“No one followed me—I would have seen their headlights in my rearview mirror.”
“Then it sounds like you may have interrupted something,” the sheriff said.
“I think so too.” Sam nodded toward the inn. “Ranger Winters here says one of the bullets splintered the post on the porch at the inn. We were taking the long way around so we wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene. Want to join us?”
Nate’s expression was noncommittal as he raised his hat and smoothed his short-cropped hair. “We don’t have adequate light, but I don’t see any harm in doing a preliminary look-see. Who knows, if they were operating the backhoe, they may have been burying a body.”
The three of them walked past the visitor center, up the pathway, and then climbed the steps to the Mount Locust Inn. The restored four-room cabin was a favorite for modern-day visitors on the Trace, but it was hard for Sam to imagine the early 1800s when fifteen or twenty travelers might stop overnight at the inn and sleep on the front porch or the ground.
“This is where I was standing when someone fired at me,” Emma said after they walked through the dogtrot to the back porch. Sam used his phone app to shine a light up and down the post she pointed to, stopping where the wood was splintered.
“The backhoe is over there.” Emma flipped on her flashlight and pointed it toward the trees.
“Stay here with Emma. I’ll check out the backhoe,” Nate said as he unhooked his flashlight and set out for the machine.
“You didn’t see anyone?” Sam asked.
“No,” Emma said. “I only heard whoever it was.”
A few minutes later, Nate returned. “It looks like someone was digging a hole when you interrupted them, but I didn’t find evidence of anything they were burying.”
Like a body. “Do you want to rig up lights and search the area?” Sam asked.
“No. I have to justify any overtime pay for my crime scene techs, and this doesn’t warrant it,” he said. “The evidence isn’t going anywhere, so we’ll wait until daylight. Otherwise we might blunder around here and destroy something. I’ll get one of my deputies to secure the premises.” The sheriff pressed the button on his mic. “Where are you, Trey?”
“On my way to Mount Locust.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam could see Emma stiffen and jerk her head toward the Trace.
“You okay?” he asked quietly as the sheriff talked with his deputy.
She nodded curtly.
“Trey is on his way,” Nate said, turning back to them. “And if you’re ready, we’ll head back to the gate.”
“My field ranger can help with guarding the scene as well,” Sam said, keeping an eye on Emma as she drummed her fingers against her leg, a sure sign she was nervous, at least it had been ten years ago.
Another transmission came in, and Nate stopped while they continued on. Sam turned to her. “Do you have a problem with Carter? Other than him being Sheriff Carter’s son?”
“I never held who his father was against him. Trey has always taken up for Ryan.” Her fingers stilled. “He might not be glad to see me, though. We dated a while back, and he’s not happy just being friends.”
“You dated Trey?” He’d figured Emma had left a string of broken hearts through the years, but he never dreamed the deputy would’ve been one of them. “I’m sure his dad wasn’t too happy about that.”
“I doubt he ever knew. Our former sheriff has Alzheimer’s.”
“I didn’t know,” Sam said. “Any particular reason for the breakup?”
“That isn’t any of your business.”
“It’s my business if there’s bad blood between the two of you.”
“It’s nothing like that. Between my job and finishing up my master’s degree, I haven’t had time for dating.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m usually better at breaking off a relationship, anyway.”
They had reached the low brick building that housed the visitor center, and she glanced past him toward her pickup. “I’m tired. I think I’ll pick up my backpack and head on home.”
“Not a good idea,” he said. “Since I can’t leave yet.”
“I don’t know what your leaving has to do with me.”
He counted to ten to keep from snapping at her. “Now you sound like one of the heroines in a horror movie.”
Emma frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know, a serial killer is on the loose and the woman hears a noise in her basement and decides to check it out. The audience is yelling, ‘Don’t go!’ as she creeps down the stairs . . .”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous. There’s no serial killer, and I’m not going down in a basement. Just going home.”
He stared at her, not believing she didn’t get it. “Someone just shot at you. We don’t know if you were the target or just in the wrong place, but either way, you shouldn’t be on the road alone.”
“As far as I know, I don’t have any enemies, so there’s no reason for me to be the target. Someone was probably just trying to scare me so they could finish whatever they were doing.”
“Indulge me. I shouldn’t be much longer,” he said.
Indecision played on her face. “Okay,” she said. “But I’ll wait in my truck.”
A small but grudging victory. Emma was as exasperating now as she’d been years ago. But he had to hand it to her—she was gutsy. A lot of women would have folded after being shot at.
Emma was halfway to the gate when another SUV pulled into Mount Locust and a deputy climbed out and walked toward her. Had to be Trey Carter. He frowned as the chief deputy stopped to talk with Emma, then a minute later he turned and marched away.
“I see Trey made it,” Nate said as he rejoined Sam. “Where is Emma going?”
“Her truck. She’s waiting for me to follow her home.”
“Good deal. I was afraid she would want to leave by herself.”
They both turned as the chief deputy sauntered toward them. Back in high school, Trey had thought highly of himself, and judging by his swagger, he still did.
The deputy removed the toothpick hanging from his mouth and nodded to Sam. “I heard you’d taken the district ranger job,” he said. “Came here all the way from Wyoming. Don’t know that I would’ve traded that gig for Natchez.”
“To each his own.” Sam wasn’t answering Trey’s implied question of why. “Congratulations on making chief deputy.”
For the briefest second, the muscle in Trey’s jaw twitched, then he tipped his head. “Thanks. I expect to learn a lot working with the sheriff.”
From the newspaper accounts Sam had read, Trey had come in a distant second in the November election. Sam turned to Nate. “What time in the morning do you want to meet here?”
“Eight too early?”
“Perfect,” he replied. “I better catch up with Emma, or she’ll leave me behind.”
“You got that right,” Trey said, narrowing his eyes as he looked past Sam to Emma’s truck.