Page 15

“McGraw.” Keith set his cup down. “Are we talking about the same woman?”

McGraw held up a finger—a gesture that Keith supposed was meant to tell him to wait a sec, but it looked more like an athlete raising their arm after a win, the look of a man who’d been waiting for the question.

“I thought you might ask that.” He turned his phone across the table.

The photos were clear enough. Two mugshots. The particular flat light of a booking photo, the height marker on the wall behind her. Same woman.

McGraw watched him. Keith kept his expression level and took a slow sip of his coffee.

“I’ll be honest with you,” McGraw said. “She’s got a pattern. Rolls into a new situation, starts stirring things up, and when it doesn’t go her way, she plays victim. We’ve been dealing with it for the better part of two years.” He shook his head, slow and weary. “Bad blood is what she is. Sleeps around, dolls herself up on the weekends—“ A short exhale through the nose, half a laugh. “Pants riding so low you can see the tramp stamp. That’s your witness.”

Keith looked at him.

He missed a breath.

He’d kissed every inch of Rachel’s back. The frog at her ankle—small, incongruous, delightful—and the unmarked skin on the rest of her body. He’d kissed her buttocks—a tattoo on the small of her back was not something he would have missed. He was certain of that the way he was certain of very little about this morning.

He did not let any of this show on his face. He reached across for the sugar, added none because he took his coffee black, and set the bowl back down in a gesture that gave him a half-second to decide what he was going to do with what he now knew.

“Appreciate you making the drive,” he said. “That’s a long way to come.”

“Happy to help.” McGraw spread his hands. “Jurisdiction thing, obviously I can’t do much from my end. But I figured you should know what you’re dealing with before this gets any further.”

McGraw’s pleasantness lasted another minute, maybe two. “Actually.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. The collegial ease was still there, but the tone underneath it had gone deliberate. “What would really make sense—given the history, given what I’ve laid out—is if we transferred her down to Austin. Get her into a familiar environment, people who know the full picture of who they’re dealing with.”

Keith looked at him.

“She’s a witness/suspect in an active investigation,” he said. “She stays.”

McGraw absorbed this without visible reaction. Just nodded slowly, like a man recalibrating. “Of course, of course. Your case, your call.” A pause, easy and unhurried. “What hotel is she at?”

Keith picked up his cup.

“I’m just asking because I wouldn’t want to run into her unaware. Would be awkward if we met at breakfast, given our history.”

Keith took a sip. That sounded right. But it felt wrong. He chose to ignore the request. “We’re hoping to interview the victim this afternoon, once the hospital clears her.” Keith kept his tone friendly, bureaucratic, the voice of a man working a case by the book. “Might be useful to have you sit in on that, if you’re sticking around. Fresh eyes on the witness dynamic.”

McGraw looked pleased with this. “I could probably make that work.”

“Good. Let me get you set up with a visitor badge, and we’ll figure out the timing once we hear from the hospital.” Keith stood, unhurried. “Can I get you a refill before I do that?”

While McGraw considered his coffee cup, Keith tore a half-inch strip from the corner of his notepad and wrote a short note on it. He folded it once. On his way past Tate’s desk, he set it down without breaking stride, not looking at him, and kept moving toward the visitor log.

Tate picked it up.

Call Austin PD. McGraw.

On his way back with the visitor badge, Keith passed Les in the hallway. He held eye contact for one beat longer than a pass-through glance required and tilted his head almost imperceptibly toward his office. Then he handed McGraw the badge and spent another ten minutes being professionally pleasant—the station, the case, the town, how long was he planning to stay?

McGraw was in no hurry. He had the ease of a man who enjoyed the sound of his own stories, and he had a lot of them. Travis County. A task force he’d run in ’19. A case that had made the papers.

Keith smiled and nodded and willed him toward the door. He knew Tate and Les would have answers for him and he was desperate to learn them.

When McGraw left at last, Keith found Les and Tate in Les’s office. The sheriff had his arms crossed and the expression of a man absorbing news he didn’t like. Tate was standing by the window with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the parking lot.

Nobody was talking. That, on its own, told Keith plenty.

He closed the door.