“Can you think of any reason why she would be out here at night?” the chief asked.
“No,” I said. “I can’t.”
My mind wasn’t working. Too much had happened this evening. Rufus had shown up, throwing off my entire world, and now this. With Sadie gone, my universe had collapsed.
Sluggs rubbed a hand over his chin, where white stubble sprouted. “Seems to me that maybe she came out here to check on things, make sure everything was okay. Wore some pretty tall heels. Could’ve tripped over something, maybe the rope beside her.”
“Excuse me,” Rufus said, perturbed, “but should you be talking to us about this?”
The chief looked surprised, as if he’d forgotten that we were standing there. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t be.”
“Yes,” I snapped, “yes, he should be.” I scowled at Rufus. “He should be talking to us about this because she was my best friend and anything that we can tell Chief Sluggs would be appreciated, I know it.”
Sluggs got a distant look in his eyes as he stared over in the direction of where Sadie’s body lay. “The coroner should be here soon. We’ll see what we decide.”
“The coroner? Chief, with all due respect, there’s no way that Sadie would have come to the barn at night. No way at all unless she was meeting someone.” A memory pricked my brain. “She received a phone call today. It really bothered her. I’m sure if you checked her phone records—”
“There, there, Clementine. I know you’re upset, but let us handle this.” He patted my hand as if I were a child. “We know how to look into these things.”
Frustration built inside me, a rage so hot that I could barely contain it. “Things like this as in murder?”
Sluggs gasped. “Now let’s calm down before we start talking about murder.”
I opened my mouth to unleash a string of profanities at the chief, but Rufus dragged me away.
“Please excuse us,” he said to Sluggs. When we were out of earshot, Rufus turned to me. “It’s not going to help anything if you get on the chief’s bad side.”
“What do you know about it?” I snapped.Why do you even care? All you’ve ever done was hurt people, and now you’re trying to help me.
I wanted to scream at Rufus and shake him into remembering who he was, but stopped myself.
“The one thing that I do know,” Rufus said patiently, “is that the chief needs to do his job.” He glanced over my shoulder, presumably back at Sluggs. “Now, I’m not sure how well his performance will be, that remains to be seen, but for the moment we need to remain calm.”
I shoved my arms into a folded position. “I can tell you all about his performance—it’s horrible. See what he’s wearing now?”
“His bathrobe?”
“Half the time he forgets to dress in the morning and shows up at work looking like that. So now you know how this will go with Sadie.”
Rufus planted his hands tenderly on my shoulders. “Let’s wait and see.”
“Clementine,” a masculine voice called. My heart plummeted. Liam must have heard about Sadie. “Let me do the talking here,” I said to Rufus.
He retracted his hands, and I turned to see Liam, eyes wet with tears, lurching toward me. He wore a wrinkled T-shirt that looked as if it had been plucked from his floor before he put it on and jeans crisscrossed with more lines than his shirt.
“Liam.” I opened my arms to him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Is it true?” His brown eyes filled with water. “About Sadie?”
Darn the stupid phone tree. How had Liam found out so quickly?
“It is,” I said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
Liam brushed past me. “I have to see her.”
I curled my fingers around his arm. “Wait, Liam. You don’t want to.”
He paused and turned back to me. “What happened?”
