Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Laura Scott (speed reading book .txt) 📖

the array of gold, rust, orange and crimson leaves showered the treetops with such beauty it was almost like nothing bad could happen. Smoke drifted overhead, accompanied by the scent of burning leaves. She ought to be raking, too. Instead, she enjoyed the quiet, the company and the sounds of birds twittering in the branches.

Gunfire boomed and broke through nature’s noises. Colt paused and firmly but gently grabbed her forearm.

“It’s Sunny Wilkerson. He shoots targets on his huntin’ land every weekend. It’ll go all day today and after church tomorrow. I don’t know how Grandma stood all that shooting.”

Colt relaxed, and they eased into a leisurely pace as the dogs ran ahead.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your grandma’s funeral. I couldn’t get away. She was always good to me.”

“It’s okay.” She’d never expected him to come, but she couldn’t deny searching for him in the lines of people paying their respects. “I understand you’re a busy man.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “We have all of Mississippi and more cold cases to evaluate than you can fathom. I wish we could get to all of them, solve all of them, but we simply can’t. We’re only four people.” He shrugged.

“I imagine you see some fascinating cases.”

“I do. And I imagine you want to hear all about them, Christi Cold.”

She laughed. “What? It’s clever.”

“Oh, okay,” he noted with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“Okay, maybe not. But it sufficed.” Until now. Now everyone would find out.

As they hiked into the woods, the dogs explored, and he shared several interesting cases, without revealing identities, and how he and his team had closed them—or were unable to. Those were the ones he said kept him awake at night. His whispered tenor tone captured her attention and kept her engaged, like spreading honey on a hot biscuit or listening to lapping waves on the beach at sunrise. “You ever consider doing a podcast? You have the voice for it.”

“No. But I admit, I enjoy yours. I suspected you might be someone in law enforcement. You have the gut instinct, Georgia. For real.” He nudged her with his shoulder and smiled. “You missed your calling.”

“I don’t think so.”

They walked in comfortable silence.

Conducting pretend investigations from the security of her own home was a far cry from jumping into the throes of danger daily, like Colt. His career path proved her decision—though excruciating as it was—to break things off with him before college had been the right thing to do. She couldn’t imagine the levels of anxiety she would reach knowing each day could be his last day.

Football alone had sent her into vomiting fits on Friday nights before games during football season. Her nerves would start jittering on Sunday nights and gradually develop and increase from worry to stomachaches to shortness of breath and irritability until by game time she was in the bathroom unable to function over everything that could possibly go wrong for Colt.

Life was unpredictable. Her parents, Jared and Dandy were all proof of that. And if sudden disaster didn’t strike, there was always disease waiting to claim a loved one—like Grandma.

What if Colt gets injured and snaps his neck or spinal cord? What if he ends up in a coma? Or killed?

Grandma called her a worrywart and reminded her it was only a game, but Georgia had seen Remember the Titans. The same tragic accident that took the QB in the movie could reach out and take Colt as well. Turned out he never had more than a sprained ankle, but the possibility that it could have become reality was still seared into Georgia’s mind.

When he told her that he made the college team at Mississippi State, she came unglued and had a choice to make. Stay with him, go to State and be sick and unable to function, or end things for her own peace of mind, even if it stomped on her heart. Georgia had crushed them both. Colt hadn’t understood, and he’d argued, but Georgia had done the best thing for each of them. She’d had no way to make him understand how she’d felt, because he’d been right—it made no sense to worry herself sick. But she had anyway. He hadn’t deserved to be saddled with her disturbing thoughts, and she’d needed the mental health.

Now, she understood her issues as a teenager. She wasn’t dramatic or simply a worrywart. She had been suffering from severe anxiety.

Now that he was a law enforcer, it upped the ante. Just because he worked on cases that had gone cold didn’t mean killers went cold. She was a testament to that. There would be no emotional ties to Colt. Never again.

“So, what will you and your team do?” She glanced at her cell phone for the time. The rest of the MBI team should be arriving shortly.

“We’ll go over the past investigation, see where the case stalled and pick up from there. Talk to old witnesses and suspects. Run new tests on trace evidence. We’ll speak with the coach and athletic recruiters at Ole Magnolia if it leads there. If someone was illegally offering Jared a sweet deal to come play, we’ll find it. Coach Joe Jackson has been at Ole Magnolia for twenty-five years.”

“Yeah. Wins mean coaches keep their jobs, unless another university offers more money. Guess no one offered more money.” She shrugged.

“We’ll call the NCAA and see if an investigator ever looked into Ole Magnolia around that time frame. They’ll likely put an investigator on it now with the new information.”

The National Collegiate Athletic Association had many investigators who regulated athletics across college sports, determining if colleges participated in prohibited behavior. Celebrities had just recently gone to jail for paying large sums of money to have their children enrolled in some of the best Ivy League schools—some on athletic scholarships.

“How can I help?” There had to be something she could offer the investigation besides Dandy’s notes.

“Since the sheriff’s department can’t supply any manpower on this case