Page 67 of Cornered

“I need to think. And I think I need to think somewhere other than here.”

Donovan’s phone rang, but he ignored it. “Think here. Don’t leave. Don’t do what I did. Don’t make decisions without talking them through. Please. I’m sorry.”

Cassie’s face crumpled. “So am I, Donovan. So am I.”

She opened the door and ran down his porch steps. His phone rang again. He glanced at it and saw the number of the fire station. He accepted the call. “Bledsoe.”

“Hey. This is Stu. Hope I didn’t wake you up, but I thought you’d want to know.”

“What?”

“That deer in the road? It wasn’t hit by a car. It was shot.”

Donovan didn’t hesitate. He sprinted after Cassie and stepped in front of her Jeep. “Cassie. Stop!”

She froze and the car shook as she slammed on the brakes.She rolled down her window and yelled at him. “What is wrong with you? I could have hit you.”

“I need you to come back inside.”

“I’m not coming back in tonight.”

“Fine. Then I’m following you home.”

“You’d better not.”

“Cassie, someone shot that deer.”

All the fight went out of her as the implications sank in. She put the Jeep in Park and dropped her head to the steering wheel. “Why me?”

“I don’t know, baby. Come back inside. Please. Just until I can figure out what’s going on. I’ll call whoever you want and you can go home with them.”

Cassie unbuckled her seat belt, and Donovan opened her door. She took the hand he offered, and when she was on her feet, she didn’t let go. “This doesn’t make any sense.” She dropped her head against his arm as she walked beside him.

He paused to let Cassie walk through his open door. He followed and took a look at the phone he still clutched in his hand. The screen told him the call was active. He hit the speaker button and spoke. “You there, Stu?”

“What was that, man?”

“I’ll explain later. For now, tell me what you found.”

“That’s what I was trying to do when you disappeared.”

“Well, I’m back now.”

“Fine.” It was clear Stu was wondering what had happened and was annoyed that Donovan wasn’t sharing. “We went out there like you asked, expecting to find a deer versus car situation. Needless to say, we were a bit surprised to find a deer that had been shot. And she wasn’t shot on the road. She’d been moved.”

“How sure are you?”

“You do much deer hunting?” Stu’s question held more than a hint of condescension.

“Not much.” While Donovan had gone on a few hunts that had been held with the specific purpose of thinning the local deer population, he found no enjoyment in the activity. He preferred fly-fishing.

“I’ve been hunting in these parts since I was old enough to climb a tree stand. That deer was shot somewhere and dumped on the road. I shouldn’t say dumped. She was placed. Carefully. And given that Cassie was the first one to report it, I’d be willing to bet she was put there just a few minutes before Cassie drove up on her. There’s no way she could have been there for any length of time without someone slamming into her.”

Cassie sat in the same chair she’d been in earlier as Stu continued.

“I took pictures of the scene. We did a little video so you can see how close it was coming out of the curve. Even knowing she was there, we almost hit her.” Stu chuckled. “You given Cassie a speeding ticket lately?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Donovan hadn’t, but he knew she’d gotten one in Asheville a few weeks earlier.

---