Ties That Bind by Natalie R. Collins Page A

opened them, hoping the images would be gone. It didn’t work; the slide show seemed permanently engraved.
    She left the department vehicle parked in the driveway, enough to the side that she could get her own personal vehicle out of the one-car garage, should she need it. She slammed the door shut and hit the keypad to lock it, then headed for her front door. She hadn’t expected to be this late, so there was no burning porch light to guide the way. A shiver ran up her spine. She pulled her small flashlight off her duty belt and shined it at the door.
    Juggling her keys through her fingers, she cursed silently as the hair on her arms stood upright. She finally found the right key and inserted it into the lock. A shuffling through the grass closed in on her rapidly. She fought back a scream. Pushing open the door, she accidentally dropped her flashlight. The unmistakable squeaking sound of feet moved softly but quickly through wet grass. The automatic sprinklers came on every night at 10:00 p.m. What might have been the silent approach of a predator was instead given away by the moist lawn.
    She dropped her keys on the ground, reached into her duty belt, and drew her gun.
    Whipping around, she screamed, “Freeze, or I’ll blow your balls off!”
    A sudden harsh bark and growl told her that she had been frightened by the neighbor’s cocker spaniel, a particularly loathsome creature who was apparently nocturnal and did not like people. Including Sam. Undoubtedly he had been leaving a doggie present on her lawn, despite the fact that she had made numerous trips across the street to talk with his owners about him running loose and pooping in every yard but his own.
    She watched as he turned his head away from her, snout high, probably affronted by her verbal assault on his doggie genitals, and trotted back across the road.
    Her heart slowed down as she flipped on the inside light and spotted her flashlight back behind a long-empty clay pot. Sam reached down to grab it, her hand touching something warm and small. She squealed and pulled her hand back. Standing to reach inside the house, she flipped on the porch light, scanned the perimeter for intruders one more time, then looked back down at the place her flashlight had fallen. Next to it was a small, dead rodent.
    Sam shivered, realizing she had touched it. And it had been warm. Not dead long. She looked across the street at the cocker spaniel’s house, eyes narrowing in suspicion. But dogs didn’t bring warm, dead presents. She’d heard cats did, but she had no cat.
    Shaking off the feeling this was not an accident, she carefully picked up her flashlight, avoiding the mouse, and entered her lukewarm town house. She shut the door behind her, engaging the dead bolt. Cleaning up the mouse would have to wait until D-Ray dropped by. A girl had her standards. She plucked her keys off the ceramic tile entryway and flipped on the hallway light.
    There was little doubt that her first major case on the Kanesville force was creeping her out. She was damned glad she didn’t have to explain to the cranky old lady across the street why she had shot the family pet—as horrible as he was.
    She headed to her room, removing all her police paraphernalia and placing it in her bedside table drawer as she always did. Then she quickly shed her clothes for shorts and a tank top.
    Her air-conditioning seemed to have two settings: warm and warmer. She hadn’t got around to calling a heating/AC company to fix it yet, so the house was toasty. Just what you didn’t want on a hot Utah summer night. Sam walked into her kitchen and pulled the chain on the ceiling fan above the dining room table, hoping to get a little circulation going in the stagnant air.
    She opened the fridge and looked inside, pulling out one of her protein drinks. One of the few things she could stomach, that didn’t make her feel like she had to go throw up, because … Because why?
    Because you think you’re too fat. You