Bounty (Walk the Right Road)

Finding Love ~ THE OUTSIDER SERIES in order:

The Forgotten Child

A Baby And A Wedding
, (The Forgotten Child to Fallen Hero bridge short story)

Fallen Hero

The Search, (Fallen Hero to The Awakening bridge short story)

The Awakening

Secrets

Runaway

The Unexpected Storm

*Coming Soon – The Wedding

Military Romantic Suspense

Saved

Walk the Right Road Series

The Choice

Lost and Found

Merkaba

Bounty

Young Adult Suspense

The Gift

A Father’s Love

Box Sets

Finding Love ~ THE OUTSIDER SERIES

Walk the Right Road Series – Danger ~ Deception ~ Devotion: A Box Set

From the Heart

“LOST AND FOUND
is one of the best romantic suspense books I have read this year!

There was not a human emotion I did not go through while reading this book. I will forewarn you, you will need a box of tissues and a punching bag while reading this dynamic tale.”

Romance Junkies

Lost and Found hit me right in the gut from the very beginning!

JRA

I can't say when I have enjoyed reading a book more. The Choice is about choosing the truth over lies and good over evil. Lorhainne Eckhart weaves a story that makes it impossible to quit turning the page. She has true insight into the need to be loved and how evil can manipulate this need and draw innocent people into the pain and misery that greed and manipulation produce.

Amazon Reviewer Kyblondern

Just finished this one and was really a nail bitter. I was on edge the whole book and couldn't put it down for the last 50pgs.

Janice, Goodreads Reviewer

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Afterword

Other Works by Lorhainne Eckhart

About the Author

Contact Information

Copyright Information

Table of Contents

She slid out from behind the wheel and checked her holster, flicking her finger over her Glock and the smooth shiny badge she had clipped to the waistband of her jeans. She fisted her hands once, twice, yanked on the edge of her jean jacket, and stepped forward, putting all her attention into that one step, then another, on the pavement glistening under the half moon. Her breath misted in the damp night air, picking up the scent she had always associated with a fresh kill. She shivered as goose bumps pricked her skin, not from the cold, and she fought the instinct to cross her arms.

Flashing red lights cast an eerie shadow over the thick trees that lined both sides of the dark highway, headlights from a dozen vehicles spotlighting the scene. It was unnerving, and every sound of the night—the shouting, the whisper of the wind through the treetops, voices over the police radio, footsteps, and car doors opening and closing—became more defined, drawing her attention to each minute detail. Diane nodded to a uniformed deputy, who was holding a bright red flare and turning away the few cars that travelled the highway this late at night back toward Port Townsend. The state police and deputies lingered around the scene.

“Diane.” Baby-faced Green, now a lieutenant for the Sequim detachment, strutted over to Diane, holding his hand out as if to stop her. He wore a ratty tweed jacket and faded blue jeans. The skin on his bald head shone like a smoothly polished billiard ball from the backdrop of the headlights. “Hey, Stan.” Green waved to another uniformed officer Diane didn’t recognize and pasted on one of his phony good ol’ boy smiles.

She hated the prick, so she decided to ignore him and tried to step around him, but he matched her strides step for step as if trying to cut her off. On any other night, she would have cut him down with one of her hard, unforgiving glares and then finished him off with a sharp remark, telling him to get lost, except not tonight. The prick could say or do anything, and even though Diane itched to slam her fist in his face, it would be unlike her and would stand out as a red flag to everyone. For the life of her, she still couldn’t figure out how Green had ended up as a lieutenant, but he could pull rank and she’d likely find herself written up. She reminded herself again,
Keep your cool. Calm down.

Her entire focus was riveted on the scene in front of her as she strode straight toward the five crime scene technicians hunched down over a young woman who lay on her back across the yellow line in the center of the highway. It would have been a bone-chilling sight to anyone, but Diane’s attention wasn’t drawn by the fact that the woman was lying spread-eagle across the center line, her legs and arms set perfectly straight, nor by the fact that the young woman’s once beautiful face was marked with fresh bruising, nor by the black mark around her neck from where she’d been strangled as her sightless eyes stared heavenward. Even her long plain dress, a tired blue, was neatly pulled to her ankles, smoothed as if the woman had simply lain down on the road and straightened it. Her long dark hair hung in one thick braid across her breast. She wore only one tennis shoe on her left foot and a thick white sock on her right.

It was none of that which filled every part of Diane with a terror so icy she wanted to shut her eyes and get in her car, driving and driving until she was a dozen counties away. She couldn’t run, not again and not from this, as she stared at the one thing that could unleash the deep-seated fear she’d safely tucked away. She broke out in a cold sweat. A note was pinned to that serviceable dress, written in uniform black letters:
Keep sweet.

