“Thanks,” he mumbled, diving right into it. “See? We do have some common ground. Our shared love of sugary, high fat pastries that have no nutritional value.”

“You call that common ground?”

Sloan used that smile again. “Hey, I’ll take what I can get.”

She could have added something snarky—like, he had already gotten everything he could possibly get—but the sugary donut was making her fingers sticky, so she began to eat it.

“I’ve arranged to meet with both Donna and Leland this afternoon.” Sloan tossed that out there in between bites.

Carley didn’t know if that was an invitation for her to join him or if he was merely continuing with his briefing. She decided to go with the option that suited her. “Let me know when and where, and I’ll be there.”

“At two this afternoon. Here at the police station.” He tipped his head to the filing cabinet. “Just how strong are those pain pills?”

Mercy. She’d forgotten all about those. They’d blended in amid the stacks of files and other clutter. “Not strong enough to keep me off this case,” she insisted. “Besides, I haven’t even taken any of them.” She would have added more, would have probably even started a fresh argument, if there hadn’t been more movement on the screen.

“It’s motion-activated,” Sloan commented, his attention now fully on the monitor. He set the rest of the donut aside.

Carley followed suit. Because what she saw captured her complete attention, as well.

No amorous cats this time. It was a shadowy figure. She turned the monitor, hoping for a better angle. Sloan walked around the desk and stood behind her.

“I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman,” he mumbled.

“I can’t tell if it’s even human. It looks a little like a scarecrow in a Halloween costume.”

“Definitely human. The person’s wearing a mask and a cloak.”

She studied the image and had to agree. But the person didn’t have just a cloak and mask. There was something in his or her hand. The light from her office danced off that something. It was a glint of metal.

And on the screen Carley saw the gun rigged with a silencer.

That barely had time to register in her mind when there was the first shot.

And it wasn’t aimed at the camera.

The gunman saved the second bullet for that.

Sloan reached over and pressed a button to rewind the disk. He stopped it just as the first shot was in progress. Carley saw then what she hadn’t wanted to see.

Mercy.

A chill went through her.

“This person wasn’t just gunning for your surveillance camera, Carley,” Sloan confirmed. “He or she was gunning for you.”

“Are you okay?” Sloan asked when he saw the expression on Carley’s face.

What little color she’d had drained from her cheeks. Not without reason. She’d just witnessed a recording of someone attempting to kill her.

“The shots were fired at 1:13 this morning,” Carley mumbled, obviously noting the time displayed on the bottom of the monitor.

“You weren’t here when it happened?”

“No. I finished up work about a half hour before that, but I’d left on the light. I didn’t notice it until after I’d locked up and made my way back to the inn.” She looked up at him. “I can see my office window from my attic apartment. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to leave the light on all night and I knew I’d be back in the office early.”

Sloan played around with that a moment and took it to its logical conclusion. “So, because of the light, someone might have thought you were inside here working at 1:13 this morning.”

Carley nodded. “It’s not unusual for me to be here at that hour.”

He didn’t doubt it.

From all accounts, Carley was driven to be the best sheriff ever. That included plenty of seventy-hour work weeks, even though technically the sheriff’s office was only supposed to open from eight to five, with all calls before and after hours going through dispatch. He figured with Carley around, dispatch wasn’t taking many of the calls, because she made sure she was readily available for the citizens of Justice.

Sloan glanced around the room. “The window’s intact, no broken glass. I don’t see any point of entry for that first bullet.”

He watched the steel and resolution return to Carley’s eyes, and she got up at the exact second that he headed for the door.

The race was afoot.

She rushed around her desk and then came to a complete stop. That stopped Sloan, especially when Carley caught onto her side.

“It’s nothing,” she said, no doubt as a preemptive strike against what he was about to say.

Sloan gave her a flat look. “If it’s nothing, then why are you holding your side?”

She immediately lowered her hands.

That was the last straw. Sloan stormed toward her, and before she could stop him—or slap him into the middle of next week—he went after her shirt buttons.

“What in Sam Hill do you think you’re doing?” Carley snarled.

Sloan ignored her, and probably because she was in too much pain, she didn’t even attempt to fight him off. He undid the lower buttons at her midsection and had a look at the bandage. No blood. No raw, red areas on the skin. That was a good sign. But the edge of the adhesive tape was caught on one of the tender areas where her stitches had recently been removed. So that might be the cause.

“Hold still,” he instructed.

And, much to his surprise, she did.

Sloan slathered his hands with some liquid sanitizer that she had on top of the filing cabinet next to her pain meds. Taking a deep breath, he pulled over the chair and sat down so that he’d be at eye level with the bandage. It also put him at eye level with her stomach. And the bottom edge of her bra.

Purple lace.

Sloan couldn’t help it. He looked up at her, and when she followed his gaze, Carley narrowed her eyes to little bitty slits. “I haven’t had time to do laundry. It was one of the few wearable things that I had left in my lingerie drawer—and why I’m telling you this, I don’t have a clue. Because it certainly isn’t any of your business.”

To punctuate that, she snapped the upper sides of her top together so there was no visible purple lace.

But Sloan didn’t need to see it to remember that it was there. Nope. It was branded in his memory.

“I never took you for the purple-lace type,” he commented. Partly because it was true and partly because he wanted her mind on something else when he lifted that tape.

She’d already opened her mouth, probably to return verbal fire, but that tape pull had her sucking in her breath and wincing.

“Sorry,” Sloan apologized. “It’ll only hurt for a second.” He worked quickly, before she changed her mind, and he gave the bandage a slight adjustment. “There. Now it won’t pull at the skin that’s healing.”

She eyed him with skepticism and then tested it by rotating her arm. No wincing. No sucking in her breath. Just a relieved expression. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. But you know, if you were at your apartment resting, that bandage wouldn’t have shifted.”

“And you wouldn’t have gotten a cheap thrill of learning that I own a purple bra.” She buttoned her shirt as if she’d declared war on it. “By the way, you tell anyone about my choice of underwear and you’re a dead man.”

Puzzled, he stared up at her. “Why wouldn’t you want anyone to know that?”

She dodged his gaze and stepped back. “I don’t want to draw any attention to the fact that I’m female. I already have enough strikes against me without letting people know that I occasionally wear girlie stuff.”

Still puzzled, Sloan shook his head. “Why?”

“Because I’m not male. Because I’m the first woman in Justice to wear this badge. Because I don’t have the full support of this town.” She aimed her index finger at him. “Because I’m not you. And despite the fact you’ve been gone for years, most people still and always will think of you as the sheriff.”