Read Haunted (A Bishop/SCU Novel Book 15) for Free Online Page A

kits, nodded to the elderly doctor as he shambled past them.
    It was Lexie who asked, “You want the works, Sheriff?”
    Trinity nodded slowly. “Yeah. Photograph everything, print everything, take fiber samples. Scrape under his nails. Use every tool the FBI taught you to use. I want to know what happened here.”
    “You bet, Sheriff.”
    She stepped out of the bedroom, reasonably sure her young crime scene unit “team” would feel much more comfortable and assured if she wasn’t breathing down their necks while they worked. Not that she felt the need to do that; she had gone to considerable trouble and expense to make certain they were very, very well trained and able.
    Doc Beeson was sitting on Scott’s sofa, leaning forward, elbows on his knees while he petted Braden. The doctor loved dogs, and Braden loved attention, so the bonding experience was no doubt keeping both of them calm.
    Leaving the front door open, Trinity stepped out onto the walkway that dead-ended at Scott’s apartment. She leaned on the railing and looked around, the idle glance showing her that there was no one about, so no sign of undue notice. The mortician’s wagon hadn’t arrived yet; she had called to alert them but asked that they not come until later, and to be discreet.
    Discreet. Oh, yeah. Right
.
    She reached into the pocket of her jacket, drawing out something that lay in the palm of her hand, glinting silver in the morning sunlight. Something she had seen herself before anyone else had arrived at Scott’s apartment.
    Something she had, against all her training and police protocol, removed from Scott’s body. She’d seen the faint gleam between his slightly parted lips, vaguely puzzled at first because she knew Scott had no silver or gold caps on his teeth. And then she had realized it was something else.
    A silver medallion. A cross.
    She stared down at it for a long moment, then used her other hand to reach for her cell phone.
    She had no idea where he was, since he was seldom in his office; for all she knew, she could have been dragging him out of bed somewhere.
    She didn’t care.
    She scrolled through her contacts and hit send. And wasn’t surprised when he answered on the first ring.
    “Bishop.”
    “Hey, it’s Trinity. We need to talk.”
    January 29
     
    Deacon James had grown up in a small town, so he didn’t exactly feel out of place when he followed the winding mountain road out of fairly dense forest and rather suddenly into the three-block-long downtown area of Sociable, Georgia.
    North Georgia.
    Remote north Georgia.
    And the town seemed to cling to the mountainside, a unique but surely impractical place on which to site a town.
    Aside from that, it looked somewhat the way many small mountain towns looked, with the “major” local businesses on the relative flat of Main Street while smaller businesses as well as a scattering of apartment buildings, Victorian homes, and a few startlingly contemporary ones on climbing side streets appeared to perch precariously behind and above.
    Probably have a hell of a view.
    Because it was a one-side downtown; that was the real difference. Across the street was a fairly wide swath of well-kept grass striped with the occasional neat and carefully graveled path leading down a gentle but boulder-strewn slope to a wide and apparently shallow mountain stream, which, given its location, almost seemed even more than the town itself to defy gravity and sense.
    The town had clearly taken advantage of what could only be used as a recreation area, providing across from Main Street scattered attractive shelters with picnic tables beneath, and benches, and the aforementioned well-kept paths, as well as at least two comfortably wide footbridges across the stream. There was even what was obviously a small park with swings and other rides for the kids plus a big jungle gym, an attractive wrought-iron fence with a gate for safety around the play area.
    But there wasn’t much else on that