Sins of the Father (Ellie Matthews Novels Book 6) by Caroline Fardig

Author:Caroline Fardig [Fardig, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn River Publishing
Published: 2024-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

20

Baxter shot Michelle a “Thanks for your time,” over his shoulder and steered me out of the pizza parlor. To me, he said quietly, “Manetti said she’s stable, so that’s good news.”

“Sure,” I breathed, a lump forming in my throat. For years, Jayne had been high up enough on the department food chain that being in the line of fire was a thing of the past. Why now?

I got another text from Vic, this one only to me rather than to the whole task force: Sheriff Walsh is fine. She just got grazed. She insisted I text you to tell you not to worry. So don’t worry.

I breathed a sigh of relief and said to Baxter, “Vic said she just got grazed, and she’s evidently more worried about me being worried than she is about herself.”

Baxter smiled. “Sounds about right.” His smile faded as he plugged his phone into his SUV and pulled up the pinned location on the vehicle’s screen. “The shooting happened at her house.”

And my stomach dropped again. “At her house? Drive-bys do not happen in her neighborhood.”

In my neighborhood, maybe. But Jayne lived in a lovely area where her neighbors had monthly block parties and their kids played outside freely without a care in the world. She’d invited Baxter and me to the last block party. It wasn’t quite our scene—her neighbors were nice, but way too chatty and in my business. They wanted to know all about how Jayne and I met, which wasn’t my finest moment considering our first interaction was her arresting me for shoplifting when I was a wayward teenager.

Baxter must have been thinking the same thing I was. “Her subdivision is going to be a circus. I hope Manetti had the foresight to mobilize an army of deputies to keep her nosy neighbors from injecting themselves into our investigation.”

Even though I’d been told not to worry, it wasn’t that simple to turn off my head. The drive over to Jayne’s house and the hoops we had to jump through to get to the scene were a blur, up until I spied Jayne being loaded into an ambulance, a large bandage covering her left upper arm, which was in a sling. I jolted back to reality, scribbled my signature on the scene entry log, and rushed to Jayne’s side.

Before I could even utter a word, she held up her good hand and said, “I’m fine.”

I frowned at her. “You got shot, Jayne. You’re anything but fine.”

“It’s just a flesh wound. I need a significant number of stitches, but I’ll be good as new after that. I’ll be back at it tomorrow morning.”

“Getting shot isn’t all about the physical wound. How’s your head?”

She smiled proudly at me. “That sounds like something I would normally say to you.”

Smiling back, I said, “And you’re a smart cookie, so take your own advice. You should rest tomorrow rather than diving back in.”

“We have five active homicides. I can’t afford a day off.”

Raising one eyebrow, I said, “That sounds like something I would normally say to you.

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