The Secret of Cherokee Cove. Paula Graves

with Laney and sat with his hands folded over his chest, clutching her cell phone in his bloodstained fingers.

      “You doing okay?” she asked softly.

      He looked up, handing over the phone. “Laney wanted to come down here, but I told her to stay put until I find out where the EMTs want to ship me.”

      Dana glanced at Nix and found him watching them, his expression unreadable. With a sigh, she bent closer to her brother. “What really happened, Doyle? You’re a good driver. You didn’t just run into a bridge.”

      He met her gaze, a hint of apology in his green eyes. “And it’s your vacation, too,” he murmured.

      “What happened?”

      Closing his eyes, he laid his head against the headrest. “The brakes failed.”

      A ripple of dread snaked through her. “How long since you had them replaced?”

      He rolled his head and opened his eyes to look at her. “Last week.”

      Nix’s voice rumbled behind her, grim as the grave. “Someone tampered with his brakes.”

      Chapter Two

      “Have there been any overt threats?”

      Nix looked up at Dana Massey, wondering if she was ever going to run out of restless energy and stop pacing a hole in the waiting-room floor. He’d taken pity on Laney Hanvey, who looked as if she was close to snapping as it was, and removed Doyle’s sister to the other end of the waiting area, where she could walk the floor to her heart’s content.

      “No overt threats,” Nix answered when she stopped in front of him, a belligerent look in her mist-green eyes. “But he’s not without enemies.”

      She sank into a chair across from him, as if she’d run out of gas. Stretching her long legs in front of her, she dipped her chin to her chest and looked at him beneath a fringe of dark eyelashes. “So Merritt Cortland is alive, then.”

      “Can’t be sure of that.”

      “He has the strongest motive.”

      Nix nodded. “But not the only motive.”

      “Who else?”

      “We haven’t yet figured out who else from the police department Cortland might have had on his payroll. The closer we look, the more feathers we ruffle.”

      “Whose feathers?”

      What did she think she was going to do, go run down every police department employee who ever grumbled about the new chief’s campaign of cleaning out all vestiges of corruption? There wouldn’t be much of a force left. Even those who’d never thought a minute about taking money from Cortland resented being under constant scrutiny. Nix certainly did.

      But he knew it was necessary, so he dealt with it. Others in the department weren’t quite as sanguine.

      “Everybody gets tired of being a suspect,” Nix answered.

      “Too bad.”

      He smiled a little at that. “You must be popular with your fellow marshals.”

      The withering look she shot his way might have stung a lesser man. But Nix shrugged it off. She was tense and upset. And she was clearly a woman of action, so sitting around waiting for someone else to solve the mystery of the tampered brakes had to be driving her crazy.

      Ivy Calhoun had volunteered to go with the vehicle to the garage, leaving Nix to stay with the chief. Massey had asked him to stick close. Nix suspected he wanted someone there at the hospital to protect Laney and Dana.

      Not that Dana needed a knight in shining armor. He’d put his money on her in a fair fight.

      “Doyle wanted me to go home for the night.” She tried to hide it, but Nix heard a hint of hurt behind the words.

      “Not a bad idea. The doctors have already told you he’ll live, and they’ve sedated him for the fracture reduction, so he’s probably not going to be able to talk to you again before morning.”

      She winced a little at the term “fracture reduction,” the kind of pain-filled grimace that told him she’d suffered a break or two in her time. Not surprising, considering she chased fugitives for a living. “I just worry he’s in danger.”

      “That’s what I’m here for,” Nix said.

      Her eyes narrowed. “And to keep an eye on Laney while he’s unconscious?”

      He should have known she’d figure it out. “That’s my guess.”

      She pushed out of her slump. “I haven’t said ‘thanks.’”

      “For what? Putting on the brakes in time to keep from smashing into the wreck?”

      “For taking the initiative to go look for him in the first place.”

      “If I hadn’t, someone else would have.” He nodded toward her. “You were already thinking about it, weren’t you?”

      “Just say ‘you’re welcome.’”

      He felt a smile crack his face. “You’re welcome.”

      The smile she shot back at him came complete with shiny white teeth and a set of dimples that took ten years off her age. “I don’t suppose you could give me directions back to Bitterwood?”

      He pulled out his notebook and sketched a quick map for her. “Where are you staying?”

      “I told Doyle I’d stay at his place. It’s closer than my hotel.”

      He wondered if that was a good idea. If someone had gone after Doyle’s truck, they might have booby-trapped his house, too.

      “I’ll be careful,” she said, correctly interpreting his expression. She was better at reading him than she had a right to be. He’d often prided himself on being inscrutable.

      “Okay.” He pointed at the map. “This is Old Purgatory Road. Here’s the bridge. Cross the bridge and go about a mile past Smoky Joe’s Saloon, then take a right on Laurel Road. The chief’s house is at the end of the road. Can’t miss it.”

      She waved the sketch at him. “Nice map. Thanks again.”

      He almost shrugged off her thanks, but remembering her earlier admonition, he put on his best “plays well with others” face and said, “You’re welcome. Again.”

      Ah, there came the dimples. Worth the price of admission.

      She passed a pair of new arrivals on the way out, speaking to them quietly before she left. It took Nix a second to place them—Natalie and J. D. Cooper, the chief’s friends from Alabama. The redhead nodded a greeting and sat across from Nix in the seat Dana had just vacated. Her husband settled in the chair beside her.

      “Detective Nix, right?” Natalie asked by way of a greeting.

      Nix nodded.

      “Have you seen Doyle since he arrived here?”

      “Just briefly when he came in.”

      “Any idea what caused the accident?”

      Nix wasn’t sure he was authorized to comment on what was now an ongoing investigation.

      Apparently his poker face needed more work than he realized, for Natalie’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

      Nix cleared his throat. “I can’t really comment.”

      Natalie and her husband exchanged looks. “We’ll just ask Doyle and he’ll tell us.”

      “That may be,” Nix agreed. “But that’s between the chief and you.”

      Natalie’s eyes flashed with irritation, but her husband put a hand on her arm.