One Good Man Read Free

case. They’ll reopen the investigation. They’ll figure out that Stephanie Monroe fell off the face of the earth and go looking. And someone with the right connections, or a big-enough gun, can find out that Dr. Kate Danby used to be Dr. Ruth Monroe.”
    Another pause and her mother was talking again. “I’m coming back. We need to talk to the authorities. And how the hell did the news make it into the paper without someone in law enforcement giving us a call?”
    At the sound of the clinic door opening, Jamie turned, one arm hugged tightly around her middle that was roiling and surging in advance of the oncoming tidal wave she feared would sweep her away. “Oh my God.”
    “What is it? Jamie? What’s happening?”
    “They’re calling now, Mom. In person,” she added as the door swooshed closed, leaving Jamie face-to-face with the long arm of the law.

2
    A SERGEANT with Company E in Midland, and assigned to the Unsolved Crimes Investigation Team, Texas Ranger Kellen Harding felt like a bull inside the china shop of Weldon Pediatrics—though the way the three women in front of him were staring, he might be well on his way to becoming a steer.
    “I’ll have to call you back, Mom,” said the one Kell had already pegged as Jamie Danby, the one who had lived the first nineteen years of her life as Stephanie Monroe. The Hispanic woman was too short and, well, Hispanic. The blonde was the right height, and hair was easily colored, but she didn’t have the same snap as the brunette—the brunette who was giving him a hell of an evil eye.
    He stayed where he was, just inside the door, removed his white Stetson and sunglasses, and held her gaze. “Jamie Danby?”
    Her face blanched, but color quickly returned to her cheekbones, and her mouth barely trembled when she asked, “And you are?”
    “Ranger Sergeant Kellen Harding, ma’am, of Unsolved Crimes.” He added the extra to break the ice that was taking too long to thaw. It was time he didn’t want to waste, and she might not have.
    “Can we help you with something, Sergeant Harding?” She faced him squarely, her chin up, her gaze direct. She didn’t even bother looking around for a sick child. She knew he was here for her, and because of the recent break in the Sonora Nites Diner case.
    He wondered if she was aware of the crumpled newspaper she held. He gave a nod toward it. “You’ve seen the story?”
    “Of Kass being found?” she asked, her hand tightening around the strap of her bag, her knuckles turning white.
    It was a rhetorical question, but it answered his, and he nodded again just the same. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Privately?”
    “You can use the break room,” the blonde hurried to offer, straightening the headset slipping down one side of her neck.
    “Or there’s a table and chairs on the back patio,” the Hispanic woman added, a stack of folders in her arms. “It’s a covered patio. With a ceiling fan.”
    Kell looked at Jamie. Jamie looked at Kell. It was her call, but he had a feeling no place on the clinic grounds would qualify as private. To tell the truth, he mused as the air-conditioning kicked on and the building’s windows rattled, he had a feeling no place in Weldon would.
    That was the thing about small towns. Folks liked to keep up with their neighbors’ business, even when that business was none of their concern. Since authorities had never had a suspect to arrest and bring to trial for the murders, witness protection hadn’t been an option for Stephanie Monroe. Her mother Ruth, now Kate Danby, had taken matters into her own hands, choosing to protect her daughter by changing their names and hiding in plain sight.
    If anyone came after Jamie, the whole town would be waiting. Weldon’s eleven hundred residents didn’t need the details of her past spelled out before they’d come to her aid; she was one of their own and nothing else mattered—a fact Kell was sure Kate had counted on.
    As plans went, it