Murder in the Smokies Read Online Free

smile.
    “But you didn’t. Why not?”
    He took another long sip of coffee and didn’t answer right away.
    Impatience clawed at her belly as she waited, until she couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “You don’t trust the local cops?”
    His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “That’s an interesting question. What made you ask it?”
    “Your clear reluctance to make yourself known to the local authorities, for one thing. Maybe you think we can’t be trusted.”
    “I didn’t hide from y’all at the crime scene.”
    “You didn’t exactly announce yourself, either.”
    “And that’s your only reason for wondering if I don’t trust the local LEOs?” He was the one who looked skeptical now.
    She didn’t miss his use of the acronym LEO, short for Law Enforcement Officer. He could talk the talk, it seemed. But could he walk the walk, as well? “You’re the one who brought it up.”
    “No, all I did was agree that I probably should have made a courtesy call to the local police. You’re the one who ran with the idea of that the cops can’t be trusted.” He leaned toward her. “Do you think it’s possible a cop could be involved, Detective Hawkins?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “How’s your mama?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
    “Unchanged,” she answered flatly.
    “Just like my dad.”
    She arched an eyebrow. Odd thing to say about his father, considering. “I suppose once you get in the habit of a certain way of life,” she said carefully, “it’s hard to make a change.”
    Apparently that was one thing from their shared past that had remained the same. She still had a weak-willed, naive mother who, though she recently turned sixty, was still going from man to man in search of some ill-defined, unachievable romantic bliss, leaving Ivy to clean up her messes and, one time at least, directly suffer the consequences of her bad choices. And Sutton’s daddy had spent most of his adult life skating the edge of the law, somehow managing to avoid more than the occasional slap on the wrist and a day or two in the local lockup.
    Of course, Cleve Calhoun hadn’t been causing much trouble for anyone in the past few years....
    “I came here thinking I’d be looking at just one murder.” Sutton broke into her thoughts. “I don’t suppose you could make my job a lot easier by telling me April Billings’s murder is unrelated to the others?”
    “Depends on who you ask,” she said drily. “Some people around these parts think we just hit an unlucky streak.”
    “Four stranger murders in Bitterwood, Tennessee? In under two months?” Sutton’s eyebrows rose. “One hell of an unlucky streak.”
    “Not everyone is convinced they are stranger murders.” Her coffee had already started to go cold; she shoved the cup away with a grimace.
    “There are people on the force who actually think these women were killed by people they know? Four different people they know?”
    She shrugged. “Apparently Bitterwood is a seething hotbed of suppressed homicidal passions.”
    Sutton laughed softly. “Okay.”
    She’d figured if she ever set eyes on Sutton Calhoun again, he’d suffer in comparison to her lingering girlhood memories. Nobody could live up to that idealized image of vigorous youthful masculinity.
    But damned if the grown-up version didn’t come awfully close. His smoky hazel eyes had an unnerving tendency to smolder when he smiled, a reminder that he might be more honorable than his swindler father, but he was just as dangerous a charmer.
    “I do think the murders are connected,” she admitted. “The victimology might lead you to think otherwise—”
    “Because they’re different ages and had different lifestyles?”
    She narrowed her eyes. “How’d you learn all this information so fast?”
    “Research.” At her look of skepticism, he inclined his head slightly. “Someone at Cooper Security has a former army buddy who now works for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.”
    “Someone