Protector of One. Rachel Lee

      For all my readers, each and every one, who help me keep Conard County alive.

      Hugs to you all!

Prologue

      It was a dark and stormy night. The most clichéd opening line in literature should have been the start of the story, Kerry Tomlinson would later think. As an English teacher she had used the line often to instruct.

      In reality, it was a bright and sunny autumn morning, redolent of coffee, sizzling bacon and the nutty aroma of grits and cheese. In the background, the radio played some lively but pleasant music. She sat at her table with the Conard County Courier open in front of her, waiting for the strip of bacon she intended to crumble into the steaming bowl of grits beside the stove.

      She heard the newsbreak start, the report of two bodies being found on the edge of the state forest in Conard County, two hikers…

      Then her world turned upside down.

       Chapter One

      Adrian Goddard sat in Conard County Sheriff Gage Dalton’s Office, about as unhappy as a man could be short of death or major injury. He’d left law enforcement two years ago and he wasn’t happy to be dragged back in. But a double homicide had caused Gage to call on him, and his sense of duty wouldn’t let him refuse.

      A lean, rangy man with a face marked by weather and strain, his gray eyes pierced whatever he looked at and nearly matched the early gray at his temples. He looked as if he might have been chiseled out of the granite of the Wyoming mountains. He had one of those faces that made guessing his age nearly impossible, yet few would have believed he was only thirty-five.

      He’d spent the day at the crime scene, gathering the kind of information a photograph or a report might overlook: angles of attack, best vantage points, surrounding cover. The little and big things that could answer the question: why did this happen here and not elsewhere? Given the relative isolation of the wooded murder scene, that question had gained a lot of importance.

      Gage returned to the office, looking as tired as any man who’d spent the day looking at two partially decomposed bodies while marching up and down rocky ground looking for footprints and cartridge casings. Maybe worse than tired, because Gage lived his life in constant pain, the only outward signs of which were his limp and the burn scar on his cheek and neck.

      “Nate’s going to come in tomorrow,” Gage said.

      “Good,” Adrian answered. Nate Tate was the former sheriff of Conard County. He’d retired a couple of years ago to be succeeded by Gage Dalton, a man still referred to as “the new sheriff.” But Adrian had worked more often with Nate over the years than he had with Gage, so he knew the man’s mettle and doubted anyone on the planet knew this county better. If anybody in Conard County had a screw loose, Nate would know who it was and would probably even have the guy’s phone number memorized. A good starting place in a case like this.

      Gage settled in his chair, a pillow behind his back, reflexive pain showing only in a minute tightening around his dark eyes. “Okay,” he said, “we’re getting nowhere fast. We should probably call it a night.”

      “Probably.” Oddly, however, Adrian felt reluctant to return to the peace of his ranch. The place he had chosen to be his hermitage. His fortress.

      “I don’t get it,” he said. “Was it a hate killing? It looks like it. The way these guys were arranged…”

      Gage winced again, this time at the thought. “I don’t want a Matthew Shepard thing in this county.”

      “Who does? But it doesn’t feel right anyway. You saw them. Something about it keeps nagging at me. Misdirection. That’s what I’m thinking.”

      Gage nodded, pulling a couple of the crime scene photos toward him. “I guess we won’t know for sure until we find out who they are.”

      Any identifiable items had been removed. Adrian stared at a photo, thinking. “If it was a hate crime, wouldn’t they want us to know who the vics are?”

      “You’re talking about a rational mind, Adrian.”

      “Even neo-Nazis can be rational. They’re just wrong.”

      At that a faint smile flickered over Gage’s face. “Maybe.”

      “Well,