She closed the door and walked to her car. Did he believe her? If he did, it didn’t show. It wasn’t a complete lie. Lane didn’t go to the bridge very often. Just when she needed to think. To breathe. From the corner of her eye, she caught the deputy still watching her. Just smile, the voice in her head reminded her. Pretend everything is fine. That you’re fine.

What were the odds that Deputy Charlie Lynch would catch her at a moment of weakness? And what if he told Sheriff Huggins? The sheriff was like a father to her, but what if the truth of why she was out there got back to her actual father?

Lane pressed her lips together, her fists tightening over the straps of her backpack. No. That couldn’t happen. Wouldn’t. Whatever opinion the new deputy formed about her she’d prove wrong. She had to—she had everything to lose.

TWO

CHARLIE TUGGED AT HIS COLLAR, much preferring his soggy T-shirt and shorts from earlier to the stiff polyester uniform. The vinyl raincoat trapped the humidity against his body like Mother Nature had decided Walton, Georgia, was her own personal sweat lodge. How thoughtful of her.

After he had dropped off Ms. Kent at her car, the sheriff had instructed him to swing by the station and change into a uniform. Today would now be his first official day on the job. By the time he returned to the crime scene, the perimeter around the body had already been taped off.

“Lynch.” Mud-spattered boots stepped out of the tree line. Deputy Ben Wilson. The man himself could easily have been confused with a tree trunk. “Sheriff needs a second man in charge.”

Was it a request? An order? Wilson was the most senior deputy and at least ten years older than Charlie. Wilson’s square jaw shifted as his brown eyes squinted into tight lines. He was a man of few words, but being the size of a side-by-side fridge allowed him that privilege.

“Yes, sir.” The ingrained response fell from Charlie’s lips. Second man in charge? Charlie tugged on his collar a second time. The heat was suffocating. Or was it the pressure?

With a grunt and a nod, Deputy Wilson marched off.

Charlie wiped the sweat from his brow and readjusted his hat.

“Lynch.” Sheriff Huggins waved him over.

“Yes, sir.” Charlie followed the sheriff back into the wooded thicket, grateful his uncle had stopped calling him by his first name. He saw the way the other deputies eyed him. It was impossible to keep his relationship to their boss a secret, but Charlie didn’t want any of them thinking he wasn’t on the force by his own merit. He’d proven himself as an MP; he’d do it here too and prove his father wrong in the process.