“Ronnie’s kind of a loose cannon,” she said. “Want me to come with you?”
“Yes,” he said tiredly. “Thank you.”
Ten minutes later, windshield wipers on full blast, the cruiser made the turn onto Lake Lumin Road and started to climb. Annie’s stomach churned over the hills. She dreaded what was to come with every ounce of her being as, through the rain, the little blue house with the overgrown front yard appeared on the left.
Ronnie Boyd stood on the front porch behind a veil of water streaming over the broken gutter. His arms rested on the railing and his head was bowed between his shoulders, but at the sound of tires in the driveway, he looked up.
Annie wasn’t sure if he could see them through the rain-streaked windshield, but his eyes tracked the cruiser as it parked. He reached down toward his feet, lifted a mostly empty glass bottle of caramel-colored liquid, and brought it to his lips.
He tilted his chin skyward, and the inch of liquid disappeared down his throat, then he stretched his arm back and let the bottle fly,hurling it out into the driveway where it shattered against the gravel in an explosion of glass just feet from the police car.
Annie’s hands flew to her mouth.
Jake blew out a breath as he reached for his seat belt. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”
Chapter 27ANNIE
The Boyd house reeked of rodents and strong liquor, and Annie held her breath as she followed Jake inside.
Ronnie’s affinity for unusual animals had clearly not been quelled when she dismantled his exotic zoo. There was a foggy terrarium under a buzzing light beside the window, and three cages, acrid with urine-damp shavings, sat on the counter dividing the living room from the kitchen, their occupants curled into russet balls of fur in the corners where they slept.
Annie eyed the cages, the game warden in her trying to determine the breed of the animals inside. Ferrets, maybe… or weasels. Jake nudged her with an elbow, and she stopped staring, turning instead to the cluttered living room, where Jamie’s mother and father waited. This was not the time.
Debra Boyd sat on the sagging couch, her face gray and drawn, the eyes she shared with her daughter vacant as blue sea glass in her pale face. Ronnie had retreated inside the house without greeting Jake and Annie from the porch and chosen the recliner in front of the television, where he now rested with his legs crossed at the ankles in the fully reclined position, giving his undivided attention to the tennis match on the screen.
“You mind turning that off for a second, Ronnie?” Jake asked, not unkindly.
Ronnie merely lifted the remote and turned the volume up.
“Okay.” Jake strode to the set, reached down behind it, and yanked the cord from the wall. The screen winked off with a little puff of static, and silence fell, as thick and unpleasant as the smell in the room.
Annie couldn’t see Ronnie’s face from where she stood, but his voice told her enough about his state of mind.
“Whaddayawant, Jake?” The question was gravelly, nearly incoherent with drink.
“I’ve got an update.” Jake stared down into the recliner. “Why don’t you take a seat over there next to Deb and we’ll go over it together.”
To Annie’s surprise, Ronnie complied without verbal protest, though he slammed his legs down to return the recliner to its upright position before rising unsteadily to his feet.
Jake caught Annie’s eye, nodding toward the long coffee table in front of the couch, and Annie joined him there, taking a seat on the tabletop as Ronnie sank into the cushion beside his wife, coughing wetly with breath that reeked of bourbon.
Annie’s stomach tightened. He was drunk. Completely, stone-cold drunk.
Jake folded his hands with a heavy sigh. “I think it goes without saying that I wish we were here under different circumstances.”
Ronnie gave a bitter little laugh that turned into another cough.
“But,” Jake persisted, “part of my job is to keep the two of you informed as we proceed with the investigation, and that’s why we’re here.”
Annie sat beside him, fingers laced tightly in her lap and her eyes on the floor as Jake told Ronnie and Debra the unexpected results of the autopsy. When he stated that Jamie’s official cause of death was drowning, Annie felt in her bones the anguished cry that passed Debra’s lips, while Ronnie stayed silent.
Jake gave them the details of the autopsy with the least amount of emotion possible, and Annie knew it wasn’t because he was beingintentionally cold, but rather steady. Secure. Right now, the two people on the couch were lost in a riptide. Yanked into the sea of tragedy by a terrible undercurrent. What they needed were the facts, quick and clinical, and the chance to process them alone in peace.
Jake gave the Boyds what few assurances he had, promising them that the lab in Seattle was one of the best in the country and would be able to analyze every detail to provide information that would lead to an arrest, a statement that was met by a feverish nod from Jamie’s mother, and a snort of derision from her father.
Annie caught Debra’s gaze for a fleeting moment, but there was a hollowness in her expression that Annie could not bear, and she quickly looked away again.
Jake finished sharing what news he had, and Ronnie leaned forward to speak at last.
