Back Roads by Susan Crandall

Author:Susan Crandall
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780446540032
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-03-16T22:00:00+00:00

Leigh tried to put Brian out of her mind for now. There was nothing she could do at the moment to reassure him she had no intention of screwing up his chances at a political fu-ture. She knew what she owed him, and it was a damned sight more than behaving herself in public. She knew her job, and no matter what the personal cost, she’d do it.

She decided to visit the newspaper office before heading out to dig around in Hattie Grissom’s old wounds. You’re just putting it off. She shook off the thought. But somehow she didn’t feel her ethics were much above Hale Grant’s and his sensationalism for personal gain.

As she was reaching for the door to the Recorder’s office, it swung out and almost hit her in the face. Hale Grant’s gaze slid quickly past as he apologized and side-stepped her.

“Wait a minute,” she called as he hurried down the brick sidewalk. “Hale.”

“I’m already late. Can it wait, Sheriff?” He continued to move away.

Following, she said, “No, it can’t.”

He slowed and allowed her to catch up.

She fell into step beside him. “I suppose you have a good explanation for your leading story in yesterday afternoon’s paper.”

“Explanation?”

Leigh wanted to smack the look of mock confusion off his face. “You know we have no leads regarding Brittany Wilson’s disappearance. In the future I’d appreciate you limiting your articles to the facts.”

He stopped and turned to face her. “Those were the facts, Sheriff.”

“I suppose buried under all of the innuendo and insinuation there were the bones of a few facts. Listen, it’s my job to protect this community and the path you’ve started down—”

Poking a finger in the air between them, he said sharply, “If it’s your job to protect this community, why are you ignoring the evidence?”

“What are you talking about? What evidence?”

He laid a finger on his cheek and looked to the sky. “Let me see... maybe the fact that Will Scott is new in town, nobody knows a thing about him, he’s secretive as a mummy, he was out all night when she went missing, he worked on Brittany’s car just before it broke down out in the middle of nowhere—and oh, yes, there’s the matter of the ticket stub.”

She started to say something, but he raised a hand with an air of infuriating superiority.

“Don’t blow a gasket. I saw the evidence baggie through the window, sitting on the seat of your car. I don’t suppose you’ve asked Mr. Scott if he’d visited the Speedway Mu-seum before he blew into our fair city? Maybe you were too busy dancing—”

She leaned close and pointed a finger at his chest. “Listen, mister, this is my investigation and what I have and have not asked is none of your concern. Any more inflammatory stories like the one I read yesterday and—”

“And what? You gonna try to censor the press?” He actually looked down his nose at her, the cocky little bastard.

“My job is to find Brittany. Just stay out of my way.

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