Single Father Sheriff. Carol Ericson

mannequin?” Coop chewed on his bottom lip before spitting out his next words. “It’s a kid.”

      Kendall choked and swayed on her feet.

      He jumped forward to grab her and ended up pulling her against his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her shaking frame. Beads of moisture trembled in the strands of her hair, and he brushed his hand across the top of her head to sweep them off.

      “Let’s go inside. I’ll make those calls and you can warm up.” He rubbed her arms still wrapped in the shawl. “You’re shivering.”

      “Do we have to?” she murmured against his chest. “You can’t use your cell phone for those calls?”

      “And keep you waiting around outside while I do? No way.”

      She placed her hands against his chest and leaned back, looking into his face. “I don’t want to go back in there and make a scene. I’m surprised they didn’t all come rushing out here when they heard me scream.”

      “They didn’t hear you. I was standing on the porch and the decibel level is high in there. Someone even turned on some music, not to mention the house is set back from the street.” He spread his arms. “So, no alarm bells.”

      “Until we walk into that house. They were already eyeing me in there like I was some kind of black cloud.”

      Grabbing the edges of her shawl, he tugged. “It’s just a mannequin, Kendall, not a dead body. Just some kind of sick trick.”

      “If you really believe that, why are you calling out your officers, the FBI and God knows who else?”

      “Because we’ve had two kidnappings in this town, and that mannequin was left for you. If there’s any kind of forensic evidence in your truck, we need to get our hands on it.”

      “All right.” She rolled back her shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”

      He ushered Kendall back into the house, but most of the guests were too busy talking, eating and singing karaoke in the corner to notice them.

      As one of Daryl’s colleagues from Evergreen hit a high note in a 1980s rock song, Coop winced and squeezed Kendall’s arm.

      She rewarded him with an answering grimace and an eye roll.

      “Couldn’t stay away from the karaoke?” Melissa sailed forward, snapping her fingers and shaking her hips. Then her eyes widened and the smile dropped from her lips. “What’s wrong?”

      Coop bent forward until his lips almost grazed Melissa’s ear. “Someone pulled a prank on Kendall by leaving a mannequin wrapped in a tarp in the back of her truck.”

      “Why would someone do that?” Melissa clapped one hand over her mouth. “You think it has something to do with—” she glanced over her shoulder at her guests whooping it up “—the kidnappings?”

      “Maybe, maybe not, but if it is just teenagers and we catch them, let’s just say this could be a teachable moment for them.”

      “I’m sure that’s all it is.” She yanked on Kendall’s braid and grabbed a phone from its stand. “You can use our landline. Our reception is so iffy down here, we can’t always depend on our cell phones.”

      Coop called the station first and asked the sergeant on duty to bring a forensics kit and send a squad car over. Then he plucked Agent Dennis Maxfield’s business card from his wallet and punched in his number.

      While the phone rang, he covered the mouthpiece and jerked his chin toward an open bottle of wine on the counter. “Have another glass, Kendall. I’ll give you a ride home when this is all over.”

      “Agent Maxfield.”

      “This is Sheriff Sloane. There was an incident tonight I thought you might want to know about. Someone wrapped a tarp around a child-sized mannequin and put it in a truck bed to make it look like a body.”

      “Sick SOB. What’s that got to do with the kidnappings?”

      Coop turned his back to Kendall and Melissa chatting over their wine. “The truck belonged to Kendall Rush.”

      Silence ticked by for two seconds. “Who?”

      “Kendall Rush. Her sister Kayla Rush was one of the Timberline Trio.”

      “Yeah—twenty-five years ago.”

      Coop’s jaw tightened. “It’s a coincidence, don’t you think? If the mannequin had appeared in some random employee’s truck at Evergreen, I wouldn’t be as interested in it as I am.”

      “Is your department already looking into it, Sheriff?”

      “My guys are on the way.”

      “We’ll let you handle...this one. Let us know if you find anything of interest to our case.”

      Coop had a death grip on the phone, but he closed his eyes and relaxed his muscles. “Copy that, Maxfield.”

      He held out the phone to Melissa. “Thanks.”

      “Well? Is everyone going to rush out here with their lights spinning and guns blazing?” Kendall swirled the single sip of wine left in her glass before downing it.

      “Couple of my guys are going to have a look—fingerprints, fibers, footprints. Then they’ll take the mannequin away and we can figure out where it and the tarp came from.”

      “My guests are going to know, aren’t they?” Melissa’s gaze slid to the merrymakers in the other room.

      Coop snorted. “By the sound of it, they’ll be too drunk to notice what’s going on. I hope they all have designated drivers.”

      Ten minutes later, Sergeant Payton called to indicate he and the patrol officer were out front.

      Coop popped a mini creampuff in his mouth and charged toward the front door, eager to escape the screeching duo on the makeshift stage.

      “Hold your horses.” Kendall grabbed on to his belt loop. “I’m coming with you.”

      “Are you sure?”

      She covered her ears. “Even looking into the dead eyes of a mannequin has got to be better than this.”

      Nodding, he opened the door for her, releasing a breath into the cold night. The wine had done her good, or maybe it was being around people oblivious to her uneasiness. He glanced back into the room, still frothing with hilarity.

      That wouldn’t last long.

      Both officers had double-parked their squad cars, since the party guests had left no room on the street. They broke off their conversation when Coop and Kendall exited the Rhodes’ yard.

      Sergeant Payton pushed off the door of his car and met them at the truck. “We already took a look. Creepy.”

      “Did you watch where you were stepping?” Coop pointed at the ground. “Ms. Rush and I already tromped through here before we knew what we had.”

      The sergeant flicked on a spotlight to flood the truck bed and the area around it with light. “We had a look before, but either the person who planted the mannequin covered up any footprints and disturbances or the wind and rain did it.”

      Coop crouched next to the back tire and examined the road. It hadn’t helped matters that Kendall had driven the truck away and then backed up. The moist dirt bordering the street showed no footprints except theirs.

      The patrol officer joined them—a new kid named Quentin Stevens.

      He held up a black case. “I have the fingerprint materials. Should I give it a try?”

      “Why not? Dust the tailgate and all around the back of the truck.”

      “Do the homeowners have a surveillance camera, by any chance?” The sergeant poked his head into the yard.

      “Not