football field, but her attention was locked on the macabre sight of the stiff body lying directly beneath the back bumper of Nash’s truck. It looked like there was a red rope wrapped around his neck that was tied to something in the bed of the truck. He was completely naked with splotches of frozen blood coating his skin and a dusting of snow that almost obscured his face.
She swayed, her stomach threatening to revolt. “No. I don’t believe it.”
“Get back in the SUV and wait for the sheriff,” Kir commanded in sharp tones.
She grimly battled back the nausea. She could be sick later. Right now she had to focus on Nash. “We have to see if he’s still alive. I can do CPR.”
She’d started to move toward the demolished gate when Kir grabbed her arm. “Lynne, he’s dead.”
“But—”
“He’s been dead awhile. There’s nothing you can do to help.” He firmly turned her away from the field. “Go back to the SUV.”
She dug in her heels, wanting to cling to the hope she could rush to Nash’s side and somehow urge him back to life. It didn’t matter that he’d been a selfish jerk who’d humiliated her. Or that she’d dreaded the thought of accidentally running into him. He’d been a part of her life since she was in preschool. How could she imagine Pike without him?
But she’d seen exactly what Kir had seen. If Nash had still been alive when he was brought to the field, he was now frozen to death. A naked, wounded body couldn’t survive in this temperature.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be right behind you,” he promised.
“Kir—”
“I promise.”
A sharp breeze sliced through air, sending a spray of snow into Lynne’s face. She shuddered, her stomach clenching at the thought the snow might have been touching Nash’s dead body. Bile rose in her throat and she scurried toward the SUV. She could calmly stitch together a gushing wound or dig through cow dung in order to diagnose a particular bacterium.
But this . . .
She reached the vehicle before she threw up.
Chapter 20
Kir held up his phone to take a video of the crime scene. He began at the broken gate and followed the tracks across the field to where the pickup was parked. Next he took several pictures of Nash’s body.
He wasn’t one of those ghoulish people who were fascinated by train wrecks or dead people. But he wanted clear images he could study later. The local law enforcement would never share information they discovered, and he fully intended to continue his amateur investigation.
There was a vicious monster out there. Kir wasn’t going to sit around twiddling his thumbs while the killer came closer and closer to Lynne.
He was trying to zoom in on the footprints leading away from the truck when the sound of an approaching siren had him shoving the phone into the pocket of his coat. A couple minutes later the heavy truck rounded the corner and skidded to a halt just inches from the fence.
The sheriff climbed out along with her deputy, Anthony, both of them looking as if they’d been dragged out of bed.
Stomping toward the mangled gate, the sheriff silently took in the sight of Nash lying naked in the snow. Then, placing her hand on the weapon holstered on her hip, she turned to glare at Kir.
“Why am I not surprised that you and Dr. Gale are in the middle of yet another murder?” she growled.
Kir arched a brow, refusing to be goaded by the woman. “Hardly in the middle. We happened to be driving down the street and noticed the lights on.”
Kathy snorted in disbelief. “Happened to be driving down the street at this hour?”
“Lynne’s a vet. She has a crazy schedule.”
“And you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s safe for her to be out here alone. Do you?”
An ugly smile twisted the woman’s lips. “I’m more worried about the safety of other people around the good doctor.”
“You can’t honestly believe she has anything to with this?”
The sheriff hunched her shoulders. “She just discovered that her boyfriend was cheating on her. Now he’s dead and she found the body. If that isn’t suspicious, I don’t know what is.”
Kir ground his teeth. This woman used her badge to bully respect rather than trying to earn it as a good, decent sheriff who cared about those she served. He didn’t know if it was a character flaw or just years of being worn