Page 19 of Deadly Revenge

That wasn’t quite as stiff. Her finger hovered over the send button, then she began typing again.

If you need help with the park security, let me know.

Jenna hit send.

She hadn’t added that last because she wanted to spend more time with him. It was just common courtesy.

10

Twilight cast a shadowy light as he rounded a curve and turned off the blacktop onto an old logging road. His lights bounced as he wrestled with the steering wheel to keep his truck out of the deeper ruts in the narrow lane. Couldn’t afford to get stuck, not with his cargo.

He pulled to a stop at the location he’d picked out earlier and climbed out of the truck. Mosquitos buzzed his head as the muggy night wrapped around him. Waving them off, he lowered the tailgate and pulled the body wrapped in a tarp to the end of the bed and eased it to the ground. Humidity thick enough to swim in soon had him panting from the exertion of pulling the tarp with the dead man in it over the terrain.

Sweat drenched his shirt by the time he reached the spot he’d picked out. He rolled the body into a shallow trench hollowed out by spring rains and pulled the tarp off, then covered the body with branches he’d cut earlier. With the heat, it shouldn’t take more than a month for the body to become skeletonized.

He folded the tarp until it was a neat square and carried it back to his pickup. A check of his watch indicated it was a little after nine.

11

Jenna slapped at a head-diving mosquito, then stilled. At least the temps in the deep woods had cooled from earlier in the day. Much better than in the field where they’d waited for everyone to gather.

She rolled her tight shoulders. Jenna had almost called her dad and cancelled, but a nudge in her spirit changed her mind. Now at an hour before midnight, she wondered if the nudge had been indigestion from the barbecue she’d eaten, because so far the men had been strangely quiet about Joe Slater’s accident, and she hadn’t been able to steer the conversation in that direction. They only wanted to talk about dogs.

A lantern sat beside her, and Jenna moved it a few feet away, hoping it would draw the mosquitos. It and the other lanterns the men had set around lit the area in a soft glow. Later, if they had to trek through the woods, headlamps would provide a light for their path. She glanced enviously across the circle where her dad squatted on his haunches talking to his brother. Even after years of Pilates, she couldn’t squat like that. She couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but there was no mystery as to what he and Sam were discussing—the coon dogs they’d turned loose. And identifying each one by their bark.

She rested against the trunk of a huge oak and breathed in the woodsy scent of Eagle Ridge. Even though she hadn’t heard anything pertaining to Joe Slater, Jenna was glad she’d come. It was an opportunity to try to get her relationship with her dad and uncle back on track, and it was long overdue. At least they were trying to let her live her life on her terms, and not bossing her like she was a ten-year-old.

It wasn’t like she didn’t understand where they were coming from. After her mother died, they along with her grandmother had raised her. Sam and her dad had been her heroes, but they didn’t want to let go. Sure, they were trying to protect her from her mistakes, but her mistakes were hers to make. And one of those mistakes had been to keep them at a distance. She knew that now, driven home by the unexpected deaths of the Slaters today.

Bugle-like barking echoed through the ridge, jerking her from her memories. A rush of excitement coursed through her, just like when she’d been a kid and heard the telltale bark that meant the hounds were tracking their prey.

Her dad shot to a standing position. “They’re on the scent!”

Sam, her uncle, slapped him on the back, and the other men stood as well and nodded in agreement. The bark was different when they had the scent and were trailing a raccoon. Once they had it treed, the bark would become more of a long howl, and if it were hunting season, the men would be traipsing through the woods to the spot where their dogs had the raccoon treed.

But it was June, training time, not hunting time, so tonight Jenna shouldn’t have to hike through the woods even though she’d worn her lace-up Redwings.

When the barking grew fainter, her dad found a log and sat on it while Sam picked up a stick and scratched in the dirt. Her dad looked around. “Todd, why didn’t you bring your dog?”

“She wasn’t feeling too perky, so I left her at home.” Todd Donelson hooked his thumbs in his overalls.

It was hard to believe the man who had reminded her of Ichabod Crane when she was a girl was vice president of the only bank in town.

“Todd, you busy later this week?” Junior Bledsoe asked. He’d been quiet until now, but from what she remembered, the mechanic was usually pretty chatty.

“Depends on what day,” the banker said.

“How about Thursday? I got a beaver dam I need to get rid of, and I know how much you like that kind of stuff.”

“Thursday sounds good.”

Once again Jenna fanned the mosquitos away with her hand as Junior bumped fists with the man. The difference in the two men was almost comical—Donelson still looked like a scarecrow and Junior ... well, he’d been well-fed.

It appeared the men weren’t going to call their dogs in, and Jenna settled back again, recalling other long-ago nights that she’d spent in the woods with her dad, his friends, and their dogs.

“Been a while, Jenna.”

She peered through the silvery moonlight at the speaker, Gordon Marsden, another of her dad’s longtime hunting friends. He was an avid hunter and fisherman, and his love of the outdoors showed in the leathery wrinkles in his face. Earlier, he’d been the first to arrive with his dogs at the field where everyone was supposed to meet. She still hadn’t gotten used to the retired postal worker looking like an aging hippie or the fact that he had a ponytail longer than hers.

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