom. Streaks on her face indicated that she’d been crying, but now she was calm. Quiet. Looking at the little girl she’d lost, oblivious to the husband she’d killed.

“Winnie, please. Don’t do this. Lisa wouldn’t want it.”

“He hurt her,” the woman whispered. “He hurt her over and over and over.”

Damn. “You didn’t know.”

The woman’s hand shook, moving closer to her temple. “I didn’t want to know.”