Lover Beware

case. He had nowhere to go but down. His fingerprints matched the ones taken from the Dillons’ house, although they couldn’t tie him in to any of the other home invasion cases, and in any case the M.O. was different. All of the other home invasions had been carried out by a team of three people, including one woman, not a lone male.
    As it turned out, Earl’s crime had been a copycat one, designed to cover up a crime that had been not so much carried out as botched in a drunken fit. And the investigation hadn’t been helped along by the fact that their primary witness, Carol Dillon, who had been having what could only politely be called a sexual liaison with Sooner, had lied.
    Early in the afternoon, Earl’s hidey-hole at the back of Jane’s farm was located by a specialist sniffer dog, and Rider and Jane went to look at the haul.
    Tucker and Zane were in their element, cordoning off the area with police tape and helping the crime squad boys catalogue the evidence.
    They found two televisions and a DVD player, plus a forty-inch, state-of-the-art flat screen. To go with the viewing screens there were video cameras and sound equipment and some seriously good stereo gear, although most of the stuff was ruined, since the limestone cave Sooner had chosen wasn’t waterproof, and had partially filled with water during the storm.
    Sooner hadn’t limited himself to stealing the expensive chattels, he’d also taken a number of kitchen appliances, including a toaster and a sandwich maker, and what looked like a part of Carol Dillon’s blender—minus the motor.
    Zane bagged up the sandwich maker, which was stacked near piles of videos. “Looks like he was planning on snacking while he watched whatever.”
    The “whatever” turned out to be homegrown Tayler’s Creek porn, starring mostly Carol Dillon and Earl Sooner, and occasionally, just to break the tedium, Aubrey Dillon.
    Once the videos were discovered, all the facts of the case became clear. Mrs. Dillon had been raped, but it had been by a man she had regularly had sex with—on video—which was the reason she had denied knowing her attacker. She hadn’t wanted the police to find out that she and her husband were involved in producing homegrown porn movies for a small, but lucrative, mail-order business at their rural retreat on Linford Road. She’d given the police artist an incorrect description of Sooner, adding long hair, specifically so they wouldn’t find him, because she’d been frightened that Earl would come back and kill her if she reported what had really happened.
    Apparently Sooner had gotten a little too rough during one session for Aubrey’s liking and he’d been fired. Later on that night, Sooner had come back with a twenty-two, shot Aubrey, raped Carol Dillon, and loaded his truck with every appliance he could get his hands on. He’d removed all the videos, so he couldn’t be linked with the Dillons, and had trashed the house to make it look like a home invasion.
    He then drove onto the back of Jane’s property, using a reserve that bordered her land as access, and hid the gear in one of the caves. When Jane became suspicious and started snooping around the caves, he decided he needed to do one more copycat crime.
     
    BY THE TIME the police were finished gathering evidence, it was near dark. After feeding the hens and checking the sheep, Jane put Jess in the backseat of her station wagon and followed Rider back to his place.
    When she reached the front door, Rider unlocked it, swung Jane into his arms, and carried her across the threshold. “You’ll have to humour me, I’ve got a romantic streak.”
    He set her down in the middle of a large, roomy lounge with glossy wood floors, rich, patterned rugs, and bifold doors that opened out onto decks bordered by large areas of lawn. The sun was sinking fast, but shafts of sunlight found their way through the clouds and filled the room with a warm glow.
    The first, and only, time she’d been in this house, at a party the Riders had thrown to welcome her and Patrick to Tayler’s Creek, her world had literally been turned upside down.
    Without warning, tears filled her eyes. Rider’s hands framed her face, not allowing her to hide. “I know,” he murmured. “The last seven years have been a bitch. You loved Patrick. If I’d ever thought differently, I would have taken you away from him in a second.”
    The flat assertion sent a small shiver skimming down her spine, and if she’d