Sounded familiar.
“All the more reason not to tamper with evidence.” He was tempted to wrestle the damn thing out of her hand so he could get it to Zach, but Sam couldn’t afford a confrontation with her. Let alone overstep his rights as a law-enforcement officer.
But damn. Any hope he had of finding out who’d sent the threat diminished with each urgent press of her shaking finger.
“The message said I’d better not talk to the cops or Bailey would be sorry I did.” Her voice hit a high, frantic pitch. Her head swiveled as she glanced around the parking lot. “What the hell does that even mean? Is someone watching me?”
Turning desperate eyes toward Sam, she finally thrust the cell into his hand.
“Probably not.” He pocketed the evidence and steered her toward the bench outside her cottage. Or what he assumed was hers. “But it’s easier to trace the message if you can get your phone straight into the hands of an IT expert. The mayor’s company specializes in that kind of thing.”
“Right.” She dropped onto the bench awkwardly, banging her hip on the way down but not even seeming to notice. “I just saw Bailey last night. I should tell her father?—”
“Let me call this in, and I’ll make sure an officer notifies Cole, the school and Bailey, too.” Jogging back to his truck, he used the police radio to contact the station and make arrangements, texting Zach about another disappearing threat at the same time.
It was a damn good thing Clayton had offered to help. Even so, he would have to call the county for more uniformed reinforcements.
When he returned to Tiffany’s side, her color had improved a little. Her movements remained stiff and uneasy, however, as he neared.
“Sheriff, I haven’t mentioned how grateful I am to you for hiring my daughter to watch your son. It means a lot to me that Bailey hasn’t been alienated...because of me.” She folded her arms around herself tightly, bearing little resemblance to the aggressive businesswoman he remembered from town council meetings.
Sam couldn’t remember her ever thanking anyone in town for a damn thing, unless it was at an event documented by the media. She’d been a press hound for her small business—a sporting-goods store she’d opened with her husband the year before.
She reminded him of alcoholics he’d seen who’d turned their lives around—people who operated at a whole different pitch once they rid themselves of a bad influence. For Bailey McCord’s sake, he hoped that her mother had learned a lesson in the hell of the last few weeks.
“I believe each of us are only accountable for our own actions and no one else’s.” He leaned against a post that was mostly decorative in front of her cottage. Judging by the vacant parking lot, Tiffany McCord was probably the only guest at the Country Cabins Motor Lodge this week. “And since my son has been threatened, too, I have a uniformed officer keeping watch over my mother’s house whenever Bailey is there.”
“You think that makes the kids safer or puts them more at risk if they are together?” She crossed her legs, one foot twitching nervously.
“With a cop car out front?” There was no question in his mind. “Safer for sure.”
She nodded, seeming to accept this, but her foot kept right on twitching.
“Mrs. McCord, do you have any idea who might have sent you that threat?” He’d come here to question her about her argument with Kate Covington yesterday, not add to his already long list of items that needed investigation. But if this incident helped lead him to whoever had threatened Aiden, he was just as glad to put the rest of his questions on hold.
“Patience Wilkerson.” She tipped her head forward, squeezing her temples between her hands. “The bitch.”
“Faith Wilkerson’s sister?” Faith was coming in later today to give her statement. She’d been groped by a faceless man in the woods near the quarry in an episode similar to what Amy had experienced.
He was so close to proving a pattern of behavior. But he’d need more people to come forward before the trial. At first, Sam had hoped for the usual legal motions and delays to slow things down in the justice system. But Covington’s lawyer was pushing things through at full speed, undoubtedly aware the evidence against his client remained thin considering the years Covington had been quietly molesting and stalking girls and young women in the area.
“I guess they are sisters.” Tiffany shrugged as a big rig roared by on the highway. A few moments later, the motion blew through the bushes at their feet. “All I know is that Patience thinks she’s the true love of Jeremy’s life, and she’s crazy enough to hate anyone else who has ever held that position before.”
Sam was doing the math to figure out the age difference between Faith and Patience—three years, maybe. One sister was giving testimony that could keep the guy in jail, and the other wanted to protect him? Sounded like some serious sibling rivalry he could use for leverage.
“This is what you brought up to Kate in the teacher’s parking lot yesterday?”
“I did. Kate is in major denial about her husband.” She picked at some green peeling paint on the arm of the bench. Flicked off a dry piece.
“So now you think he’s guilty?” She’d defended him in previous interviews, insisting the police had arrested the wrong man.
“I think he’s a lying, cheating bastard. And if he could fool me so thoroughly—” She pursed dry lips. Pressed a hand to her forehead. “I have no evidence of anything, okay? But I’d bet Kate could find enough in his files to fry his ass if I can convince her how big of a cheater he is.”
“Kate seemed very angry with you yesterday. Could she be the one who threatened Bailey?”
“Kate? She’s won teacher of the year in this state five times in a row or something.” She rolled her eyes and shot to her feet, restless all of a sudden. “She likes kids too much to pull that crap. Don’t ask me how she wound up with such a loser for a husband. She must have a savior complex or something. But to answer your question—no way.”
Interesting. He made some notes on his phone to check out the Wilkerson family, as well as Kate and Tiffany. Tiffany paced in front of the cottage, biting her lip.
