This just keeps getting more fucked.
“Yeah…I know this sounds crazy, but on the drive back, I couldn’t shake the feeling it was someone there who either just undid the bolts or…and this sounds crazier, was there to tighten them back up. I just felt weird the whole time. Like…”
She lets her words trail off.
I have so many questions but I need to let her talk.
She continues. “The wrench was the same size neededfor the bolts. I ran it for prints this afternoon, but it came up short.”
The thought of Freya alone at the quarry, with coyotes and now some dickhead with a wrench? Adrenaline floods my system.
“This is not sitting well with me.”
“What? The case?”
“No. Yeah, that and…you being out there alone?”
She furrows her eyebrows. “That’s not outside protocol. It’s a small town.” She straightens her shoulders to show she’s my equal. “Anton, this kind of thing is going to happen. I’m a police officer.”
When Freya expressed interest in law enforcement, I knew it would be hard to imagine her there out on the beat, sometimes in dangerous situations. I’m an ex-SEAL though, and in moments when I’d worry, and text, I’d tell myself she’s smart. She’s capable. Trained.
Training takes the edge off worst-case scenarios.
But now she’s pregnant. She’s tired. Her body aches. And there’s a little life inside her that isn’t supposed to be hanging out at the edge of a quarry.
But I don’t say any of it. I have to trust her decisions.
Fuck. There’s the T word again.
I need to be part of the solution, not the problem, which was fucking coyotes and some lurking person with a wrench. “Let me recap. The guardrails were loosened. And today you found a wrench that was dropped that’s the size of the rail bolts.”
“Yes.” She tests another theory but instantly it sounds wrong. “I guess someone could have been there to fix them, but why would they be hiding in the forest?”
I know where she’s going, and it makes sense.
“You think they were loose when Zoe went over. Andnow, months later, someone is there to secretly tighten them?”
Shit, is there some sort of tip-off going on? “When did Callum give you the green light on this case?”
“Eleven-ish?”
“When did you go to the quarry?”
“I got there after taking an early lunch. Maybe one?”
Shit. Way too much time passed. This town is constantly engaged in a game of telephone. Callum could have told Penelope; Ingram, his wife. Her fellow officer, Luke, makes hourly visits to Café Luna.
Plenty of time for the wrong person to hear Zoe Marshall isn’t getting buried yet.
She shakes her head. “Am I nuts?” She continues more for herself than for me. “It does make sense that maybe if there was foul play, the person would come back and clean up the details. But…” She’s deep in thought. “Months later. And…”
“… Right after Callum allows you to continue the investigation?”
This is why we vibed on those stakeouts. We are on the same wavelength.
Her curious gaze bears down on me. “The only people that might have known were fellow officers, though.”
I shake my head. “Sorry, honey, not in a small town. Callum, Ingram…anyone who overheard could have talked to someone about it. They had hours; information like that in Echo Valley would have spread like wildfire.”
