Free Haunted (A Bishop/SCU Novel Book 15) by Kay Hooper Page B

Blue Ridge missed him, asked about him. Not a peep. Weeks passed, and nobody claimed him. Which seems to be just fine with him. No tags, but his name is Braden. It’s on a little brass plate on his collar.”
    The dog immediately lifted a paw, directed at Deacon.
    He accepted the paw for a brief shake, saying merely, “Hey, Braden.” Then he returned his gaze to the sheriff. “So there was somebody who cared. Or did you train him to do that?”
    “Must have been somebody who cared, because he’s obviously had obedience training.” She glanced at the dog. “At least.”
    Just because Deacon couldn’t read her didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of . . . undercurrents. “So he offers to shake when he hears his name?”
    “No, he offers to shake when it’s appropriate. Like just now.”
    “You didn’t signal or anything?”
    “Nope.”
    “His idea?”
    “Seems to be. He’s like that. A mind of his own.”

 
    Hollis Templeton looked at the wide, boulder-strewn creek that seemed just inches from the edge of the winding blacktop road her partner was navigating and said, “Why do we always end up in or near tiny little mountain towns?”
    “Is that a rhetorical question?” Reese DeMarco asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
    “No.” Hollis was a little disgruntled, and it showed.
    “Because this is where the SCU-type crimes always seem to be, I suppose. A majority of them, anyway. Always a good hunting ground for monsters, these peaceful little towns. Because nobody expects it, or suspects their neighbors. Because they tend to be isolated and not really on the media radar. Because nobody notices anything is wrong until bodies start to turn up.”
    “And local law enforcement gets overwhelmed.”
    Her partner sent her a quick glance. “Yeah, especially when there’s a chance of something out of the ordinary going on. They don’t exactly teach courses in paranormal investigation at cop school. And locked-room murder mysteries are seldom found outside mystery novels.”
    Hollis sighed. “I just don’t know why Bishop pulled us off the mountain serial and sent us here to investigate a single murder.”
    “You heard what Miranda said the same as I did. The team needed fresh eyes, so Bishop decided to send down Isabel and Rafe; they’re just coming off a break. And since we’ve been tracking—or trying to track—the mountain serial for more than a month, he thought we needed a break, at least from that case.”
    “Miranda and Dean are staying,” Hollis muttered.
    “Miranda’s the primary, and we all know one of Dean’s strengths is recognizing patterns. Besides, both of them had a break before the mountain serial started.”
    “Well, our last case wasn’t that demanding,” Hollis objected. “We had a spree killer who practically had his motive tattooed on his forehead. Took us all of four days to track him down, and only across one state line.” She sounded disgruntled. “There wasn’t even anything weird about that case. I mean, just a regular FBI team could have caught him.”
    “Uh-huh,” DeMarco murmured.
    “I didn’t mean it like that.”
    “Okay.”
    “Stop humoring me, dammit.”
    DeMarco sent her a glance. “What’s really got you bothered?”
    Damn telepaths.
    Hollis sighed. “Bishop. God knows he never gives away anything he thinks might . . .”
    “Mess up the plans of the universe?”
    “Well, yeah. He and Miranda are always so careful when they’ve caught a glimpse of the future. You can always tell when it’s one of
those
cases.”
    “You can always tell. Me, not so much.”
    She looked at him in surprise, then nodded. “You were undercover all those months in that church cult, really focused on that. I went through a whole bunch of cases in those two years or so.” She frowned.
    “So you think the mountain serial is one of those cases Bishop is being careful with? Even though Miranda said she hadn’t seen anything of the future?”
    “I think I wouldn’t