Blood Moon (Bear Sheriff Book 1) Read online

  Blood Moon

  Bear Sheriff I

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2018 by Becca Fanning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  26. SNEAK PEAK Fate’s Reaping Chapter 1

  27. SNEAK PEAK Fate’s Reaping Chapter 2

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  The overturned car in the field had been there for hours; when Sheriff Marcus Stone arrived, the engine was long cold. By his estimation, the car had drifted into the oncoming lane and had over-corrected when they’d tried to get back to the right side of the road. They’d gone straight off the road and into the ditch. Tire marks cut through the grass, then the car had gone airborne and landed in the field before it rolled.

  Marcus sighed, a long, slow sound that barely held back his frustration. It was nearly 4:00 in the morning. He’d been asleep when his radio had buzzed to life nearly an hour ago. Since he was the only sheriff in the county, it was his job to respond to incidents like this, whether he liked it or not.

  Sitting in his old Ford Bronco, Marcus aimed the spotlight out into the field again. Pieces of glass glinted in the light, but there was no movement in the car or the field. He turned the spotlight off, opened the door, and flipped on his overhead lights. Grabbing a flashlight, Marcus stepped out of his vehicle and headed towards the scene of the accident fearing the worst.

  “Hello?” he called. There was no answer. Taking a deep breath, he called again, but he knew it was pointless. Whoever had wrecked the car was long gone; the footprints leading away from the driver’s side door told him that much.

  He knelt down at the overturned car, flashing his light inside. Though it looked bad on the outside, the car was deserted and there was no blood. He took another deep breath and his hackles went up on the back of his neck.

  Alcohol.

  Whoever had been driving was drunk, though if he had to admit it, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Half the residents of the county kicked back a few beers before hopping in any vehicle, and no matter how hard Marcus tried to stop them, it never seemed to make any impact.

  But there’s never been a wreck this bad before.

  His light caught a shattered bottle of vodka. A couple of beers, half of them broken, were on the roof of the car.

  Whoever wrecked this car could have been gone for hours. He knew how it would play out: in the morning, he’d get a call reporting a stolen vehicle the night before from the car’s owner. He’d heard it a dozen times, though it was usually only for fender benders and insurance scams. He tried to remember who drove this vehicle, but he couldn’t remember. He sighed and knew he would find out early tomorrow morning.

  Unless…

  He got to his feet and flashed the light towards the footsteps leading off into the night, going west through the field of dead crops towards the river.

  Anger surged through him; whoever had been driving was obviously intoxicated and they thought they would get away with it. If they could get away with it once, he was certain they would try to do it again. And next time, things might not go so well.

  They could hit someone. Hurt someone else. Kill someone else…

  Marcus cut that train of thought off and jogged back towards his vehicle. The first person he called was dispatch, telling them he was going after the driver on foot. Of course, they advised against it – the suspect could be armed and dangerous, but Marcus wasn’t going to let them get away and do this again. He cut the call off, then pulled out his phone and called Teddy Cooper.

  Cooper answered after the fourth ring with a sleepy, and mildly annoyed, “Hello?”

  “Coop, it’s Sheriff Stone. We have an overturned vehicle out on Route 4. Up in Potter’s field.”

  “Okay,” the answer on the other line was short.

  “I want you to come out and pick it up,” Marcus said, his voice turning hard. They weren’t the best of friends. Hell, they didn’t even get along – but they interacted more than Marcus would have liked. He was the Sheriff, and Cooper was the local tow truck driver, so they ended up talking to each other semi-regularly.

  “I’ll get it in the morning,” Cooper said, and Marcus could tell he was getting ready to hang up.

  “Now, Cooper,” Marcus growled. “It’s dangerous, it looks bad, and I don’t want to hear what Potter will say when he finds an overturned car in his field on his morning rounds in two hours. I want it gone.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Cooper said. Then he hung up the phone without another word. Marcus sighed again, slid his phone into his pocket, and slammed the Bronco’s door shut again.

  Now that he’d taken care of everything else, he could hunt down the person responsible for this wreck. He could bring them in, arrest them, and do his job.

  And get justice, he thought. Teach them a lesson.

  He was back to the car in seconds, kneeling down and inspecting the footprints leading away from the overturned car. The footsteps were uneven, at times dragging – his prey wouldn’t be moving fast. There was no blood he could detect, so he reasoned the driver wasn’t injured in the crash. He scanned for a second set of prints, but didn’t find one, and that was even better. The driver was alone.

  Marcus got to his feet for the second time and moved off at a brisk trot. His flashlight beam bobbed ahead of him, but he hardly needed it: his eyes were perfect at picking out all of the little details and the moon was shining brightly. It was a crisp, cloudless night, perfect for tracking.

  The red and blue lights from his vehicle faded as he made his way deeper into the field. It was an old hay-field, cut months ago. Winter had passed, yet spring had yet to set fully in. Still, the weather was good – a warm breeze blew across the field.

