Where Angels Rest by Kate Brady Read Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t wait.
    “Will she still be there Monday?”
    Jensen hesitated. “Uh, well, sir, I imagine so. She’s booked at the Red Roof Inn.”
    “Well, good. That’s just when I’ll be home.”
    “Monday?”
Erin bunched her fists on the desk, wincing at echoes of pain in her body. It was nine o’clock at night, and this cherub-faced deputy named Jensen hadspent the past two hours taking her through her story, writing down notes, and reading the online reports related to Justin. Finally, he’d deemed her situation significant enough to phone the almighty, not-to-be-disturbed sheriff.
    For all the good it did
, she thought, looking around at the sheriff’s office. Not exactly a paragon of high-tech law enforcement: a lobby with a couple of large wooden desks and some file cabinets, a set of holding cells down one hallway, a handful of offices Erin couldn’t see, and a mysterious miasma of odors. A second deputy had gone searching for someone to open the courthouse across the street on a Saturday night, ostensibly to dig up details about the restraining order against her. Erin had been left to try to convince Deputy Jensen that Huggins should be behind bars and not her.
    “Let me talk to him. Call him again,” she said.
    “Look, Mis—” he caught himself, “Doctor. Technically, I could have you in lockup. Jack wants you charged with trespassing, at the least. I don’t think you want Sheriff Mann coming back here until the judge gets a chance to look at the restraining order.”
    “The judge,” she snapped. “The one who’s deer hunting?”
    “Judge Watkins always goes deer hunting the week after Oktoberfest ends, ever since I was a kid. He’ll be back M—”
    “Monday,” she chorused. She’d heard it all already and dread clawed through her breast. In the hours left before then, how much could John Huggins do? Pack up and get away? If he vanished again, what would that mean for Justin?
    Erin closed her eyes. She knew what it meant.
    The printer against the wall started spitting out pages again and Jensen got up to collect them. “I’m doing what the sheriff would do, anyway—gathering the information on your brother’s case. By the time he gets back, I’ll have everything ready for him.”
    She cursed and rubbed her face, winced. She’d forgotten the scrape. She scrubbed at it again, this time with a nail.
    “Oh, damn it,” she said, looking at her finger. “I’m bleeding.”
    Jensen was up in a heartbeat, looking at the side of her face. “Hold on,” he said, and started down the hall. Erin felt a pang of guilt. This was a kid, probably living out some childhood fantasy of becoming a deputy, and she was taking advantage of the fact that he was willing to get her a freaking Band-Aid.
    Forget it. All’s fair in love and war. Her fight to save Justin was all-out war.
    Erin gave him five seconds and began rooting through the desk. Address, address… Somewhere, there had to be some indication where the sheriff was. A cabin—that much Jensen had told her—and it couldn’t be far. Not when a man went there to hunt for just a weekend.
    She pushed papers around, opened those drawers that weren’t locked and looked at the computer. No, she didn’t dare try getting into that. Keeping one eye on the front door and an ear peeled for Jensen’s footsteps behind her, she went to a smaller desk that sat near the door—that of a daytime receptionist, she supposed—and found a Rolodex. A good, old-fashioned Rolodex.
    Her pulse skittered and she fingered through… Mann, Mann, Mann. And there it was:
Mann—cabin.
    Erin snatched the card from its file and chanced aglance down the hall, then pocketed the address just as Jensen came back.
    “Here’s some antiseptic and—”
    “Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “You know, I think you were right in the first place. There’s nothing I can do right now without the sheriff and judge.”
    His brows drew together a touch but he said, “Right. Go to