She’d just hung up on the fifth caller when Jake appeared on the other side of the glass door.
“Cedar,” he announced as he stepped inside, tossing a thin file onto the desk with a thump.
He fell into his chair and dropped his head into his hands.
Annie forced the words out. “The results are back?”
“Yeah,” Jake muttered into the heel of his hand, slowly turning his head to catch her eyes. “The wood shavings were made of cedar. Just like the canoe. And the stuff on her thumb? Willow charcoal. The exact kind used in drawing pencils. The sample of water from her lungs isn’t back yet, but even without it, this is more than enough evidence. Once the town finds out, they’ll be calling for Daniel’s blood. Heck, half of them already are.”
“I know.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. This town has lost its mind. I walked to work today, and I must have been stopped seven or eight times. People are clustered together in little groups, talking over the details of the case like they’re hashing it out in court. I finally had to disconnect my phone this morning so I could eat breakfast in peace.”
He sounded angry, the barely subdued irritation in his voice raw and utterly foreign to the man who normally sat beside her at the desk.
“Were you able to track Daniel down?”
“No.” Jake lifted his head from his hands. His hair was tousled, and his uniform shirt was one button off at the collar. “I went down to the Wards’ place after I dropped you off yesterday, but they said he’d already left for the day, so I went home. Must have called the boathouse thirty times last night, but he never answered, so I drove back up there around midnight. Gate was still locked and his truck wasn’t in the clearing. He’s hiding, Annie, and he’s not leaving me much of a choice about how to handle this thing.”
The words only worsened the tight feeling in Annie’s chest.
Hiding. It was what Daniel did best.
A shadow darkened the sunlight beyond the door, and they both looked up as Ian Ward appeared on the other side of the glass, pushing his way into the station with a cigarette between his teeth.
“Ian.” Jake rose from his seat. “What can we do for you?”
Ian avoided Annie’s gaze as he blew out a breath, twin plumes of smoke streaming from his nostrils.
“Thought I’d come by,” he said around the cigarette. “I’ve got some information that may be useful to you.”
“Oh?” Jake asked, his tone clipped.
Despite the wrinkled shirt and the hair slicked back from his receding hairline, Ian somehow managed to convey a sense of superiority as he stared down his nose at Jake and took another long drag from his cigarette. He freed the stub with two fingers and blew a cornucopia of smoke toward the desk, still ignoring Annie completely.
“That’s right. I might have a bit of knowledge pertaining to the Boyd case.”
Annie could read Jake’s body language as well as anyone, and she didn’t miss the impatient tapping of his fingers or the nostril flare of irritation.
“You might, or you do?”
Ian took one last drag of his cigarette and leaned forward to stub it out on Annie’s nameplate, leaving the crumpled butt smoldering on the countertop.
“I do.”
Annie resisted the urge to reach for her nameplate and brush the ashes away, but Jake made a show of lifting the butt from the counter with two fingers and dropping it into the trash.
“Well,” he said, “you obviously came in to tell us, so go ahead and talk.”
Ian rested his arms on the counter and took his time clearing the mucus from his throat before he spoke again.
“As you know, Jake, my family is… well-connected. We have our finger on the pulse of this town, and not much happens that escapes our notice.”
The phone on the desk rang loudly, and Annie quickly lifted the receiver and slammed it down again. Ian didn’t even seem to notice as he droned on.
“You’ll know that the Lake Lumin rumor mill reaches the Ward estate first ninety-nine percent of the time, and the other one percent is when folks think we must have heard about it from someone else already.”
Ian was enjoying this. Dragging it out. Dangling the information that he had like bait.
