Secret is in the Bones (Paynes Creek #3) - Heather Sunseri

ONE

J.P.

Routines are a killer’s best friend.

J.P. laughed at the thought while he waited for his target to exit the police station.

It was just after eight p.m. A breezy, late September night. J.P. had studied Penelope Champagne’s every move for over a week—what time she went to work as the Paynes Creek dispatcher each day, what days she worked, what she did when she got home, what time she put her little brat to bed, what time her husband left the house for his shift as an EMT.

Penelope Champagne had become so predictable that J.P. was certain he could step into her life and live it better than she did. This was almost too easy. But he wasn’t actually looking for a challenge.

Penelope was his ticket to bring Faith Day back to Paynes Creek. Faith was the real challenge. And tonight, he would put his plan into motion.

He was still kicking himself for losing track of Faith sixty miles outside of Antonito, Colorado. She’d been heading west, probably toward the west coast. Most likely some hippie town in Oregon where he would have been forced to further endure the skunky smell of weed. Colorado had been bad enough. A bunch of fucking potheads.

Upon further reflection, he figured losing Faith was for the best. Luring her back to Paynes Creek would be better in the long run, seeing as having her in Kentucky was a part of the master plan.

Although, he did like having her mostly to himself in Colorado. That was where she’d stayed the longest, traveling the countryside with that ridiculous trailer.

He’d thought about claiming Faith as his own in Colorado. But that asshole Fed came along and ruined everything. He wasn’t sure what Special Agent Fuckface had said to her, but he wasn’t gone thirty minutes before Faith had packed up and left the Mountain View Dude Ranch.

She didn’t even wait long enough to get the details of the dead night watchman’s autopsy. He laughed at the memory. That fat prick barely saw it coming. He simply couldn’t let him live after he placed his hands around Faith’s neck. What kind of jerk did that? He acted like it was a joke.

But pretending to choke a woman you barely knew?

No, sir. You don’t get away with that. Not on my watch.

The man had to die.

So he killed him and made it look like a suicide. The autopsy should have told a more accurate story, had they bothered to order one. Hell, a medical examiner didn’t even need to perform an autopsy to find out it hadn’t been a suicide.

J.P. had gotten away with that one—his little gift to Faith.

He left Faith another gift last week. She didn’t know it yet, of course, but she’d hear about it soon enough.

He smiled, reflecting on what he’d done to the man who had tried to keep Faith in Colorado. Glancing sideways, he reached over and grabbed the photograph he’d borrowed of Faith and the Coloradan. He discovered the framed picture right after Darren Murray got what was coming to him, and he nabbed it as a souvenir.

Faith wasn’t smiling in the picture, but Murray appeared thrilled to have an arm around her.

Just tracing a finger around Faith’s lips in the picture gave him a hard-on. He grabbed a dirty towel from the floorboard of the passenger side and wiped the picture frame free of fingerprints. Then he set the photograph so he could still see Faith’s inviting eyes.

Soon, he would have full say as to who put his hands on Faith. He would not stand for some rancher asshole touching his property, that was for sure.

He sat up when Penelope finally appeared. The sun was just sinking lower into the sky behind the police station. He watched her, as he had many times, dig for her keys as she reached her minivan. She slid behind the wheel, pulled down the visor, and messed with her hair. She took her long, red curls and tied them into a knot on top of her head. As she applied a layer of lip gloss, he wondered if he might play around with her before he carried out his plan.

He quickly thought better of it, instead deciding to stay focused. Faith was the woman for him. The ginger didn’t interest him.

“Come on, you little bitch,” he said. “The medical examiner isn’t going to care what you look like.” What was she even doing? Like every night, she was just going to go home just in time for