CHAPTER ONE

      VAUGHN FULTON TOSSED his shades onto a box marked Kitchen Crap and turned in a slow circle. He’d been played. Suckered, by an eighty-four-year-old man. If Emerson Fulton were still alive, he’d be smirking his ass off because he was about to make good on his promise to see that his nephew stayed in Castle Creek longer than it took to eat a rib eye at the diner and watch a ball game for dessert.

      He pushed a breath through his nose. Yeah, he should have visited more often. No doubt about it. He’d let down the old man.

      And his uncle had plotted one hell of a payback.

      “Bits and pieces, my ass,” Vaughn said aloud. The echo he should have heard failed to bounce back at him. No surprise, considering the ceiling-high jumble of boxes and furniture crowding the room. A jumble that hadn’t been there two months ago, when he’d stopped in to check on the old man. A week later, Uncle Em was gone.

      Vaughn pinched the bridge of his nose.

      Near the end, he’d promised to handle the property side of things. Stay at the house as soon as he could manage it. Clear it out and see it sold. Two days max to empty the place, Uncle Em had sworn.

      Two days, like hell. It would take two weeks to go through everything on the first floor, and that was just the sorting—he’d have to make arrangements for transportation to the landfill and find a charity to take the rest. No way could he take more than one or two items for himself. His apartment in Erie wasn’t much bigger than a square of toilet paper.

      So much for cranking this out over the weekend.

      Vaughn linked his fingers behind his neck and exhaled. He missed his uncle. He missed him bad. His aunt, too. He’d spent a lot of uncomplicated summers in this house. But as grateful as he was that the old man had remembered him in his will, he didn’t have time for this. Well, technically he did, since his jackass partner had earned him a thirty-day suspension, but he’d wanted to spend it clearing his name, not clearing a dozen rooms crammed with someone else’s crap.

      Don’t be a dick.

      He dropped his arms and carefully wound his way back to the foyer. The afternoon light spilling in through the strip of stained glass in the front door scattered jewel tones across the floor and over the toes of his boots. Along with the faint smell of almond pound cake that was baked into the very walls, it made him nostalgic for a childhood he usually did his damnedest to forget.

      Sudden exhaustion tugged at his shoulders. He would have leaned against a wall if it weren’t for the piles of junk. Instead he leaned back against the front door and surveyed the hardwood floor, barely visible beneath stacks of old magazines and newspapers, towers of rust-rimmed paint cans and heap after heap of wrinkled clothing.

      How had his uncle found the energy to collect all this? What had he done, put up a notice at Cal’s Diner? Help me show my nephew what a jackass he is. Bring your unwanted items, large or small, to 16511 Paisley Place and make him deal with it.

      Vaughn huffed a reluctant chuckle. He’d bet his service weapon that was exactly what Uncle Em had done. He could see the old man now, fixing his invite to the corkboard just inside the diner’s door, tongue between his teeth and that tickled-with-himself gleam in his eyes...

      Abruptly, Vaughn swung toward the kitchen. He could use a drink. The dust was making his throat scratchy.

      The kitchen was the only room in the house that didn’t harbor a maze of boxes. Vaughn grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the tap. After downing it he poured another, butted a hip against the sink and took stock. The room—hell, the whole house—was way overdue for a face-lift. Battered white cabinet doors and a scuffed linoleum floor needed to give way to solid maple and Mexican tile, but Uncle Em hadn’t wanted to change anything with Aunt Brenda’s stamp on it. Vaughn couldn’t blame him. Even the thought made Vaughn want to check the wide-eyed ceramic owl cookie jar, see if it held any of the ginger crisps his aunt used to make.

      He was stretching toward the jar when his ringtone jolted him upright. Just as well. Considering his aunt had died four years earlier, he doubted he’d enjoy whatever the owl guarded.

      He dug his phone out of the front pocket of his jeans. “Fulton here.”

      “Vaughn? This is Rick Whitby.”

      “Mayor.” Vaughn braced a hand on the edge of the counter. He gazed through the window, studying the generous stretch of brown-tipped grass desperate for a mowing and the intersecting rows of hornbeams that screened the yard from the neighbors. The trees were in serious need of pruning.

      For the hundredth time, Vaughn wondered what had drawn his uncle to Whitby, a fifty-year-old player with too much time on his hands, considering he had a county to run. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

      “Son, let me say again how sorry I am about your uncle’s passing.”

      “I appreciate that.”

      “It’s been a lot of years since he retired as clerk of the court, but folks at the courthouse still talk about him.”

      The funeral had been well attended. Vaughn had been touched. “What can I do for you, Mayor?” he asked again.

      “In a hurry, are you, son?”

      Whitby’s chuckle had Vaughn jonesing for a cup of coffee. Hell, even a soda would do. Anything to wash away the taste of ulterior motive. He pushed off the counter and opened the fridge. Nothing but baking soda and a sheet of paper. Vaughn picked up the paper, hip-bumped the door shut and took a closer look.

      An estimate, for replacing the roof. It wasn’t the fact that his uncle had left it in the fridge that sent Vaughn’s oh-shit factor sky-high. It was the total on the dotted line. Five figures.

      Vaughn dropped into a chair and double-checked the math.

      “Son? You still there?”

      “I’m here.”

      Whitby cleared his throat. “Listen, give me a call when you get into town, will you? I’d like to set up a meeting. Discuss a proposition.”

      Vaughn fought the urge to admit he’d already arrived. “What’s on your mind?”

      The mayor hesitated. “What I have to say deserves a face-to-face.”

      Vaughn’s Spidey senses started to tingle. “I’d appreciate a heads-up.”

      “All righty, then. Our sheriff’s department is understaffed. I’m hoping you’ll help us out while you’re in town.”

      He had to be kidding. “You want me to be a deputy?”

      “I’d make you sheriff if I could.”

      Vaughn wasn’t surprised. He’d never met Sheriff Tate, but he knew she was a hard-ass. From what he’d heard, a man could drop dead in the street and she’d write him a ticket for jaywalking.

      Thanks, but no thanks.

      “I’ll only be around long enough to clean out the house,” Vaughn said. “Unless I decide to sell it as is.”

      “But that’s against the terms of your inheritance.”

      Vaughn shifted his weight, and the chair groaned a threat to break into pieces and dump his ass on the floor. “How do you know that?”

      “I helped Emerson draft it. Listen, your uncle wanted the house to stay in the family. More than that, he wanted you to stay in Castle Creek. I promised I’d do my best to talk you into both.”

      Tension threaded its way through Vaughn’s muscles. “He knew better.” Besides, the old man had left only half the house to Vaughn—the rest of the estate went to charity. Even if he wanted to, there was no way Vaughn could raise the