Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (red white royal blue TXT) 📗

I’m one of the investigators. And I don’t much appreciate you interfering in what we’re doing, Mrs. Proctor.” But I notice he didn’t stop me from doing it either. Interesting.

“Ms.,” I say, and I’m thankful he hasn’t deployed Mrs. Royal, because he clearly knows who I am, and a quick Google search would show him who I’ve been. “I’m not interfering.”

“You’re interviewing potential witnesses.”

“Sheryl Lansdowne wasn’t abducted from here.”

“She might have been stalked here,” he says. “I’m advising you to back off. Look, I don’t want to be on your bad side, but you really can’t be doing this. Understand?”

“Am I doing anything illegal?”

“Potentially obstructing an investigation.”

“Good luck proving that in front of a judge. Having iced tea with an old lady and knocking on some doors isn’t a crime.”

“I’d like you to share your notes with me, please.”

“What notes?” I say. “I didn’t take any. And I’m under no obligation to tell you about my conversations unless you want to arrest me and take me in for questioning.” The notebook’s burning a hole in my pocket, but I try to keep from giving that away.

I must be successful, because he sighs and says, “Just give me something. Come on.”

So I give him the information I’ve gathered from Mrs. Gregg . . . except for the bit about Douglas Adam Prinker. I hold that back only because I want Kez to have it, and the second this man gets his fist on it, he’ll clench it tight. I tell myself I’m doing the right thing, but truth is, I’m not really sure I am. Well, shit, they weren’t even canvassing properly yet. If they talk to Mrs. Gregg, they’ll get it themselves. That’s not really an excuse. And I feel a little ill when I don’t disclose.

It’s also Heidt’s fault that he doesn’t push me at that point, but mostly it’s mine.

I call Kez immediately and tell her where to meet me. I drive the short distance to Norton’s pretty decent bakery and order some cake; I’m carrying it to the table when Kez enters the door, spots me, and heads over. She seems tired, but energized. She slips into the chair opposite me. “This lunch for you? Because there are still vegetables in the world.”

I pass her a fork. “It’s carrot cake.”

“I’ll allow it.” She takes a bite, heavy on the cream cheese frosting. “What’d you find out?”

“Ever heard the name Douglas Adam Prinker?”

“Should I have?”

I tell her Mrs. Gregg’s story, and she pauses eating to take out her notebook and write it down in swift, flowing lines. Kez has better handwriting than I do. “One thing,” I say. “I couldn’t get anyone else to verify that story about the van. Maybe she just said what I wanted to hear. She did love to talk.”

“Uh-huh, I’ll check it out. If it seems viable, I’ll get the TBI on it.” Kez sounds low-key excited, though. It’s a real possibility. “You didn’t prompt her about the van?”

“She brought it up all on her own.”

“Anything else?”

I tell her the rest of Mrs. Gregg’s saga, though I’m not sure how probative it is. She makes a note of Dr. Fowler’s name, which might be useful in giving Sheryl an alibi—or disproving one—on the day her husband went missing. I tell her about Heidt too. “Watch out for that one,” I say. “Seems territorial, but that could just be because I’m me. Maybe he’d be more welcoming to you.”

“Yeah, I doubt that,” Kez says. “Penny Carlson’s prints came in, by the way. They’re a match to Sheryl, and two more aliases. Starting to look like Penny was some kind of rolling-stone grifter.”

“But a murderer?”

“Don’t know.” She eats some more of the cake, for which I’m grateful; the slab is the size of Rhode Island. “The woman we talked to out in the sticks? At the big house?”

“You got the video?”

“I got a double murder,” she says grimly. “And the camera hard drive’s gone.”

“Killed how?” I ask.

“Shot,” she says. “Up close and damn personal. Autopsies are pending, but that’s how I read it, anyway. If I had to guess from the scene, she was surprised in the shower, killed in the kitchen, and dragged out into the trees. Husband was either home or got home, and he was shot in the back of the head. Totally surprised, looks like.”

“Jesus.” She just nods. “Kez—that’s four dead, one missing.”

“Five dead,” she says. “If you count Tommy Jarrett, which is starting to look more likely all the time. That’s a whole lot of bodies dropping way too fast.” She sighs. “Maybe the TBI’s the right agency for this one. I don’t have the resources, and Prester’s not well and isn’t about to admit it.”

“But he’s okay?”

Kez licks some frosting off her fork while she thinks. “At his age, I’m not so sure. I wish he’d get himself checked out, honestly. If something happens because he’s being a stupid, stubborn man, I’ll kick his ass.”

“More likely bring him soup,” I tell her, and she shrugs. “I don’t have much on my plate at the moment—”

“Aside from your stalker problems?” Kez has a point. I was thinking caseload.

“Well, I was trying to avoid that for a little while longer,” I say, and sit back. We’ve demolished the cake by this point; like all diners sharing a dish, we’ve left a little strip in the middle of the plate. No-man’s-land. “You’re right, though. I should be focusing at home.” And on getting back there. It’s time for me to start the drive.

“Anything you can do from there, I’ll gladly accept,” Kez says. “But I don’t want to put you or the kids in more danger either.”

“What about you?” I ask her. “With Javier off to training, Prester not his best, you don’t have any backup. I’m worried about that, Kez. Whatever’s going on—”

“It’s not clear yet that the murders at the house had anything to do with the car in the lake. Easy to suppose that, but we don’t know what these folks were into, or who they were into