He shook his head, but before he could walk away, which was another of his trademark maneuvers, she issued a warning. “Play it your way, Lex. And I’ll play it mine.”
She didn’t give him time to caution her or to threaten to ban her from the investigation. She gave him her back and hit the door.
Sarah had almost made it to the front exit when Kale caught up with her. “What was that about?”
She didn’t look at him. “The truth.”
With Kale calling her name, she pushed her way out the exit and smack into the middle of the media frenzy outside.
Reporters rushed forward, as far as the barricade the chief had ordered erected would allow.
Several shouted her name.
“What have the police learned from Polly Conner?”
Sarah ignored the guy shouting the question and scanned the group for the lady who’d gotten in her face the other night. Blond Barbie. She pointed to her. “You!” Then she crooked her finger.
Blond Barbie plowed her way through the throng.
Silence blanketed the assembly, microphones extended, cameras rolled.
“Whatever you hear from the others today, mark my word,” Sarah said in a loud, clear voice, “the person responsible for these two tragic murders is female. She’s out there and she’s not finished yet. So keep your daughters at home. Don’t let them out of your sight.”
She elbowed her way through the reporters, ignoring the other questions shouted at her. She’d made it across the street to her car when a vehicle skidded to a stop not two feet away.
“Get in.”
She swung around, glared at Kale. “I’m happy as hell your sister is safe,” Sarah said, not about to take any crap from him, either, “but they’re wrong. Polly’s alive because someone wants us to look in a certain direction. And the hell of it is, it’s working.” Her revelation to the reporters would warn him that it wasn’t working, at least as far as Sarah was concerned.
Then Kale Conner did the last thing she would have expected. He climbed out of his car, grabbed her around the waist, and basically tossed her into his Jeep. He thrust his torso through the open door, blocking her escape.
“Scoot over.”
Briefly she considered ramming the vehicle into drive and leaving him standing there. But she hated to leave him in the path of all those reporters headed their way.
“Now,” he growled.
And he wasn’t the enemy. So she climbed over the console, ensuring her butt missed the gearshift.
He slid behind the wheel and barreled away before the crowd of reporters could completely surround his vehicle. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded.
“Maybe.”
She snapped her seat belt into place and was more than a little thankful that the streets in the area were kept plowed and sanded regularly. With the way he was driving, he would be a danger to anyone in his path otherwise.
“You can’t be certain it’s a woman.”
“They can’t be certain it’s a man.”
“Polly said—”
“Give it a rest, Conner. I know what she said.”
“August is right about the boot print; it could have belonged to anyone. The comparison was inconclusive.”
Sarah banged her head against the headrest. “Okay, so the boot is circumstantial. Let’s throw in the drug.”
“Lynda Pope has an alibi,” Kale countered, “and we can’t connect her to the roses. The ones delivered to my parents’ home were ordered at a shop in Bangor two days before she went missing.”
