Murder in the Smokies - By Paula Graves Page 0,18

handiwork through narrowed eyes before lifting his gaze to meet Ivy’s. He smiled slightly, and once again, those smoldering hazel eyes made her gut twist into a hot, tight knot. “Any luck locating the shooter?”

“We found a few slugs stuck in trees up on the mountain, but looks like he policed his brass. We didn’t find any spent shells. Or any sign of the shooter himself.”

Sutton didn’t look surprised. “So, are we free to go?”

Johnny put his hand on Ivy’s shoulder. She dragged her gaze from Sutton’s and looked at her old friend. “You sure you’re okay to drive?” he asked.

She gave him a look that made him grin. “I’m fine to drive.”

“I reckon y’all are free to go, then.” He let go of her shoulder. “You might want to avoid meeting anonymous strangers at the top of Clingmans Dome in the future,” he added as he walked them out to where they’d parked their vehicles. He bent and gave Ivy a quick kiss on her forehead. “That goes for you, too, Hawk.” He walked them as far as the door leading to the parking lot and waved goodbye as they headed toward their vehicles.

“Boyfriend?” Sutton’s tone was soft and bone-dry.

“Old church camp buddy,” she answered, turning to look at him. The rain had stopped for the time being, though the heavy clouds overhead suggested the storm wasn’t yet over. But her clothes were still damp through, and the cold wind blowing across the parking lot made her shiver.

Sutton pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “You should get yourself home and get warm and dried out before you catch cold.”

“I don’t think you should stay at the motel again tonight,” she said before she had finished forming the thought.

His eyebrows notched upward.

“The man with the rifle knows where you’re staying,” she explained. “What makes you think he’s not lying in wait for you at the motel?”

He gave her a thoughtful look. “I guess nothing. It’s a possibility.”

“Do you have somewhere else you can stay? Maybe with Cleve?”

He shook his head. “Not going to happen.”

She couldn’t believe what she was about to suggest. Hadn’t she just admitted to John that she didn’t really know a damned thing about what Sutton Calhoun had become after he left Bitterwood? All she knew was the jumble of stories that passed around town like wildfire, and half of those were pure fantasy, in her experience.

But she said the words anyway. “So come stay at my house.”

His eyes narrowed. “I thought your boss told you to stay clear of me.”

“He said not to let you near my investigation,” she admitted. “But you’ve already blown past that stop sign. And besides, I’m not letting him dictate what I do or who I see on my own time.” The words came out sounding more like a challenge than she’d intended.

The look he gave her set fire to her toes. The rush of heat spread upward until she felt as if her whole body were on fire.

“Okay,” he said.

Oh, hell.

Chapter Five

“I don’t rightly remember what he looked like.” The Stay and Save night clerk, a skinny young man in his early twenties who looked as if he might be a little stoned, answered Sutton’s question with a wrinkled brow, as if trying to remember what had happened less than twenty-four hours earlier was too much of a mental strain.

Hell, it probably was.

“And you’re sure it was a man who left the message?” Sutton glanced at Ivy, whose expression shifted at his question. Apparently she’d been making the same assumption he had, that the gunman in the woods was a man. But assumptions could be wrong.

Just not this time, apparently. “Definitely a man,” the clerk said with a firm nod. “I remember the voice was deep. Definitely a guy. But, see, I was filling out some paperwork that’s due at the end of this week, and it’s really complicated, so I didn’t take time to look up to see his face. I just jotted down what he told me to and then got back to my paperwork.”

Damned inconvenient, Sutton thought. “Could you tell anything from his voice? His ethnicity or where he might be from?”

The clerk squinted, as if trying to remember was hard. “I don’t remember any accent, so I guess that probably means he’s from somewhere around these parts. I think he was white. I guess he could have been Cherokee, since we get some of those around here sometimes, too. Pretty sure he wasn’t