Page 5 of Deadly Revenge

Jenna cringed. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “The vehicle is less than two years old. Why else would a castle nut come off?”

Max didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows, a gesture she’d seen a hundred times while he waited for one of his detectives toremove their foot from their mouth. Well, she wasn’t backing off her opinion, at least not until she heard from Alex.

Max looked toward the road. “If the nut that holds the tie-rod assembly in place came off before the accident, it should be around here somewhere.”

“That sounds reasonable.” Alex nodded to Jenna. “See if you and Wayne can find it.”

The chief deputy’s phone beeped, and Jenna waited while Alex glanced at the screen. Jenna wanted to be lead deputy in this case—ifsomeone tampered with the car. It would be her first real case since joining the Russell County Sheriff’s Office.

Alex looked up at Max. “Nathan is waiting for us.” Then she turned to Jenna. “Max is here regarding threats made to Harrison Carter and the political rally he’s holding at the Founders Day picnic on Saturday. There’ll be a briefing at one. We’ll go over anything you find here then.”

Jenna nodded. “If it turns out to be more than an accident—”

“We’ll talk about that if it happens.” Alex turned, and she and Max strode to an SUV similar to the one Jenna had been assigned.

She’d wanted to ask about being assigned lead in the case if it turned out to be foul play, but now wasn’t the time. “You ready?” she asked Wayne, tamping down the urge to give Max one last glance.

“Give me a minute to grab my hat.”

“Sure.” She felt someone watching her and glanced over her shoulder, her gaze colliding with Max’s. He lifted his hand in a jaunty half salute. She gave him a nod and then turned and quickly walked to the wrecked Hummer as the tow truck operator prepared to lift it onto the flatbed truck.

“Hold up a sec.” Sweat dripped from her brow, and she knuckled it away, then knelt beside the right tire and examined the tie-rod. Intact, and even with the dirt and debris the two-year-old vehicle picked up when it went down the gorge, everything aboutit was new looking—Slater must’ve hosed the SUV off every time he took it out, even the undercarriage.

She walked to the other side and checked it. Since only the left tie-rod assembly had broken away from the steering rack on the wheel, they were searching for one castle nut.

A quick check of the threads on the bolt showed the threads were clean rather than damaged. If the nut had worked its way off over a period of time, wear and tear would show on the threads ... on the other hand, if someone removed the nut—

“You ready?” Wayne asked.

Jenna jumped. She hadn’t heard him come up. “Let me grab a couple of waters first.”

She opened the cooler in her SUV, pulled out the water, and tossed him a bottle as they backtracked on the path the Hummer had taken. The deputy didn’t look good—probably the heat. “Look, you don’t have to help. I can look for the nut by myself.”

Wayne hesitated then shook his head. “No, I’ll help. That way we can get through quicker.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. You take the right and I’ll take the left. And pray we find it soon so we don’t have to walk all the way to the house.”

Jenna laughed. She’d liked Wayne Porter from the start. He had a work ethic like her dad’s—do your job so someone else doesn’t have to do it. He would never shirk his duty, even if it killed him.

She noted several potholes on the road as she walked toward the Slater house—it’d been a bad winter and the county hadn’t gotten around to repairing the lesser-traveled roads. Jenna kept her gaze glued to the blacktop and shoulder.

When they were halfway to the house, they stopped under the shade of an oak on the side of the road. It was a welcome relief from the sun, and she uncapped the bottle of water and tipped it to her lips. “What can you tell me about the Slaters? I don’t remember much about them.”

He took a deep draw from his bottle and put the cap back on. “Well, they’re good people. Katherine is always doing something with the Garden Club—my wife’s a member.” He shook his head. “She’s going to be awful upset when she hears about this. And Joe ... everybody likes him, at least most everybody.”

She noticed Wayne talked as though they were still alive. “Why do you say ‘most’?”

“Joe was on the city council when the dam project went through. Almost everyone in town either had kin or knew somebody who had their land taken by the state to build it. A lot of hard feelings at the time.”

She vaguely remembered something about the dam. “Do you know anyone who is still unhappy with him about what happened?”

“Could be anyone—this is a small county, and people tend to view everyone as family. But that doesn’t mean they don’t hold grudges.”

Jenna agreed with him. It’d been that way when she was a kid, and evidently it was still that way. Could someone who’d had their land taken have sabotaged Slater’s SUV? It was something to keep in mind. “You ready to look some more?”

“Sure.” Wayne took off his cap and used his handkerchief to wipe his brow again. “It’s hot for June.”

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