Harlan shot a look at Laney. That kind of behavior was either desperation or a smokescreen, and he wasn’t sure yet which one Brannigan was going for.
Laney frowned. “So Sherry actually wants to see us?”
“That’s what she said,” Barnes confirmed. “You want to drop in on Brannigan first or go straight in with her?”
Harlan let the question hang, weighing the options. “Sherry,” he finally said, and he got a quick nod from Laney.
Laney didn’t waste any time. She headed up the hall, and Harlan followed her into the small interview room. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, their harsh glare cutting against the tired slump of Sherry’s shoulders. She didn’t look enraged the way she had yesterday. This morning, she just looked wrung out, shadows bruising the skin under her eyes.
Sheriff Barnes leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Sherry doesn’t have an alibi for last night,” he said, his voice edged with irritation. “Claims she was home alone.”
Sherry’s gaze darted toward him, then back to Laney. “It’s the truth. I was at my place.”
Harlan studied her closely. She sounded sincere, but sincerity was a mask anyone could wear if they practiced enough. For all he knew, he was looking straight at the person who wanted them dead.
Without any kind of warning, Sherry’s composure cracked. She groaned and pressed her hands to each side of her head.
“I lied before,” she blurted out. “I lied about David. There wasn’t an affair. I just wanted to hurt you, Laney. You accused me of being dirty, and I wanted you to feel the sting of something just as ugly.”
The words tumbled out too fast, as if she had been holding them back for days.
Harlan felt his jaw turn to iron. Maybe what she’d just said was the truth. Maybe Sherry had indeed invented the story aboutsleeping with David just to wound Laney. But there was another possibility.
One that sat like a stone in his gut.
Sherry could just as easily be backpedaling, covering her tracks now that the Rangers had their eyes on the case again. An affair, especially one that had ended badly, could have been enough motive for her to kill David.
And now she might be panicking because the old case was heating up again.
Sherry folded her hands on the table, her fingers twitching against each other before she stilled them. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, her voice rougher now, as if she wanted the words to stick. “I shouldn’t have lied about David. I shouldn’t have dragged him into it like that.”
Then she lifted her eyes toward Sheriff Barnes. “When do we actually start? I mean the real interview.”
“About thirty minutes,” Barnes informed her. “Once I finish taking a statement from Brannigan.”
At the mention of the man’s name, Sherry’s face tightened into a scowl. The lines around her mouth deepened, and she muttered a sharp string of profanity under her breath.
“Don’t believe a damn word that man says,” she added with a snap.
Harlan caught the flicker in her eyes, the anger curdling into something else. He leaned forward just slightly, his tone calm but edged.
“What were you and Brannigan arguing about when Laney and I were at your place?” he asked.
For the briefest instant, panic flared across Sherry’s face. A tight widening of the eyes, a shift of her jaw. She smothered it almost as soon as it appeared, schooling her expression back into something cold and guarded.
But Harlan had seen it. That single crack in her armor.
Sherry’s jaw clenched, and her gaze darted to the closed interview room door as if she could see straight through it to Brannigan. “He was the one leaning on me,” she finally said, her voice sharp. “Brannigan wanted me to keep quiet. Said if anyone started asking questions about missing evidence, we both needed to be on the same page. He was covering his own ass.”
Harlan studied her body language and expression. He’d seen suspects lie enough times to know when someone was trying too hard to sell a story, and Sherry was pushing hard now.
“What kind of missing evidence?” he asked.
She gave a quick shake of her head. “I don’t know all the details. Guns, ammo, maybe drugs. He never said straight out, but I could tell he was involved in something dirty. When I told him I wouldn’t lie for him, he lost it. That’s what you heard, me telling him to go to hell.”
Sherry’s voice cracked on the last word, and she pulled in a ragged breath. “He’ll twist it, of course. Brannigan always does. But don’t you believe a damn word out of his mouth.”
Harlan stayed quiet, letting her words hang in the air. If what she said was true, then Brannigan had been pushing her to cover his own tracks. But Billy had painted an entirely different picture, one where Sherry was the one selling off confiscated guns, ammo, even drugs.
