Page 1 of Marked For Revenge

Chapter One

Deputy Ava Lawson looked down at the dead woman and saw her own face. Not merely a resemblance.

But literally the image of Ava’s own face.

Using a photograph of her printed on thin cloth, the killer had molded it to the dead woman.

Ava couldn’t stop the slam of emotion and she had to fight just to be able to breathe. Had to fight to stay steady, too, because this kind of stress wouldn’t be good for the baby she was carrying. She was in her fifth month, which meant she wasn’t at high risk for a miscarriage but she couldn’t take the chance of doing harm to this child.

Even though someone else might want exactly that.

Because if she was the target, then so was her precious baby.

“You okay, Ava?” she heard her boss, Sheriff Theo Sheldon, ask in a murmur. He was standing next to her, taking in the crime scene as she was.

“I’m fine,” Ava managed to rasp, both of them knowing it was a lie.

She ran her hand over her stomach and shoved aside the buzzing in her ears. Ava tried to focus on doing her job. Right now, that job included looking for whatever she could find to get some justice for the dead woman.

And the two other dead women who’d come before this one.

Women who’d all been strangled and left posed in the woods around Silver Creek, Texas, Ava’s adopted hometown. A town that relied on its sheriff and deputies to protect it from a killer. Right now, law enforcement was failing at that big-time because women were dying.

Ava swept her gaze around the thick cluster of underbrush and trees. It was spring and everything was in bloom. Wildflowers, trees and the shrubs. It was also still cool enough that she wasn’t sweating. Not yet anyway.

Thanks to the spotlights the county CSIs had already set up, she didn’t have any trouble taking in the scene despite it being night. Since the site was a good two miles from town, this wasn’t exactly on the beaten path, but she could see the drag marks that led from the old ranch trail about ten yards away. If the Silver Creek Sheriff’s Office hadn’t gotten an anonymous 9-1-1 call to tell them the location of the body, the dead woman might never have been found. But, of course, the killer had wanted them to know.

Had wanted Ava to know.

He’d wanted her to see that image of herself and get the slam of sick dread that came with the realization she was the reason this was happening. And, worse, that she was no closer to stopping this from happening all over again.

Since the first body had turned up three months earlier, Ava, Theo and the other deputies had put in plenty of extra hours at the office. Plenty. They had pored through every crime scene report of the dead women and followed every lead. Ava had also studied all the files of anyone she’d ever arrested, investigated or confronted. Anyone who had popped up on her radar as conceivably connected to a crime.

Because Silver Creek wasn’t that big of a town, the number of files and possible persons of interest wasn’t exactly staggering, but she had been a deputy for six years now and, before that, a San Antonio cop for eight. Fourteen years in law enforcement meant she’d had ample opportunity to make enemies and rile people, but so far Ava hadn’t been able to connect anyone to what was happening now.

The two other victims had been left with the masks of Ava’s face, but there were no other reports of similar crimes in the state. That didn’t mean there weren’t other murders, though, since the killer could have only started using the masks with these particular victims.

Theo’s phone dinged with a text and he muttered some profanity when he read it. “The mayor’s heard about the latest murder and he’s called in the Texas Rangers.”

Ava’s head whipped up, her gaze zooming straight to Theo’s because she had a bad feeling about this.

“He’s called Harley,” Theo clarified, showing her the text from the Ranger himself.

Sorry but I’ve been assigned to your investigation. Will be there soon.

“Good grief,” Ava murmured. She didn’t need this on top of everything else.

Texas Ranger Harley Ryland. A blast from the past. Both a good and bad one. When she’d been at San Antonio PD, she’d worked with Harley. And had later had a relationship with him, one that had continued as an on-again, off-again kind of deal until five months ago when the off had become permanent.

Things hadn’t exactly ended well between them either. Not with Harley being the main reason her scumbag father wasn’t in jail. Then, the very day Harley had cleared her dad’s name, she’d learned she was pregnant with Harley’s child. A child she loved and would raise despite the Texas Ranger being the father. Despite, too, Harley insisting that he would take an active part in parenting the child.

Figuring out how to co-parent with him wouldn’t be easy. Ditto for having to work with him again. Along with the tension of being her ex, Harley knew all her past sins and secrets. All of them. It was hard to be around someone who had that kind of intimate knowledge about her.

“This is number three,” Theo said, drawing her attention back to him—and to the body. “If it’s the same guy and not a copycat, we’ve got a serial killer.”

Yes, three was the magic number when it came to earning that particular label. And Ava knew this wasn’t a copycat. So did Theo. They hadn’t released the specific details of the killer covering the women chin-to-feet with black garbage bags or the cloth photo death masks, and this one appeared to be identical to the other two.

Being careful where she stepped, Ava went closer to watch as the CSI lifted the photo mask from the dead woman’s face. Theo cursed again, and Ava knew why. It was because they recognized her.

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