The Seventh Victim Read Free Page B

up trouble.”
    As she chuckled, he winked and headed toward the stairs, climbing to the third floor. He pushed through the door and wove his way through the cubicles, finding comfort in the hum of ringing phones, muted conversations, the buzz of the fluorescents, and the scent of the worst coffee ever made. He was anxious to get back to the business of being a Ranger.
    He flipped on his office lights and for a moment stood in his office door, silent and still, his gaze roaming over what had been so familiar twenty-one days ago.
    Desk piled high with papers. Shelves crammed full of books and scattered awards. Texas A&M diploma on the wall. A print of Galveston Island at sunset. Beck standing in front of his grandfather’s garage with his mother and brother.
    His return from leave barely two hours old, he stared at the picture of his family, remembering no matter how much a man wished, hoped, or loved, nothing lasted forever. He’d learned that fact the day his father had walked out. Beck had been three. His brother two. His mother nineteen.
    His mother, Elaina Beck, terrified and desperate, had turned to the very man who had condemned her marriage: her father-in-law, Henry Beck. Beck remembered the fear and rage thundering through his body as he’d stared at his mother’s tear-streaked face and his grandfather’s stoic, grizzled features. As much as he’d wanted to cry, he’d squeezed his mother’s hand and snuggled close to her.
    Beck shrugged off his suit jacket, carefully hung it up on a hanger dangling from the hook on his office door, and then placed his hat on the edge of his desk.
    A glance at his overflowing in-box told him a Ranger’s work went on regardless of his or anyone else’s troubles. Flexing his fingers, he sat behind his desk and flipped on his computer.
    “I figured you’d slither back in here like a rattlesnake.”
    The deep baritone belonged to Captain Ryder Penn. In his late fifties, the captain had been with the Rangers for over twenty-five years. Tall, lean with tanned, sun-etched skin, Penn looked as if he’d been plucked out of the American West. At his twenty-fifth anniversary party there’d been jokes circulating that Stephen F. Austin himself had recruited him. Jokes aside, Penn was a crackerjack investigator.
    Beck rose, kept his tone even. “Giving it my best effort. With luck I’ll slide back into the old routine without anyone noticing.”
    Penn extended his hand to Beck. “Not likely.”
    Beck accepted his hand and shook, burying the heated exchange they’d had when Penn pulled Beck off the job. “I just want to get back to work.”
    Penn stepped back, casting his gaze over the in-box. “Hope you’re willing to hit the ground running.”
    “Fast as I can.”
    Penn paused as if wrangling with unspoken thoughts and maybe an apology. “Santos said you’ve seen the crime scene on I-35.”
    “The victim was a woman, dressed in white, blond. She appears to have been strangled and posed. Sheriff Stiles suspects the victim is connected to one found in San Antonio about four weeks ago. There wasn’t much left of the first victim after a month in the open, so it’s too early to tell.”
    Penn’s gaze narrowed. “How did the first victim die?”
    “Cause of death was inconclusive.”
    “So what’s the connection?”
    “The first victim appeared to have been wearing a white dress.”
    “A white dress.” Penn shook his head. “Slim. And you got a mighty full plate, Beck.”
    This case had already sunk its teeth into him. “I’ll make room. The medical examiner is going to be doing the autopsy this afternoon. I’d like to be there.”
    Penn stared at him hard. “Sure. I’ll give you this one. But look at your backlog before you dive in and no more lone-wolf shit.”
    “Will do.”
    Penn studied Beck an extra beat and then left him alone with his overflowing in-box and an unshakeable curiosity for two murders that might or might not be related.
    He spent the better