  Deeper in the field, his drunk driver’s tracks became harder to follow. Marcus occasionally took a deep breath, smelling everything – the cool water from the river just a bit further to the west, the dead stalks of hay, the almost undetectable tang of vodka – and something else that no one else would be able to detect, something that only he could: fear.

  The man – and Marcus knew with certainty in his heart that his driver was male – was afraid. And he has every right to be, with me hunting him down. He doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s not getting away.

  He knew that soon the man’s fear, uncertainty, and worry about getting arrested would fade. He was drunk; he would think he had gotten away clean. After a long night’s rest, a warm shower, and plenty of sobering up, the drunk driver would be in the clear.

  I won’t let that happen. I won’t let him get away. Won’t let him have the chance to hurt someone else some other night.

  Marcus heard the gurgling of the river far before he saw it. In the warm months, the river would be rushin
g below, supplying much needed water in the arid Arizona summer. But now, it was hardly more than a trickle. Fighting his way through trees growing at the banks, Marcus started downward. Even with the tree cover blocking out most of the moon’s light, Marcus could see a set of tracks exiting on the far side of the bank. Marcus had no idea why the man would cross the river instead of just following it back into town, but he didn’t question it. He strode across the river and splashed up on the far bank, then was moving onward again.

  It soon became apparent why the man had crossed the bank: he wasn’t going back into town. On the contrary, he was crossing another hay field. Marcus paused a few moments and thought.

  The Hayes, the Polks, and old man McDowell lived out of town to the west. McDowell was a widower who kept to himself; Marcus had only seen him a few times since he’d moved to town just over two years ago. The Polks were a well-respected family with two kids, the stereotypical white picket fence, and a dog. Lester Hayes, on the other hand, was a middle aged man with penchant for consuming too much alcohol when he wasn’t working third shift at the plant down in St. David. He’d heard rumors that his wife had left him, but Marcus had never cared too much to get to the bottom of that rumor.

  It looks like Mr. Hayes never made it into his shift, Marcus realized. He suddenly recognized the car. Knowing exactly who his perp was and exactly where he was going, Marcus dropped his slow, methodical tracking. He was no longer worried about missing the trail or alerting the drunk to his presence. He knew exactly where he needed to go, so he started to run.

  The wind rushing through his hair made Marcus smile for the first time in days. But when he thought about finding Mr. Hayes, and how he had been driving drunk, risking everyone else’s lives – the smile vanished and was replaced by anger, barely seething below the surface.

  Whatever Marcus had felt, for that fleeting second, was gone.

  He reached Mr. Hayes’ house in record time. He took a deep breath, and smelled the man – a mixture of sweat, alcohol, and sweet, sweet relief.

  Marcus’s fists on the door were heavy enough to shake the windows in the house. There was no answer, but Marcus managed to detect the slightest sound of shuffling boots. Someone, most likely Mr. Hayes, was in the house.

  “It’s Sheriff Stone,” Marcus called, pounding on the door again. “Lester, come on out on the porch.” When there was no answer, he yelled, “Now don’t piss me off! I can hear you in there, Lester, so you’d best come out here and talk to me before I have to bust down your door and come in there and get you myself.”

  From inside of the house, Lester Hayes called, “You can’t do that!”

  “I’ll do whatever I damn well please, Lester. Now open the door.”

  Marcus stood back as the door opened. The porch light was on, but the lights inside of the house were dark, and Marcus couldn’t see inside as well as he would have liked.

  “Whatda want?” Lester asked, leaning heavily on the door frame for balance.

  “I want you to come out on your porch and talk to me,” Marcus said. He flashed his best smile, though he felt anything but happiness. His hand twitched; he was doing everything in his power to fight the urge to reach in, grab Lester by the neck, and slam him against his house.

  He wanted to hurt this man.

  Lester shuffled out, half onto the porch, and Marcus saw that he was sporting a black eye. “What’d you do to your eye, Lester?”

  Lester looked surprised, but said, “Hurt it at work.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Last night,” Lester said. He fidgeted nervously.

  “Thought you worked third shift, Lester.”

  “Second now.”

  “Second now? Is that right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And where’s your car, Lester?”

  Lester’s eyes went wide, looking right towards where Marcus assumed it was usually parked.

  “It’s been stolen! Oh, my God! Sheriff, someone stole my car!”

  Marcus was silent for a few moments. “Enough, Lester. I know you wrecked it out on Route 4.”

  “What? It’s been wrecked? My God!”

  “You’re a good liar, Lester. I’ll give you that much. But I know you’ve been drinking and driving, and I’m sick of your lies, and I’m sick of the game you’re trying to play. I’m taking you in, Lester.”

