crazy.” She stared into his eyes with conviction, as if willing him to believe what she was about to say.
He already did. He might still be rankled by how suddenly she’d dropped out of his life—out of his kids’ lives—but that didn’t change what he knew about her. She was intuitive, sharp and levelheaded. She was not prone to drama, exaggeration or misinterpretation. And if Triss Everett had something bizarre to say, she’d only say it if she knew it to be true.
“I can handle crazy.”
Her eyes were dark, troubled in a way he’d never seen before. “I don’t think what happened was an accident, Hunter,” she said finally. “I think someone caused the fire. I think someone hoped I would die. And I think that same person may have killed before. At Harmony.”
That, he hadn’t expected. Hunter reached for what to ask next, and Triss narrowed her eyes.
“You said you could handle crazy.” In a flash, she reached for the door. “I’m going to talk to the tow-truck driver.”
“Hey.” He slid his hand to her free arm, tugging her wrist gently to get her to stay. She looked at him, her eyes flashing annoyance. But, also, uncertainty. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, because it seemed like that was what she needed to hear, even if he thought it couldn’t be more obvious. “But I’m going to need more details.”
She yanked her wrist from his hand, but let go of the door handle, her attention flicking to the clock on the dashboard. “There’s a lot to tell you. But I need to get to Harmony. There’s the reception, and I need to—”
“The reception can go on without you, Triss. You’ve been in a major accident. I still think you should get checked out at the hospital.”
She was already shaking her head and reaching for the door again. “I’m fine. Just let me talk to the tow-truck driver, and I’ll give you more details on the drive back.”
“Sure,” he said more casually than he felt, pushing away a dark flash of memory from the night his wife had died. He should have called the ambulance sooner, or picked her up bodily and forced her to go to the hospital. His misjudgment had cost her her life. Now, he wished Triss would listen to him—but he was just a coworker and had no right to push her. Still, he wasn’t without recourse. He couldn’t force her to go to the hospital, but she couldn’t force him to go home, either. And he wouldn’t be heading home tonight until he was sure she was safe.
“Start at the beginning,” Hunter said, pulling onto the interstate.
Twenty-five minutes of highway stretched between the cemetery and Harmony Senior Living. It wasn’t enough time to explain all that had happened, but Triss never used more words than she had to, so she would make it work.
“The first person who died was Walter,” Triss started. “Walter Tompkins. He was eighty-six. Diabetic coma while he slept. He never woke up. All the residents were talking about how it was the perfect way to go. Everyone wants to die in their sleep.”
Hunter said nothing, so she continued. “Genevieve Hail was next. Her boyfriend always called her Jenna-Doll. She was sixty-seven. Heart attack during dialysis.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Don. He’s a resident, too. They’d been together about a year. He was planning to propose.”
“How long after Walter?”
“Six days.”
“Go on.”
“Connie Mays, four days later. Walking pneumonia got serious fast. She died while reading in her armchair. She was the healthiest seventy-two-year-old I’d ever met. And then, she was dead.”
“And this time, Frank Townsend,” Hunter said. “What was his story?”
“Ten days had passed. I’d started to think that the three deaths had been a tragic fluke. A bad season at Harmony. But Frank—he overdosed on prescription painkillers. He was one of the newer residents, always cheerful. Everyone loved him.”
“People learn to hide their pain,” Hunter pointed out.
“I won’t argue with that. Another possibility is an accidental overdose. He was a bit of a drinker and he’d had a beer or two that day. His daughter also mentioned she thought he’d started to show signs of dementia. He was scheduled for an evaluation later this week.”
Hunter nodded. “My mom suffered with dementia. Caught her consuming a whole stick of butter one day. She’d ingest anything that wasn’t locked up.”
“Exactly,” Triss agreed. “Which is why I know this sounds crazy. There’s a logical explanation for all of these deaths. But something doesn’t sit right with me. That’s a lot of death in a short amount of time.”
“At a residential community for the elderly,” Hunter added. He glanced over at her. “But?”
“But my gut tells me something else is going on,” Triss responded.
She filled him in on the lax security at Harmony and her ideas for tightening it up—if for nothing else, then for her own peace of mind. She told him about the meeting she’d held two days ago to get the other grad students and some staff on board—and how no one seemed to take her concerns seriously. And she told him that she’d started to wonder if she simply was being paranoid and not dealing well with grief.
Hunter was mostly quiet as she told the story, but that was his way. She’d been with him on enough interviews to know how he operated. When drawing up security plans, he believed in long silences and letting clients tell their stories until they ran out of words. That’s when he would start asking questions. She let silence fall over the car and waited.
Finally, Hunter glanced over at her. “This is a lot to handle alone,” he said. “I would have backed you up at that meeting.”
“We haven’t exactly seen much of each other lately.”
A beat passed, and she immediately regretted her words. It was no one’s fault but her own that they hadn’t seen much of each other. She had a phone. She had his number. She’d purposely stayed away.
“No,” Hunter said. “We haven’t.”
She suspected he wanted to say more on that topic, but he didn’t. Their exit was coming up, and he slowed, pulling off the highway. “So, four people have died in three weeks. On Monday, you held a security meeting and no one supported your ideas, and today your car catches on fire leaving the funeral.”
“I told you it sounded crazy.” She refused to look at him, afraid to see the doubt in his eyes. She could handle that look from almost anyone. But not from Hunter.
“It does sound crazy,” he finally said, and her heart sank.
When did she get so soft? When had words gained the power to hurt her again? Why did she care if Hunter believed her? It wasn’t as if—
“But I believe you,” Hunter added.
Relief flooded over Triss. The truck turned onto the winding road that led to the senior living community, fall leaves swirling along the path. She wanted to thank him. And hug him. Strangely, she also wanted to cry. She didn’t do any of those things. Instead, as he pulled up to the security gate, she said, “Good. Now is when you help me figure out what to do next.”
She gave him the code to open the wrought-iron gate, and as he drove through it and onto the property, he glanced her way. “The next order of business would be to file a report with the police. You may not have had much to go on with the residents’ deaths, but what happened today definitely gives your concerns more credibility.”
“Right.”
“And