Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,22

off like firecracker lit by jealousy. It hadn’t been a pretty sight.

The minister finally finished and the crowd began to slowly disperse. Cameron walked over to Sarah Blake and gave her his final condolences.

“I’ve placed all the details of whatever estate there is in the hands of Barney Kaufman,” she said as he walked her to her rental car. Barney was a local lawyer. “So I won’t be visiting your town again, but I thank you for your kindness to me while I’ve been here.” She said the words in a tone that lacked any real depth of emotion.

“I wish you a safe trip home,” Cameron replied.

“And I wish you a successful investigation,” she returned. For just a moment a faint edge of sadness darkened her eyes. “Dorothy and I had little in common, but she deserves her killer being brought to justice.”

“I intend to do just that,” Cameron replied.

By the time he watched her rental car leave the cemetery that set on the north side of town, everyone else had gone except for his deputies on duty.

“Larry, I want you to go back to the office and find out everything you can about Denver Walton and Maddy Billings,” Cameron said. “Ben, I want you to dig around in Thomas Manning’s past. Find out where he came from before he arrived here, anything you can discover about his personal life. The rest of you hit the streets, keep your nose to the ground and find something that will move us forward. I’ll be at the café should anything come up.”

As Cameron headed to his car he fought the weight of the murders that threatened to slump his shoulders in defeat, break his back in ultimate surrender. But this was the job he’d chosen, this was what he loved doing, and he wouldn’t be broken by some killer frightening his town.

Sooner or later a mistake would be made. Sooner or later he and his men would stumble on something that would take down the killer. He just hoped like hell it was sooner than later. The last thing he wanted was another dead body on his watch. There had been enough death here already to last a lifetime.

* * *

By the time he arrived at the café the place was hopping. Both Rusty and Junior were manning the kitchen and Mary and three waitresses were working the floor.

He knew he wouldn’t have a chance to speak with Mary until the place quieted so he took a seat at a table for two in the corner and ordered a cup of coffee from Lynette Shiver when she arrived to attend to him.

Once she’d served him he settled back in his chair, knowing that he wouldn’t be alone for long. Over the next two hours worried women stopped by his table for words of reassurance, men paused to give him support or to ask questions about the ongoing investigation. People simply stopped to mention something about Dorothy, an inconsequential fact that felt like a pathetic attempt to honor the woman who had been killed.

By the time Matt came through the door after school, most of the crowd had drifted away, heading back to their homes where they believed they were safe, that nothing like what had happened to Dorothy would ever happen to them.

Matt spied Cameron and beelined to his table, a wide smile on his boyish features. “Hey, Sheriff,” he said as he slipped into the chair opposite Cameron.

“Hey, Matt,” Cameron replied. “How was school?”

“Good.” Matt shrugged off his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. “The most awesome part of the whole day was when Nathan Buckley went up to the teacher to tell her he didn’t feel good and he threw up right on her shoes.” Matt laughed and then slapped a hand over his mouth. “I know it’s not nice to laugh, but it was totally gross and awesome at the same time.”

Cameron grinned and remembered a time when he would have thought such a thing both gross and awesome. They smiled as Mary approached the table. “Hey there, my favorite son,” she said as she ruffled Matt’s blond hair.

“Hey there, my favorite mom,” he replied with a grin.

“You want a snack?” she asked Matt, who nodded affirmatively, and then she looked at Cameron. “Can I bring you something? You’ve done nothing but fill up on coffee for the past couple of hours.”

It was pathetic, that the fact that she’d even noticed what he’d been drinking