“You don’t have any idea what it might be?”
Jill shook her head.Worry was etched into every line on her face.“I’d hate for you guys to be blindsided by something in court.”
Aly was starting to wonder if blindsided wasn’t just part of life.She thought of the way Glenda had given her a dress last summer.The way shehelped.She wasn’t holding back from telling Jill out of some kind of spite or meanness.It was to protect.
But protect who?From what?
“I’ll keep trying to get it out of her, but I thought if I told you, maybe you or Sam or somebody could get it out of Detective Hayes.”
“Maybe,” Aly agreed.
Not her, but maybe Sam.She didn’t think Sam had actually gone out with the guy, but there had been something about the way the detective had looked at Sam this summer that made Aly wonder.And technically Sam was kind of a professional in this whole scenario.Not the murderer’s family.
The door opened, and Cal stepped in, snow covering his hat and pants.He pushed off the hood he’d been wearing, some snow clinging to the tips of his hair.
“What if Cal asked her?”Aly asked.“He’s got all that lawyer expertise.No doubt knows how to deal with a… difficult witness.And maybe she doesn’t want to burden you.Cal could be like a… buffer.”
“What are you two whispering about?”he demanded suspiciously.
Jill sighed.“Well, it’s worth a shot.Anything is worth a shot.”
*
Cal had neverbeen scared of Glenda.Oh, he’d loved the teenage ghost stories about her.He’d even made up a few of his own to scare his buddies.And sometimes, they felt a little bit more real than not.But that was just… fun.Superficial.
These days, he felt a lot more…scaredwasn’t the right word.She was a tiny woman who’d suffered a stroke a few years back.What could she do to him that hadn’t already been done?
But she gave him that same feeling that thinking about his mother did.Like there were pieces to a puzzle still hidden somewhere inside his mind.Ones he couldn’t reach even if he wanted to.
The worst part of that feeling was the niggling worry thatsheknew them.Whatever they were.
He hated it.So, he didn’t beat around the bush.He didn’t try to charm her, though he knew that was what Aly and Jill had hoped for when they’d gone outside tocheck on the horses.They expected him to put his lawyer hat on and get the details.
He sat across from her on the sofa, leaned forward, and went for straight to the point.Ignoring the way her eerie light green eyes felt like a nightmare he didn’t remember.
“Well, Glenda, here we are again.And I don’t know why Jill thinks you’ll talk to me over her.Maybe it’s the lawyer in me.But I’m fresh out of lawyer bullshit this morning, so let’s just cut to the chase.”
She cocked her head, still studying him with those calm, eerie eyes.
And he didn’t feel any more in control trying to emulate Nate’s directness, which soured his mood further.“Just write down what the detective asked you.”He put the pad and pen on the coffee table in front of her.“It’s not complicated.”
She made a kind of huffing noise.
“Okay, everything’s fucking complicated.”
She sent him a sharp, disapproving gaze—no doubt for his language.He wanted to tell her he didn’t give a fuck, but he bit his tongue.He wasn’t going to berudejust because she unsettled him.Just because he was in a piss-poor mood over too many things to count.
He took a breath, slowly let it out.Tried to find some piece of the lawyer he’d once been.“We just want to make sure nothing is going to blindside us during the trial.It’d really help if you could give me an idea of what the detective asked you about.”
“Not good.”
Her voice was just a whisper.It sounded more like the faint scratch of claws against a door than avoice.
Cal wasn’tproudof the noise that came out of him.Something like a little girl’s shriek.His heart pounded hard against his ribs as he tried to determine if he’d just hallucinated.But no…No.“You spoke.”
Glenda shook her head.Like she wasrefuting him.But he’d heard it.He’d watched her mouth move.
“Youspoke,” he insisted, breathless.
