Open Season by Linda Howard Page A

New York City to Hillsboro; he’d just gotten divorced, and though he’d been steadily moving up the ranks in the NYPD, he was getting tired of the stress and bustle of the job. The Special Weapons and Tactics team was fun, but the danger associated with it was one of the reasons behind his divorce. Not the big reason, but one of them, and on this issue he figured his ex-wife was at least half right. Being a cop’s wife was tough; being the wife of someone who went to work only when the situations were the most dangerous took nerves of steel. Besides, he was thirty-six; he’d started at the age of twenty-one, in Chicago, then moved to New York. It was time to get out, look for something a little less edgy.
    He made a couple of trips to Hillsboro, to look over the old Victorian house and see what repairs were needed, and at the same time put out some feelers for a job. Before he knew it, he was being interviewed for chief of police, and after that it was a done deal. He put in his notice—amid ribbing about being the Chief of Podunk—packed his stuff, and moved south. He had a staff of thirty, which was a joke compared to the size of the police force he’d just left, but Jack felt as if he’d found his niche.
    Okay, so there wasn’t a lot going on, but he liked protecting his adopted town. Hell, he even liked the city council meetings; he’d gotten a big kick out of the last one, with half the citizenry up in arms because the council had voted to install traffic lights around the square. It was ridiculous that a town of nine thousand people had only one traffic light, but to hear those people talk, all ten of the amendments in the Bill of Rights were being violated. If Jack had his way, traffic lights would be installed all over downtown, and at all the schools. Hillsboro lagged behind the times—he hadn’t been joking when he called it Mayberry—but traffic was becoming more congested as people moved to the pretty little town, and he didn’t want a schoolkid flattened by a car before the citizens woke up and decided maybe they did need more traffic lights.
    Eva Fay Storie, his secretary, was on the phone when he entered his office, but she held up one finger to stop him, then handed him a cup of coffee and a sheaf of pink message slips. “Thanks,” he said, sipping the coffee as he continued into his office. He didn’t know how Eva Fay did it, but no matter what time he came into the office, she had a hot cup of fresh coffee waiting for him. Maybe she had his parking space wired, and a buzzer went off under her desk when he pulled in. One of these days he was going to park on the street just to see if he could throw her off. He’d inherited her from his predecessor, and both of them were satisfied with the status quo.
    One of the calls was from a detective in Marshall County whom he’d become friendly with since moving to Hillsboro. Jack laid the other messages aside and immediately dialed the number on the slip.
    “Petersen.”
    “What’s up?” Jack knew he didn’t have to identifyhimself. Even if Petersen didn’t have Caller ID, Jack’s accent was enough to give him away
    “Hey, Jack. Listen, we have an unidentified body on our hands, young, female, probably Mexican. Some kids found her last night.”
    Jack leaned back in his chair. There weren’t any missing persons from Hillsboro who fit that description; they didn’t have a large Hispanic population anyway, but no one at all had been reported missing in the past several months. “And?”
    “Well, we don’t have shit to go on. The rain washed away any tracks, and there’s no obvious cause of death. No wounds, no strangulation marks, no lumps on the head, nothing.”
    “Overdose.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. What has me worried, though, are the cases of GHB that’ve been cropping up in Huntsville, Birmingham, all over, with more every day.”
    “You think she was raped?”
    “No way of knowing for certain until we get the