“How long until I can expect the report?” I questioned sternly.
“As I said, our ME is backed up. This report should be finished by the end of the week, which means we can mail it out to you by the end of next week.”
“Snail mail? Really? In 2020?”
Another angered expression from the woman across the desk, but I still didn’t give a shit. I wanted answers, and the Harlington Sheriff’s Department was talking about sending shit in the mail instead of getting with the twenty-first century and emailing me the damn report.
“Is the ME here? Maybe I can speak to him, and we can avoid my having to wait for you all to send it in the mail.” My tone dripped with impatience and disdain.
“That’s not how it works, ma’am.”
“Does anything work here?”
She frowned, scowling at me from behind her computer.
I rolled my eyes and asked, “Is there any way to put a rush on it?”
“We can have it overnighted to you. There’s an extra fee for that.”
“Of course there is.”
I paid the fee and took my receipt, looking it over. I expected to walk out of the station with the autopsy report in my hands. I even thought I’d get the chance to take it back to Micah to look it over with him. He’d probably seen more autopsy reports than I had and could tell me if something looked off or whatever.
Yet, due to the slow ME, there was no such luck.
With my tail between my legs, I got back in the truck and pulled off, heading for home. On the drive there, I wondered what the report would reveal if anything.
I’d almost broke down crying in Micah’s office at the realization that my grandfather had been going through cancer treatment and hadn’t told me. I wanted to know why. We talked so often, and I thought we shared almost everything. How could he keep the fact that he was sick away from me?
I shook my head and climbed out of the truck once I reached home. The first thing I spotted were the trash bags I’d left on the porch earlier that morning. I dropped my purse on the rocking chair that my grandmother loved and gathered the bags to carry out to the edge of the driveway to be picked up by the garbage collectors.
“The hell?” I griped as one of the bags slipped from my hand, causing a few of the papers to spill out. I frowned, believing that I’d sealed the bags before leaving. Guessing I’d left the one bag not tied as tightly as I thought I had, I redid it and hauled the trash out.
Before turning to head back to the house, I paused, looking up and down the street. Aside from a few cars parked on the road, I didn’t see anything that appeared strange or odd. However, the feeling of being watched came over me. I stood there for another minute, trying to see if anything seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing I could spot, but I reminded myself that I wasn’t that familiar with this area any longer. Neighbors had upped and moved since the last time I spent the summer there. I was lowkey still pissed that one of the neighbors had called the sheriff’s department on me that first night back in town.
To be honest, the entire time I’d been back in town, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. I found myself often doing scans of my surroundings, but nothing ever seemed out of the ordinary. Maybe I was paranoid.
Chapter Thirteen
“It’s supposed to storm tonight,” I said into the phone as I pulled into a space of the parking lot at a strip mall.
“R-Really?” Jodi questioned after clearing her throat.
The inflection in her voice caught my attention. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Now her voice had gone high-pitched, a definite sign she wasn’t telling the truth.
I gritted my teeth, wanting to demand that she tell me what was bothering her, but I held back. I might’ve done something foolish like drive over to her place to look her in the eye and demand she tell me what was wrong. I couldn’t do that. Now right then.
“Guess that rules out my plan to go hiking.”
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “I wouldn’t recommend getting on the trails now.”
She pushed out a breath.
We’d been on the phone for a few minutes. I called after leaving my office and driving two towns over to have an impromptu meeting with someone I’d been tracking down regarding her grandfather’s case. Our conversation drifted away from the matter of her grandfather to other topics.
Talking to her came easy. She asked about my family, and there were no reservations on my part about opening up about my brothers and father. I still couldn’t believe I’d talked about my mother with her two days earlier when she was in my office. Albeit, it was only a little, but it was more than I shared with anyone else outside of my immediate family.
