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“Because Sheriff Mills talked about it all the time. He went there to hunt.”
Sheriff Tate nodded. “Walter kept that place after he retired.”
Walter Mills.
Evan and Robert’s father.
The man who had been sheriff when Emily Ross died.
The number of connections kept growing.
Judy looked at the phone in her hand. “If Evan called from the cabin twenty minutes ago, he couldn’t be standing here now. If he called from this phone, the call log will prove it.”
“And if there’s no call?” Trigger asked.
“Then Robert either spoke to someone else, or he lied.”
Robert’s voice came sharply through the speaker. “Detective Langley, I’m ordering you to end this questioning immediately.”
Judy stared at the phone as if she wanted to reach through it.
“You can order me to return to Dallas,” she said. “You cannot order Sheriff Tate to stop investigating a crime in his jurisdiction.”
“This isn’t your case.”
“Seven murdered women in Dallas are my case.”
“You were instructed to take time away.”
“I was instructed to take time away because someone forced my vehicle off the road and left me unconscious in a ditch.”
“You had a concussion.”
“I know. I was there.”
Robert released a hard breath. “Your judgment is compromised.”
A muscle moved in Judy’s jaw.
I knew that look.
I’d seen it when we were teenagers and a teacher accused her of cheating because she finished a test before everyone else. Judy hadn’t shouted. She hadn’t cried.
She’d calmly proved the teacher wrong in front of the entire class.
I had fallen a little in love with her that day.
Maybe more than a little.
Now I wanted to take the phone and tell her captain exactly where he could shove his opinion.
But Judy didn’t need me to fight her battles.
“You believed my judgment when I connected the seven victims,” she said. “You believed it when I identified the pattern and predicted the killer was moving toward Eagle River. You believed it when you told me to come here.”
“That was before the accident.”
“That wasn’t an accident. It was the week before.”
