I freeze, spoon halfway to my mouth, eyes locked on the doorknob.
Another knock. Firmer.
“It’s Brady,” Jack calls. “Open up, Twig.”
Air rushes back into my lungs. My knees almost go out from under me with the semi-relief.
I set the yogurt on the counter, wipe my hands on my leggings, and do the lock routine—deadbolt, chain, cheap doorknob lock—before cracking the door.
Jack Brady fills my doorway in a very different way than the man from last night. Broad shoulders in a sheriff’s Carhartt jacket, stubble dark against his jaw, eyes sharp and tired.
“Morning,” he says.
“That’s optimistic,” I mutter, stepping back to let him in.
He smells like cold air and gas station coffee. He’s holding a to-go cup in one hand and a white paper bag in the other.
“For you,” he says, shoving them at me. “Eat. Drink. Don’t argue.”
I blink at the offerings. “You bribing me with carbs, Sheriff?”
“I am bribing myself with the illusion that you will do what I tell you for once in your life.” He toes the door shut behind him, glances automatically around the room, then checks the window locks like he didn’t already do that six hours ago.
“I do what you tell me all the time,” I lie, opening the bag.
The smell hits me first—grease and sugar and something cinnamon. My stomach actually moans.
“Is this from Karla’s?” I ask, fingers already closing around a still-warm donut. “How, though?”
“She opened early,” he says. “News travels fast when someone finds a body at the Falls.”
My appetite flickers.
“What do you know?” I ask.
He leans a hip against my kitchen counter and pulls a notebook from his jacket pocket. “Adult woman, mid-twenties. Name’s not being released yet, so don’t ask. Hiker found her around six last night, called it in. We got out there, secured the scene. She’d been there a while.”
I swallow a bite of donut that sits heavy in my throat. “How long is a while?”
“Long enough that we’re waiting on the state guys for precise time of death,” he says. “But probably not more than a couple days. Lividity’s consistent with her being on the rocks the whole time. No sign she was moved post-mortem.”
“Clothes?” I ask. “Any…” I gesture vaguely, not wanting to say the word ritual out loud. It sticks in my teeth.
Jack’s jaw tightens. “We’re not going to jump to conclusions.”
“That’s not an answer, Brady.”
He studies me for a moment, eyes as blue as the cold outside. Finally, he exhales.
“Clothes intact,” he says. “From what we can tell so far. No obvious sexual assault. There were some marks, but it’s too early to say if they’re consistent with Thurston’s old work or if we’re looking at someone new.”
“Okay. It was always Adams that did the…” I swallow. “The sexual stuff. Thurston was just interested in the kill. The…”
“Yes. The spectacle of it.”
“You will have taken pictures,” I say. “Of the scene. Of her.”
“Of course.”
