Sarah Armstrong - 02 - Blood Lines Read Online Free Page A

down and kissed her again.
    “Don’t worry, Maggie,” I said. “I’ll watch over Emma Lou.”
    Maggie nodded and quickly fell fast asleep.

 
     
     
Three
     
     
     
    T he captain stared down at me with an amused grin when I opened my eyes early the following morning. In the two years since Bill’s death, I’d noticed that the men I work with often have that kind of reaction. I guess they see me less as cop tough and more single-mom scattered. I could consider that a bad thing, but most of the time it works to my advantage, so I don’t fight it. I’d slept on an old cot outside the shed, to the dismay of my back and neck. Cold, I pulled the sleeping bag up around me. Even Texas can be chilly on a winter morning.
    “I knew you were excited about talking with me, but I didn’t expect that you’d sleep outside to greet me,” he said with a chuckle. The sunlight bounced off his captain’s badge, like mine, a lone star inside a wagon wheel. My silver lieutenant’s badge was stamped out of a Mexican cinco peso, but the captain’s, anchored onto his brown leather vest, was gold. When I put up my hand to block the glare, I noticed he carried a thick file folder.
    “Late night,” I said, reluctantly unzipping the sleeping bag and pulling my legs out, still wearing my jeans and sweater from thenight before. I wrapped the open sleeping bag around my shoulders, attempting to keep warm. “We moved Maggie’s pinto into the shed. She’s sick. Some kind of infection, it looks like.”
    “Isn’t she carrying a foal?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “She is.”
    “I’m sorry about the horse, Sarah. I hope she and the foal pull through,” he said. “But I need a couple of answers. First, any more thoughts on the Cox file?”
    The truth was that I’d been unsettled half the night, thinking and rethinking the case. “It’s not easy to fall asleep out here in the cold,” I said. “I had lots of time to consider it.”
    “And?” he prodded.
    “I see no reason to irritate our friends at H.P.D., at least not about this case,” I said. “There’s nothing in those photos to indicate this is anything other than a suicide.”
    “Good,” he said. “I would have stood by you if you thought it was more, but I’d hate to have a showdown over a hunch.”
    “I agree,” I said. The case still nagged at me, but I had no evidence, nothing to hang my suspicions on. Bending down to retrieve the Cox file from under the cot, I said, “I’ve got it right here.”
    “Great. And regarding that other matter?” he said, taking the folder in his meaty hands.
    I’d almost forgotten about the question of my return to the rangers. Maggie and Mom said it was all right, but now with Emma Lou . . . ? “How about I work half-days at the office and half-days at home, just for the first couple of weeks, until Emma Lou and the foal are out of the woods?” I proposed. “Then you’ve got me back in the office full-time.”
    “Well, it’s about time!” the captain crowed. “Sarah, you’re going to make a lot of folks happy. You’ve been missed.”
    “Thanks, Captain,” I said. “It’ll make me happy, too. I’ll see you at the office in a little over an hour. I’ll work this morning, soI can be here when Doc Larson swings by this afternoon, if that’s okay?”
    “Couldn’t be better,” he said. “It’s more than okay.”
    “It’s settled then,” I said, shaking his hand, cementing our deal.
    The captain turned to leave but then swung back. “I almost forgot,” he said, handing me the folder he’d brought with him. “This is a new case. Some young girl, a singer, has a lowlife obsessed with her. Her security people think it’s a guy from Houston, although we’re not positive they’re looking at the right man. Anyway, this girl is pretty scared. She lives in Los Angeles, but she’s scheduled to give a concert in Dallas this weekend, Saturday night, and then open the Houston rodeo with a concert next Monday