Enough. “We done here?” She obviously knew the facts the same as he did.
Newton crossed to where he stood, lifted the tape, and slipped beneath it.
He hoped that was a yes.
“That’s the thing that bothers me, Conner.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared directly at him. “How is it that some twisted piece of shit brought that girl up here, sewed her lips shut, then played psycho surgeon without leaving a single piece of evidence?”
Anger ignited amid all those other emotions churning in his gut. What the hell was she saying? “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” He reached deep for calm, couldn’t find it. “That’s the thing that has folks believing this somehow relates to a curse.” Or the devil himself. He hated to bring that up, but, after all, that was the reason Sarah Newton had come. The rag she worked for,Truth Magazine, had made its place in the print and digital world by allegedly exposing the truth wherever the unexplained was sold.
This sure as hell was unexplained so far.
Newton stared at him without saying a word for about ten more trauma-filled seconds, amping his tension to an explosive level. “This was no paranormal event, Conner. This was plain old carefully planned and painstakingly executed murder. By someone who knew the victim well enough to hate her enough to do all that you saw that morning.”
She made it sound so neat and easy when no less than twelve cops, local and state, had been working this case, and not one had reached such a concise deduction. “That’s just another theory, Ms. Newton. What makes yours so special?”
She laughed softly, but there was no amusement in the sound. “There’s nothing special about it. But I will do one thing as damned fast as I can.”
He shouldn’t have let her bait him. “And just what is that?”
“While everyone else is still running around in circles trying to do the PC thing”—she inclined her head and stared at him another long moment—“I’ll prove my theory.”
He shook his head, couldn’t help himself. “I sure as hell hope you can. But I have to tell you, that’s a pretty damned ballsy statement.”
She wasn’t put off in the least. “It’s actually quite simple. You see, I don’t have any friends or family here. I don’t even know anyone except you. I’m not ethically bound by the same rules and restrictions as your fourth-generation chief of police. So I’ll step on toes, I’ll piss people off, I’ll do whatever it takes to find one thing.”
She held his gaze a second, then another. “The truth.”
6
2312 Beauchamp Road
She washere.
Jerald Pope adjusted his telescope lens to narrow in on the faces. Kale Conner looked a little green around the gills. The woman, on the other hand, looked focused and determined. She was here and she’d dug in her heels. If her skill could be accurately measured by her media reputation, she would find what others had missed.
Many of the villagers were upset by the idea that her magazine had chosen to get involved, but Jerald didn’t have a problem with this turn of events. Her tactics were a bit unorthodox and her empathy somewhat lacking, according to the articles and blogs he’d read, but neither had affected her success rate.
Only her popularity or lack thereof.
Sensing that he was no longer alone, Jerald straightened and stepped away from the telescope.
“What has you so captivated, darling?”
He turned to acknowledge his wife Lynda’s presence. “Come see. Our young Mr. Conner has been saddled with the duty of escorting the controversial Ms. Newton about town.”
Lynda crossed the expansive great room and took a look for herself. “She only arrived this afternoon.” Lynda adjusted the setting of the far-reaching zoom lens. “It certainly didn’t take her long to plunge rightinto the investigation.” She peered through the delicate but powerful instrument. “What do you suppose they’re doing up there?”
Jerald gazed beyond the floor-to-ceiling window to the chapel perched high on a hilltop in the distance overlooking his home. “She’s getting a feel for the scene.”
His wife moved away from the telescope and allowed her interest to follow his. “Do you think she’s really as good as they say?”
A local woman was dead. Another was missing. If the police couldn’t find the murderer, then more power to anyone who thought he or she could. “Time will tell.”
Lynda turned to him, her respect and admiration for him still as strong as it had been in the beginning. “It always does.”
His wife was still as beautiful as she had been when they’d married twenty-eight years ago. Coal-black hair and eyes the color of rich jade. Her skin remained flawless even as she neared her mid-fifties. Her figure ... well, he was a very lucky man indeed. She worked hard to stay in shape. The finest nutrition experts would envy her eating habits. Her willpower was nothing short of militant.
And yet they had drifted further and further apart.
