Liam went back to slowly peeling off the label of his bottle. He tried to keep his tone casual.
“Is there anything else you heard about her? The sheriff, I mean.” Liam regretted hownotcasual-sounding the question came out.
He had overreached. Judging by the quick head turn, Theo had realized it too.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he exclaimed. “Did I hear that right? Is our dear sheriff finally,finallygiving in to the drama that is Seven Roads and its people? Are you really sitting here trying to gossip with me?”
Liam rolled his eyes and made sure the breath he let out was unmistakably annoyed.
“All right,” he said. “I think this conversation has run its course.”
He started to get up, but Theo grabbed at the leg of his jeans. He was laughing.
“Calm down there, Sheriff,” he said. “No need to get all defensive. Everyone in town knows you don’t put up with the rumor mill. I was just thrown a little, is all.”
Liam stayed where he was.
He knew he had successfully moved the boy out of his teasing and right to where he wanted him—answering his original question without additional commentary.
“The only other thing I know about the Bennet family is that they used to be one of the longtime families of Seven Roads, but then everyone started leaving. The lady who passed was the last one who was here before her sister showed up again. Seems like there was family drama before that.” He shut the leftover container with a click. His next words sounded thoughtful. “If the sheriff has been back for a while, then she really must have tried hard to keep to herself. I mean, it’s hard not to notice someone in this place after all.”
He wasn’t wrong. Seven Roads was thimble-sized small. Even if you wanted to stay off the radar, a local would put you right back on it the second you stepped foot into any store or venue. Maybe that was some of the hesitance he’d seen in Blake before the daycare program. It was the general public that had her wavering outside of the gym doors.
If that was true, then it also made Liam even more irritated with Ryan Reed.
It sounded like Blake had earned her right to silence, and he’d gone and forced her into the public eye.
Theo quieted after that. Liam too. Eventually the teen pulled out his homework. He went to bed as soon as it was finished.
His mother had never once been against Liam stepping in to help take care of Theo. The guest bedroom was more his room than the teen’s own bedroom in the apartment on the first floor. Still, there were moments when Liam wished the boy wouldn’t come by. That he would, instead, find comfort and happiness in his own home.
But life didn’t always work out as easy as that.
Theo knew that. Liam knew that.
Blake Bennet knew that too.
Liam’s hip ached a little. He kneaded it with his fist and then checked his phone one last time for the night.
There was no reason for her to call or text.
Still, he checked.
There was nothing and he decided that was that.
Today had been an offshoot of his investigation. A side quest that had concluded, and now he had to get back to the main one.
Missy Clearwater.
The young woman whose last two weeks of existence had been sad enough for everyone to believe that her taking her own life made more sense than someone else being responsible. Though Doc Ernest was sure to give credit to the ones that had, in most people’s opinion, been the motivation behind her action.
“Blunt trauma killed her,” Doc Ernest had announced once she had reconsidered her autopsy conclusions. “But if you ask me, it’s the ones closest to her that got her falling off that bridge. She has a big fight with her dad that everyone hears about, then her boyfriend leaves her, only to get with her best friend a week later?” Doc Ernest had shaken her head, sorrow lining her features. “That’s a rough go of it, especially on someone so young and sweet as Missy.”
But Liam couldn’t ignore the suspicion that the flash drive had created. It had spider-webbed through every story he heard, through the autopsy report, through the town chatter, and through the evidence they did have.
That’s why he wasn’t going to stop until he could put those suspicions to rest. Or find out what had really happened.
Which is why he needed to talk to Cassandra about Missy’s last interaction.
