Dead Certain. Carla Cassidy

sky as if announcing the arrival of a carnival to the town of Cherokee Corners. Savannah stepped on her gas pedal, knowing it wasn’t carnival lights that strobed the sky over her parents’ ranch house. It was police lights.

      What was going on? She groaned, wondering if her parents’ had gotten into one of their legendary fights and some passerby or well-meaning neighbor had called out the entire police force.

      Even as the thought flew through her head, she dismissed it as the house came into view. Something had definitely happened, and it wasn’t just a noisy spat between her parents.

      Police cars lined the driveway and floodlights hit the house from every angle. Her heart smashed into her rib cage as she saw one of her fellow officers cordoning off the porch with bright-yellow crime-scene tape.

      She parked and was out of the car almost before it stopped running. She raced toward the house, vaguely aware that neighbors had begun to gather around the perimeter of the scene.

      As a homicide cop she knew the scent of death, knew how the scent permeated the air at a homicide scene. She didn’t smell death as she reached the edge of the yard, but before she could get any closer, she saw her brother, Clay, talking with Chief of Police Glen Cleberg.

      She hurried to the two men, instantly aware that her brother was as angry as she’d ever seen him. His handsome, sculptured features were a mask of barely suppressed rage, and his black eyes glittered with a fierceness she’d never seen before.

      “I’m the best crime-scene investigator you have, Chief,” he said, his voice deep and filled with urgency. “You’ve got to let me in.”

      “Dammit, Clay. I told you no and I mean no.”

      “What’s going on?” Savannah asked, looking at her brother. “What’s happened?” Her heart thudded painfully as she turned her gaze to her boss.

      “Dad’s been taken to the hospital. He was attacked.” Grim lines bracketed Clay’s mouth as he spoke.

      “What do you mean…attacked? Where’s Mom?” Savannah tried not to panic, but something in Clay’s dark eyes and in the fact that Glen didn’t quite meet her gaze filled her with fear. “Where’s Mom?” she repeated.

      “Savannah…at the moment we aren’t sure what we’ve got here,” Glen said and stared for a long moment at the house where officers were going in and out as they performed their duties. “Apparently John Newman stopped by here about a half an hour ago. The front door was open and he knocked but nobody answered. He could hear the television on, saw that your parents’ car was in the driveway and so he knocked again.”

      He finally looked at her and in his eyes she saw a sadness that frightened her. “When he still didn’t get an answer, he decided to go inside. He found your father in his recliner. It was obvious he’d been hit over the head with something and was in bad shape. He called for help, then went in search of your mother.”

      Savannah’s hand flew to her mouth as tears burned her eyes. “Oh, God…is she…is she dead?”

      “They can’t find her, Silver Star,” Clay said.

      The fact that he’d used her Cherokee name indicated just how upset her brother was. “What do you mean, they can’t find her? She’s got to be here.” Savannah felt as if she’d been thrust into a puzzle and none of the pieces she’d been handed made any sense at all.

      “Look, I’ll let you both know what’s going on when we know what’s going on,” Glen said impatiently. “In the meantime I want you both to stay out of the way and let us do what we need to do.” He pointed to Savannah’s car. “Sit there and I’ll have somebody brief you as soon as we have any more information.”

      Clay let his feelings be known by cursing soundly beneath his breath as he walked beside Savannah to her car. At that moment another car squealed into the driveway. It was their sister, Breanna, and her new husband, Adam.

      Savannah listened as Clay filled them in with the brief information they had learned so far. “What about Dad?” she asked when he’d told them what little he knew.

      “From what Glen told me he was alive when they took him out of here by ambulance. But I’m not leaving here until they find out where Mom is.” He frowned and looked at the house. “And they are absolutely destroying vital information by allowing in so many officers.”

      “Why don’t we go to the hospital and check on Dad,” Breanna suggested. “You two stay here and call us the minute you hear anything about Mom.”

      Savannah touched her sister’s arm. “Call me on my cell and tell me how Dad is doing.”

      Breanna nodded, and she and Adam took off. Savannah turned back to the house, her heart still pounding an irregular rhythm. Everything felt surreal—the lights, her fellow officers, the crime-scene tape flapping in the mid-June night breeze. It all felt like a terrible dream.

      What could have happened? Who could have hurt her father? Had it been a robbery? If so, then where in God’s name was their mother?

      It felt odd to stand on the periphery of a crime scene as a bystander. Even more odd and frightening was the fact that the crime scene was the house where she’d grown up, where her parents lived.

      “I can’t just sit around here and do nothing,” Clay said, interrupting her thoughts. “I’m going to check the outbuildings.”

      “I’ll go with you,” she said, needing to do something, anything constructive.

      She was grateful nobody tried to stop them as they walked around the house and toward the barn at the back of the property. She had a feeling Clay wouldn’t hesitate to deck anyone who tried to get in their way.

      Savannah felt as if she’d jumped off the bridge and entered water so deep it clogged her brain, making rational thought impossible.

      Somebody had hurt their father…and their mother was missing. Her brain worked to wrap around the situation but found it impossible to comprehend.

      It didn’t take long for them to check the barn, which was used mostly as a storage area for Native American artifacts. Rita Birdsong James worked at the Cherokee Cultural Center at the edge of town and had slowly taken over the barn as a place to keep items for the center.

      It was when they were searching the shed that Savannah’s cell phone rang and she answered to hear Breanna at the other end of the line.

      “It’s not good, Savannah,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “Dad received several severe blows to the back of his head. The doctor isn’t sure about the possibility of brain damage, and Dad is in a coma. What’s up there? Have they found Mom?”

      “No…nothing. They aren’t telling us anything, Bree.” For the first time the full awareness of the gravity of the situation hit Savannah.

      Their father was in a coma and their mother was missing. She sank down on a bale of hay, tears suddenly blurring her vision. “Bree, I’m coming to the hospital. There’s nothing I can do here. Glen won’t let us anywhere near the house. Maybe Dad will wake up and be able to tell us what happened.”

      “I’ll stay here,” Clay said a moment later after she’d hung up with Breanna and brother and sister were walking back toward the house.

      “Come with me to the hospital, Clay. Right now Dad needs us there.” She somehow felt it was important that they all be together, in the same place. She felt as if her family was slipping through her fingers and what she needed was to hang on tightly to them all.

      Clay raked a hand through his thick dark hair, uncertainty twisting his handsome features. He stared at the house, tension radiating from him, the same tension that whipped through her. “What in the hell happened here tonight?”

      “I don’t know, Clay.” She placed a hand on his muscular forearm. “But it’s obvious we’re out of the loop here at the moment. Come with me to the hospital. Right now we