Diane could hear the rumble of voices next to her as she stared at the girl. In that moment, nothing could break through her thick curtain of surreality. All her senses would register was that there was a buzz of radios, noise, voices talking, the occasional shout. She couldn’t say one word, because she had somehow been shoved into what seemed like a vortex swirling around her. It was probably her mind—her head was protecting her from something that she knew, deep down, had to be really bad. She was barely aware of the technicians as they marked and taped the scene off. Someone said something to her, but it was Green tapping her on the shoulder that had her blinking her damp eyes. She turned and barked, “Why was I called?”

She kept her back on the girl and stared off at the deputies lounging against a car, watching her with an expression she didn’t like. She cursed under her breath then set her hands on her hip, but it felt awkward. She reached into her pocket for a piece of gum. At this point, she needed to do something—anything—to focus and regain her hard-won confidence, which had slipped from her since the call about this girl’s death. Diane knew she had to get her head back in the game and shove all her worries back inside that deep dark closet, because she refused to go down that road again, and she sure as hell had no plans to accept what was being shoved on her plate now.

No, she wasn’t into that crap, not Diane Larsen, the girl cop who had clawed her way through the raunchy, chauvinistic games and bullshit that had been pulled on her by all the men she’d had to work with. It was an attitude that she could have sworn had existed since the Stone Age. Even though everyone refused to acknowledge that good ol’ boys’ network, it was still around. Her bosses had said one thing and done the other, at least with her, anyway, though she suspected they had done the same with other women. She had just learned to keep her mouth shut and turn away from the stuff that made her so frickin’ mad she wanted to kick those assholes in the balls.

What they didn’t and wouldn’t ever know was that she’d come from one of the best training grounds for teaching girls they didn’t possess minds of their own. She had been taught to never ever speak of what she knew, that everything family stayed in the family. For Diane, ignoring all the pricks she worked with who made her job hell came easy, and that was what she’d done for the past ten years even though her self-confidence was purely an act. Right now, she needed to pull off one of the greatest performances of her life.

It was Green who frowned before crossing his arms and then uncrossing them, annoyed. He waved his hand at the body behind him. “She’s a woman, and since Craig is on holidays and Daniels has a family, well, we all know you don’t have much to do at night. Didn’t seem right to drag a man from his warm bed and his family.”

“You’re an asshole,” Diane said before she had thought about it. After all, she knew better than to crawl in the gutter and let him get to her, but she was rattled and wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there. “This isn’t even my jurisdiction, and this sure as hell doesn’t look like a drug bust gone bad, so explain to me again why I’m here. In case you didn’t get the memo, I’m back with the OPNET team, so unless this is somehow drug related and she’s got a stash with her, I’m out of here.”

“Diane!” Casey, a short redheaded crime scene technician, waved Diane over to where she was crouched beside the body, wearing one of those unflattering yellow jumpsuits. “I want to show you something.” She flicked her gloved hand in the air, gesturing to the dead girl.

Diane jammed her teeth together and gave Casey all her focus. She was a few years older than Diane, single and always full of life, especially after a few rounds at the cop bar, Emile’s, with whatever was on tap. It never failed that after two drinks, that ultraconservative all-business attitude melted away, bringing out the happy, cheerful clown underneath. Even all those tough-ass pricks she worked with, who had more muscle than brains, enjoyed having her around.

“You see the bruising?” Casey pointed her latex-gloved finger at the victim’s neck, the smooth, youthful skin that hadn’t even had time to age.

“Casey, get to the point. Any wet-behind-the-ears rookie could see the girl was strangled.”

Casey never flinched or looked away as she stood up. The woman acted as if nothing bothered her. She ripped off her gloves as she walked over to Diane and stuffed them in her jacket pocket. She looked everywhere except at Diane as she stepped closer. Green, of course, was still standing right beside her, invading her space, taking everything in as if he truly believed he called all the shots.

Casey yanked out a pack of gum and popped a piece in her mouth, looking at Diane as if she needed time to gather her thoughts. “The problem is that the girl never fought back. Normally, we’d find trauma around the fingers, broken fingernails, skin and blood, but nothing is there. Gotta tell you this is the first time I’ve seen someone who didn’t fight back, so it leads me to wonder a few things, like whether she was drugged. As it looks now, it’s as if she just lay there and willingly let someone strangle her, no sign of a struggle. Then there’s that dress she’s got on, the long braided hair, no makeup, very old fashioned. This girl ain’t from around here. She’s just a kid, I’d say fourteen or fifteen, maybe, if that. You may want to ask yourself, what kind of kid goes around dressed in a plain sack-like dress? It seems like something ordained by one of those polygamist groups, but last I checked, there weren’t any around here.”