Kate walked in with two long-necked beers and handed one over. “This has been one long week. My girls are with my ex, and I didn’t want to go home to a quiet house. You were still working, so I decided to dust the reception area. You know, my girls are all blond. I’m worried about them.” She craned her neck and gingerly pulled a piece of cobweb out of Laurel’s hair. “Did you go through a crawlspace?”
“We searched an old cabin formerly occupied by Pastor Zeke Caine.” Laurel took a drink of the light brew, letting the liquid cool her throat. “All we found were cobwebs and the accompanying spiders.” She shivered. “I understand an ecological need for spiders, but they just creep me out.”
“Me, too.” Kate hopped up on the end of the table, next to Laurel. “That’s not the same whiteboard. You changed it.”
Laurel shook her head. “I just flipped it over. The victims and reports are still on the other side.” She looked at the boxes she’d drawn with text inside: Casey Morgan, Lisa Scotford, Seattle streets, prostitution, profile, knowledge of surrounding land, and unknown. “I was trying to connect all the facts without looking specifically at one particular suspect. In cases like this, it’s easy to get caught up with suspects who knew both Casey and Lisa, but looked at from a different angle, Casey and Lisa had the same appearance as the other victims.”
Kate swung her leg. “So the killer might not have known them? They could’ve been taken opportunistically, just like the blondes from the higher-risk areas?”
“It’s possible.” Laurel scooted over a little bit and set her feet on a turned-over box to support her back better. “In which case, the question is why did he change hunting grounds? Did somebody recognize him in Seattle or Everett? Were the police getting too close there? And why did he, assuming it was him, shoot at me? What am I getting close to right now?” The unanswered questions battered her brain until her head ached.
“What if it wasn’t the killer who shot at you?” Kate asked, catching on to her strategy.
Laurel clicked through the facts available at the moment. “Good question. However, I can’t find another explanation. I haven’t been home for a couple of years, so I don’t have any enemies here. If I have enemies from other cases, they wouldn’t have known to find me here in Genesis Valley.”
“So the most logical answer is that the serial killer shot at you because you’re onto something, even if you don’t know what it is,” Kate said. “In that case, the murderer is closer to home and isn’t afraid of the Seattle cops.” The woman was bright and caught on quickly.
“Right. So why did he change his MO? If that line of reasoning is accurate, chances are, he knew either Casey, Lisa, or both of them.” Laurel drank more of the beer, her mind spinning. “Sometimes, when I end up at this place in a case, I go for a run until my legs hurt too badly to move. But not in this kind of weather. Is it still raining?”
Kate sipped her beer. “It’s more accurate to say ‘sleeting, ’ I think. It’s miserable out there.”
Laurel sighed.
“What’s that?” Kate motioned toward the box in the corner and stood.
“My next project.” Laurel jumped off the table, tired of looking at the board.
Kate pushed a clump of dirt out of the way with one foot. “Why don’t you save it until tomorrow? I’ll come in and work with you. For now, did Huck Rivers realize he was an ass earlier and apologize profusely?”
“We grabbed a late lunch after digging through that creepy cabin, but it was very professional,” Laurel said absently, picking up the box and setting it in the middle of the conference table. “He was out all last night on that search and rescue operation and went home early.” Her feelings for Huck were unexpected, and she had to tear them apart and figure them out at a distance. That just made sense. Although, not thinking and just feeling his hard body against her again held definite merit as well.
Kate moved closer to the table. “All right. Well, I might as well help you. We can work for a while and then order a pizza.”
“Sounds good.” Laurel opened the box and drew out several bound journals, handing half to Kate. She opened one and found plans to expand the church from Genesis Valley with satellite churches in Everett and Seattle. “Kate, how old are you?”
“I’m forty-one,” Kate said absently, flipping through a journal. “The guy liked lists, didn’t he?”
Laurel looked up. “Were you raised in Genesis Valley?”
Kate paused. “Yeah. I graduated from high school here and attended the community college before marrying Vic when he was still in dental school.”
Laurel tilted her head. “Vic?”
“I know. Believe me, I know,” Kate said. “I should’ve figured he was an ass when he wanted to name the girls Val, Viv, and Vida. But I liked the names, so whatevs, as the kids would say. Why do you ask?”
Laurel reached into the bottom of the box for a couple of torn and dirty manila file folders. “Are you a member of the Genesis Community Church?”
Kate twisted her mouth, thinking. “No. My family is Catholic, so I’ve always attended Saint Thomas. As a kid, I did go to parties and dances at the Genesis Valley Church, and I love their offerings at the farmer’s markets in the spring and summer and the craft fairs in the fall and winter. If I was looking for a church other than mine, I’d definitely head in that direction. It’s a good group of people.”
Laurel couldn’t remember anything about the church while she’d lived in the Valley before leaving for college at eleven; she hadn’t attended any of their events. She flipped open the first file folder to see a stack of handwritten church bulletins. She grinned. “The church adopted a cow for a year. Who adopts a cow?” It was probably fun for the kids.
Kate laughed. “I’m sure it was part of the 4-H club.”
Laurel pushed the folder to the side and opened the next one, revealing wrinkled old pictures. “Oh, look. It’s the church before they added the two sides and classrooms. It’s charming.” She slid the photo across the table. There were several other pictures of parishioners picnicking by the river, a couple of wedding pictures, and one of a young Pastor Caine, maybe in his early twenties, with his arm around a woman who looked a lot like Abigail. Her mother? Her sandy blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her smile was wide. Both she and the pastor wore eighties-style sunglasses. “Was the pastor always bald?”
“Yeah, even the first time I saw him, when the church sponsored my kindergarten soccer team. I remember thinking that he looked like a pastor, somehow. Serious and old, even though he must’ve been pretty young at that time.” Kate reached for the pictures and looked through, smiling. “Boy, the wedding dresses were puffy back then.”
Laurel shifted through more pictures until she found one that set her back on her feet. She looked closer. Her heart rate kicked in, strong and fast.
