Random Acts by J. A. Jance Page A

before the two of them married. Both times she had scrambled up the rocky front of the mountain on her hands and knees and slid back down, most of the way on her butt. Both times she’d been in trouble with her mother afterward for wrecking her clothes.
    The front side of Gold Hill was accessed through an old cattle ranch whose entrance was, unsurprisingly, at the end of a street called Black Knob. The backside was approached via a primitive dirt track that ran past a now mostly deserted rifle range. Both routes required four-­wheel drive most of the way and a hike for the last half mile or so.
    â€œOkay,” she said. “Where are you right now?”
    â€œStill at the Justice Center.”
    â€œGive me half an hour to go home and change, then come out to the ranch with my Yukon and we’ll drive to the crime scene in that. No way am I going to take my Enclave there. It doesn’t have a scratch on it at the moment, and I fully intend keep it that way.”

 
    Chapter One
    â€œD O YOU HAVE to go?” Denny whined, pushing his macaroni and cheese around on his plate. “Why do you always have to work?”
    â€œYour mommy has an important job,” Butch explained. ­“People are counting on her to do it.”
    Changed into a regulation khaki uniform augmented by a pair of sturdy hiking boots, Joanna shot her husband a grateful glance. She’d called him on her way home, and he’d had her dinner on the table when she arrived.
    Butch, more than anyone, understood Joanna’s unstinting commitment to her job. She hadn’t run for office with the intention of being sheriff in name only. From the moment she was elected, she had made it a point to be at the scene of every homicide that had occurred inside the boundaries of her far-­flung jurisdiction. Just because she had spent most of the day grieving the deaths of her mother and stepfather and planning the funeral ser­vice didn’t mean she was going to abandon her official duties, especially when a possible double homicide had turned up less than ten miles away from her home on High Lonesome Road.
    On the other hand . . . the disappointment registered on Denny’s face represented every working mother’s all-­too-­familiar tug-­of-­war.
    â€œFinish your dinner, Denny, and get your jammies on,” Joanna suggested. “Maybe I’ll have time enough to read some Dr. Seuss to you before Chief Deputy Hadlock comes by to pick me up.”
    With a gleeful shout, Dennis hopped down from his chair, cleared his dishes, and then scampered off toward the bedroom with their two dogs—­a rescued Australian shepherd named Lady and a stone-­deaf black Lab named Lucky—­hot on his heels.
    â€œHe’s tired,” Butch remarked, “and so am I. It was a long haul back and forth to Flagstaff, but I think we did the right thing. It’s a lot more important to have Jenny settled in her dorm and Maggie in her new stable in a timely fashion rather than expecting Jenny to hang around here for the funeral and end up being late for her first college-­level classes. Starting her freshman year that way might leave her feeling like she’s behind everyone else from the very beginning.”
    Joanna nodded. The truth was, it hadn’t required all that much effort to talk Jenny into taking a pass on her grandparents’ funeral. Not that she didn’t care about them—­she did. In fact, she had doted on George, and in many ways, she had enjoyed a better relationship with Eleanor than Joanna ever had. By the end of August, most of Jenny’s friends had gone off at school, and she was ready to follow suit.
    â€œBut will she feel guilty later about missing the funeral?” Butch asked. “That’s what worries me.”
    Joanna smiled at him. “She’s a freshman in college. She’ll be far too busy to feel guilty for very