Protector Of One

Adrian Goddard sat in Conard County Sheriff Gage Dalton's Office, about as unhappy as a man could be short of death or major injury. He'd left law enforcement two years ago and he wasn't happy to be dragged back in. But a double homicide had caused Gage to call on him, and his sense of duty wouldn't let him refuse.

A lean, rangy man with a face marked by weather and strain, his gray eyes pierced whatever he looked at and nearly matched the early gray at his temples. He looked as if he might have been chiseled out of the granite of the Wyoming mountains. He had one of those faces that made guessing his age nearly impossible, yet few would have believed he was only thirty-five.

He'd spent the day at the crime scene, gathering the kind of information a photograph or a report might overlook: angles of attack, best vantage points, surrounding cover. The little and big things that could answer the question: why did this happen here and not elsewhere? Given the relative isolation of the wooded murder scene, that question had gained a lot of importance.

Gage returned to the office, looking as tired as any man who'd spent the day looking at two partially decomposed bodies while mar ... read full excerpt from: Protector of One ebook