Excerpt from
LAND OF THE FREE
Raine Stockton Dog Mystery #11
Coming
Summer, 2016
Chapter One
Buck said, “Start at the beginning.”
For a moment I couldn’t speak. All I could
do was stare at the bloody footprints on Miles’s impeccable wool carpet.
They were my footprints, and Cisco’s. The perfectly formed tread of my
athletic shoes, and Cisco’s paws. Evidence. But on whose side?
I said shakily, “I don’t have time for this.
I can’t do this. Melanie will be getting out of school. I have to
pick her up.”
Buck’s voice was calm, his eyes steady. “It’s
taken care of,” he said. “She’s okay. Talk to me.”
Somewhere distant, in another room, I could hear
Miles’s voice, talking to another police officer. His voice was hesitant,
staccato, stop and go. I had never known him to be uncertain before. But
that was before I had walked into the room and found him kneeling over his ex-wife’s
body, covered in blood.
Cisco jumped up onto the sofa beside me and nudged
his sweet golden retriever head beneath my chin. I slipped an arm around
him.
I said, “You didn’t send Jolene, did you?
She’s not that great with kids.”
Buck said, “No. Not Jolene. Do you
need some water? Are you okay?”
I managed to move my head in a semi-up-and-down
motion. “I’m okay.”
Cisco licked my cheek. He knew it was
bad. So did I.
Buck said somberly, “Raine, listen to me.
The only reason you’re not in cuffs right now is because of who you are.
That privilege is going to last approximately fifteen minutes longer. Your
boyfriend’s ex-wife is lying dead in the next room and the murder weapon is
registered to you. So tell me what happened, and tell me now.
Start at the beginning.”
I said weakly, “Okay.”
The only problem
was, I didn’t know where the beginning was.
