CHAPTER ONE
1112 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Alexa Chase felt like the one sane part of her world was falling apart. Stacy, the troubled thirteen-year-old neighbor girl she had mentored and fussed over for the past year, was moving away.
And it was all Alexa’s fault.
If she didn’t have Drake Logan sending hitmen after her, this ranch north of Phoenix would still be a safe space for the kid.
It wasn’t even a safe space for an armed, highly trained Deputy U.S. Marshal.
Alexa and Stacy walked around the corral for what might be the last time, checking on Alexa’s two horses, Smith and Wesson. Alexa tried to hide the stiffness of her movements, the slowly healing cuts and bruises from the attack just one week before, but she could see from the worried looks the girl gave her that she was fooling no one.
She had a right to be worried. Some killer, sent by either Drake Logan or the Jersey Devil, had been lying in wait for Alexa for a few days at the ranch until she had returned from a case. The guy had slashed her twice and pummeled her nearly to unconsciousness before Alexa got the upper hand and gutted him with his own knife.
Stacy went up to the horses, who nuzzled the familiar teenager and accepted sugar cubes from her outstretched palms.
Alexa looked across a few hundred yards of open desert to the trailer that had been Stacy’s poor excuse for a home. The family pickup truck was all loaded with their meager possessions. The trailer had been sold, and Stacy’s parents were ready to go.
Her mother, a lump of a woman in a stained halter top and sweatpants, already sat in the passenger’s seat smoking a cigarette. Mr. Carpenter strolled around the dusty front yard, kicking at stones, waiting. He’d been sober for a week now, as far as Alexa knew, and dressed nicer than before.
“Nicer” meaning clothes that were clean and had few to no stains. Alexa had rather low expectations of the man, but to his credit, he was trying. His first real job in a long time required him working in a warehouse on the south side of Phoenix, meaning they needed to move to make his commute manageable as well as for their own safety.
Yes, he was trying, but that didn’t mean he’d succeed. Alexa had seen him try and fail before. And his wife, the woman who was supposed to be Stacy’s mother, was still knocking them back every day.
And when the drinking got too bad, when Stacy’s parents would get loud or start tripping over furniture, Stacy would flee here.
No more. Now she’d have nowhere to turn to, or she’d find someone to rely on who didn’t have her best interests at heart. Alexa had been in law enforcement long enough to know what happens to vulnerable teenagers with no responsible adults in their lives.
She’d looked up the neighborhood the Carpenters were moving to. Not the best. Instead of living on the fringes of the desert with horses and few neighbors, Stacy would have to deal with an urban environment with all sorts of undesirable types hanging out on her street.
Alexa turned to the girl, who was giving Smith a hug before turning to Wesson and giving him the same thing.
“We’ll arrange a ride for the weekend,” Alexa said. “That was a good idea your dad had.”
Stacy only nodded.
Mr. Carpenter, in a rare display of concern for his kid, had suggested that Alexa take the horses to some predetermined location and he’d drop off his daughter so they could have a ride. It would be wonderful, but it wouldn’t be the same. Alexa wouldn’t be coming home to find Stacy cleaning out the stables or curled up on the sofa texting in front of the TV. This overly emotional, erratic teenager was the only home life Alexa had.
And she was the only home life Stacy had.
The girl turned to her, eyes downcast, and gave her a hug. The tight embrace sent a flare of pain from various bruises and knife wounds, but Alexa didn’t care.
“Dad’s waiting,” she mumbled.
“All right,” Alexa replied.
With a final squeeze of her hand, Stacy walked away, passing through the strip of desert between Alexa’s ranch and what used to be the Carpenter’s trailer.
Alexa didn’t follow. Strange, but that had always been an unspoken rule. Stacy always came to her. Alexa never went over to the trailer. Alexa guessed it was because she didn’t want to see Stacy’s parents, and the girl was embarrassed by their behavior, but it also had created an invisible barrier through which Stacy came into and out of her life at will, with Alexa having no real control.
And now she was leaving.
Alexa wiped her eyes as Stacy got into the back of the pickup amid all the furniture and boxes, even on the ride not wanting to be with her parents. Her dad gave Alexa an uncertain wave, got into the pickup, and started it up.
As the truck picked up speed down the dirt track leading to the road, a plume of dust kicked up behind it, Stacy raised a hand. Alexa waved back, until the truck got onto the road, turned, and dwindled away out of sight.
Alexa let out a deep sigh. It was still only nine in the morning, and she had a whole day ahead of her. No case, no office work. Marshal Hernandez, her boss, had given her strict instructions to rest and recuperate.
To hell with that. She had to get to the bottom of the attacks on her. This was the second time it had happened, and while she had many enemies and couldn’t be sure who had sent the killer this time, one suspect rose above them all.
Drake Logan the Southwest’s worst serial killer. Stuck for life in prison and awaiting a trail that would almost certainly end in him getting the death penalty.
A trial that would include the charge of murdering Alexa’s old partner right in front of her eyes.
Facing Logan again filled her with dread. He had a powerful, almost hypnotic hold over her. He could read her like he was reading his own emotions, his own motivations.
And he knew it. He loved playing a mental game of cat and mouse with her.
The bastard. This time, Alexa was going to win.
She went into the house and, her limbs stiff and painful, changed into her uniform.
Time for a showdown.
- Writer
