The answer came quick enough to trouble her.
“Good,” Selena said.“Because I wouldn’t want to mothball you.”
“Mothball me?”Irritation sharpened his voice.“I’m the sheriff.It was me that called your office.”
“Yes, you called.But this is now a federal investigation.Please don’t do anything to jeopardize that.I can tell there’s something you’re not saying.”
Silence came through the line.
Selena watched Roy’s sign tremble faintly in the heat outside.“I wouldn’t want you to lose your job because of how upset you are about Warren and Vic.”
“Yeah,” Connor said, “well, you tell me that when two of your buddies are shot inside three days, one of them almost as close to you as a brother.”
“That’swhyI’m saying it.”
“I’ve got to go.”The line buzzed.
“Where?”
“Doesn’t matter.”Connor was being tight-lipped, and Selena knew that meant something was going on.
“Let’s meet at the station,” she offered.“We can go over the evidence board.See what we have.”
“No.Not right now.”
Her grip tightened around the phone.“You’re worrying me, Connor.”
A long breath came through the speaker.Then his voice lowered.
Connor let out a long breath.“I’d ask you to trust me, but then I guess trust has never been our strong suit.”
The words opened old ground so fast Selena had no answer ready.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
“Connor.”
“I’ve got to go.I’ll call later.”
The line clicked dead.
Selena lowered the phone and stared through the windshield.Roy’s Bar sat in front of her with its faded sign and familiar door, pretending time moved in clean lines.It did not.It waited in old rooms and familiar voices.It sat on the other end of a call and asked for trust after giving too many reasons for doubt.
She could have handled that better.
Or maybe Connor had come back from Carl Higgins with something to hide.
Selena looked at her watch.The day was sliding away from her, and she still had Ray’s alibi to verify, Carl’s security footage to obtain, Victor’s business dispute to untangle, and Warren’s old partnership to pick apart.
At least she had something to pick apart.
She put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot, the stuck window rattling softly as she turned toward the sheriff’s department.A few more hours with bank records and cell phone calls might give her something useful before the day ended.
Anything.
Because the feeling in her chest had not eased since Victor’s body appeared on the board.
Whoever was behind the murders had chosen men with enemies, men with business disputes, men whose deaths would send suspicion running in several directions at once.