  “You can’t! I haven’t done anything wrong!” Lester said. He turned to go back into the house, but Marcus was quicker. In a flash, he had Lester by the shirt, dragging him bodily out onto the porch. Lester squealed in alarm. Marcus tightened his fist, lifting Lester off of the ground, and then he slammed him into the side of the house – hard.

  Marcus’s vision was going red. He’d been fantasizing about this, and now he was actually doing it. He was going to teach Lester Hayes a lesson he wouldn’t be soon to forget.

  “You can’t do this! You’re a cop! I have rights!”

  “Who’s gonna believe you?” Marcus roared, pulling him away and slamming him against the house again, harder than before. “Who’s gonna believe an old drunk like yourself? Your best bet is to come clean with me right now, Lester. Because no one knows I’m here but you and me. And I’m not in the mood.”

  “My wife…”

  “Don’t start that with me. I know she’s gone.”

  “Fine! It was me! Just don’t hurt me, Jesus. Put me down, please,” Lester pleaded. Then he was babbling like a little kid, crying, snot running down his face. Marcus looked at him, the anger fading away, instead replaced by pity.

  Slowly, Marcus’s vision cleared. He let Lester Hayes down.

  What was I doing? What was I going to do?

  Marcus took a deep breath, trying to steady himself – he was shaking even more than Lester, now. He reached onto his belt, grabbed a pair of cuffs, and cuffed Lester.

  “Let’s go,” Marcus growled.

  “Go where? Where’s your truck?”

  “Back at the scene of your accident.”

  “What? Please, Officer. We can’t walk –”

  “Let’s go, Lester. I won’t tell you again,” Marcus growled, pushing Lester towards the steps. The man stumbled down the two steps, landing on his knees in his gravel driveway. Marcus watched him try to stumble to his feet, then he grabbed him by the arm and lifted him up. “And I’m a Sheriff, Lester. You’d do well to remember that.”

  Chapter 2

  “So, this is Charming? Couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s nothing charming about this place. It’s little more than a ghost town.”

  Angie didn’t say anything, because what could she say? Erica was right. There wasn’t much to Charming, Arizona. But that wasn’t such a bad thing. If there had been something, anything at all, really – she wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t have a job here.

  So, yeah. There’s nothing here. But it won’t be that way forever. This is a good thing.

  “But I guess that’s just what you want?” Erica said, echoing her thoughts. Erica rolled down the passenger side window, letting in a flow of warm night air. They’d just rolled into town at nearly 5:00 in the morning, yet they’d already passed a few rough looking trucks on their way to who knows where. “Must be getting an early start on their crops. Or farms. Or cows. Or whatever it is people around here actually do.”

  “Erica,” Angie warned. They’d been driving for the past eight hours, most of which were filled with Erica complaining.

  “Sorry,” Erica said. “It’s just that –”

  “You’re not used to this,” Angie finished. Erica opened her mouth to defend herself, to say something more, but Angie continued, “It’s just that we usually work in big cities. New York. LA. Chicago. Even Houston, once.” Erica slammed her mouth shut, defeated. Angie kept talking, saying, “We’ve never taken a job like this. It’s one thing, Angie, to gentrify a business district or even the occasional neighborhood. But it’s an altogether different thing to take on a whole town. Does that sound about how
you’re feeling?”

  Erica nodded, glancing out the window. Angie could watch as Erica counted the amount of closed businesses they were passing on what amounted for the main drag in Charming, but mercifully, Erica continued to keep her mouth shut.

  Angie hadn’t meant to snap at Erica, but she’d heard it all before. She’d heard it the second she’d told Erica about her plans. She’d heard it the entire trip to the airport. She’d heard it the entire flight. She’d heard it when they landed in Tucson, heard it while they got the rental car, and she’d heard it almost the entire eight hour trip to Charming. She’d heard it too many times. Though I’m sure to hear it again.

  “It’s just that –”

  “What does it matter to you anyway, Erica?” Angie cut her off. “This is my job. I decided to take it. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But you’re my assistant. And I offered you the opportunity to stay home, and you declined. I’m here to bring Charming to the future, and you’re here to help me. If you don’t want to be here, you’re still more than welcome to leave.”

  “I want to be here, Angie,” Erica said. “You know me. I just complain.”

  “All of the time,” Angie responded.

  “All of the damn time,” Erica said, and she grinned a little. Angie grinned just a bit, too. She liked Erica – for the most part. Truthfully, she did. And while Angie was great at what she did, Erica kept her in check. “Plus, what would you do without me? You couldn’t do this without me.”

  “You’re probably right,” she conceded. Angie had all of the ideas. She’d built her business from the ground up. She’d started small: helping failing businesses get back on their feet. She’d moved up to entire chains, restaurants and then hotels. She’d grown from there, taking on entire neighborhoods. Turning bad parts of towns into the good part of town. Along the way, she’d hired Erica as her assistant to help smooth everything over.