looked ready to call her on her evasive response, but Sloan finally just lifted his hands, palms up. A gesture of surrender.
Carley hoped there’d be more of those before this conversation was over.
“Zane briefed me, of course,” Sloan verified. “But I’d like to hear what you have to say about it.”
“No, you wouldn’t, but you’re trying to placate me because you know I’m mad enough to want to hit you with this surveillance disk.”
Carley took out her anger on the disk. With far more force than required, she shoved it into the player.
“Zane didn’t tell me about the surveillance camera being vandalized. Or even that it’d been installed,” Sloan explained. “He also didn’t tell me that you were back at your office, trying to work.” His voice was calm enough, but she could see the little embers simmering in his eyes. They weren’t so bedroomy now. “He might have missed something else that I need to know.”
It was immature, but she huffed.
Sloan huffed, too. Then he dragged a scarred wooden chair from the corner, deposited it in front of her desk and sat down. “Get past your hatred for me. I’ll get past what I feel for you. And for the next few minutes remember that you’re the sheriff, I’m your temporary boss and that you’re giving me a situation report to bring me up to speed on this investigation.”
Carley wanted to hang on to her anger and stew in it a little longer, but, by God, he was right. A situation report to a new officer on the scene was standard procedure, and though she didn’t like it, she would not violate procedure because of the likes of Sloan McKinney.
She took a moment to gather her thoughts and so she could come up with the most condensed version of facts. The less face time with Sloan, the better.
“Okay. You win. Here’s the situation report. As you know, sixteen years ago Lou Ann Wallace-Hendricks was murdered. She was strangled with her own designer-brand purse strap. At the time, she was married to one of our present suspects, Leland Hendricks.”
And her briefing came to a halt. Because what she had to say next would only stir up even more bad memories.
“I’ll finish this part,” Sloan volunteered. “We also know that Lou Ann and my father, Jim McKinney, were having an affair. The night Lou Ann was killed, you claim to have seen my father in the general vicinity of her room at the Matheson Inn. That led to his arrest.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. “And the case against him was dismissed.”
“The charges were dismissed only because there were some inconsistencies with the evidence. Your father’s name wasn’t cleared, and you know it.”
He leaned forward, propping his hands on Carley’s cluttered desk. He violated her personal space and then some. In fact, Sloan was so close that she got a whiff of his manly aftershave. It reminded her of the woods, summer afternoons, picnics and sex.
Whoa.
What?
Sex?
Carley was sure she looked stunned over that last thought. Since it was a truly disturbing notion, she shoved it aside and tried to repair the fractures in her own composure.
“What’s wrong?” Sloan asked.
“Nothing,” she snapped. She forced herself to continue. No more picnic, sex or aftershave thoughts. “I was just thinking how pathetic and dangerous it is that no one was ever convicted of Lou Ann’s murder.”
“Right.” He eyed her with obvious skepticism. “Why don’t we fast-forward this briefing to what happened a little less than a week ago.”
“Gladly,” she mumbled. After a deep breath, Carley went on with the report. “Lou Ann’s older daughter, Sarah, came back to town. She called her kid sister, Anna, who’s an investigative reporter in Dallas, and Sarah asked Anna to meet her at the Matheson Inn. Sarah said she had information about their mother’s killer.”
“Who knew that Sarah had come back to Justice?” Sloan asked immediately.
“Everybody.”
Carley was unable to contain her frustration about that. Sarah hadn’t kept her presence a secret, especially from the killer who obviously wanted to silence her. Not very smart. And because of it, Sarah had ended up dead like her mother. Carley hadn’t been able to protect her, and it was because of her that Sarah was dead.
She’d have to learn to live with that.
Somehow.
“Now you can finish the update,” Carley insisted. “Zane wasn’t exactly doing daily situation reports to let me know what was going on.”
“Because you were recovering from a gunshot wound.”
“And because he thought I was out of the picture. I’m not. So, boss, why don’t you tell me how you plan to catch a killer who’s evaded justice for sixteen years?”
He shrugged. “Simple—I’ll continue the investigation that Zane started. If the grand jury says there’s enough evidence to arrest anyone, that’s what I’ll do. If not, then I’ll reinterview the witnesses—”
“There weren’t any witnesses to Sarah’s murder.”
“Potential witnesses then,” he calmly amended. “And, of course, I’ll talk to Donna and Leland Hendricks since, according to the papers Sarah had, they’re the primary suspects for both murders.”
They were. The information that Sarah had brought with her to Justice pointed the proverbial finger right at Leland Hendricks, the wealthiest man in town, and his equally wealthy ex-wife, Donna.
It was a tangled web that reached all the way back to the first murder.
According to Sarah’s collection of papers and notes, sixteen years ago Donna Hendricks was planning to pay Lou Ann big bucks to go to the police with the information and evidence that Leland was plotting to fake his own toddler son’s kidnapping and murder so he could collect on the massive insurance policy. Donna hated her ex, Leland, because she’d lost custody of their son to him. So if Lou Ann had threatened to tell all about Donna’s bribe, it would no doubt have ended what little visitation rights Donna had left with her little boy. To keep Lou Ann silent, Donna could have killed her and then done the same to Sarah.
Of course, Sarah’s allegations implicated Leland Hendricks, as well, because he could have killed Lou Ann when and if she wouldn’t go along with his fake kidnapping/murder plan. It didn’t help, either, when Zane was able to shatter Leland’s alibi for the night of Lou Ann’s murder. The wealthy oil baron doctored the surveillance video of his estate that night so that it would appear he was home.
And that brought Carley back to her own surveillance disk.
To the best of her knowledge, hers hadn’t been altered or faked, and it was entirely possible she could see who had vandalized city property. She might even discover if it was related to the murders. And the two attempted murders: Anna Wallace’s and hers.
She hit the Play button and got up so she could retrieve the rest of her breakfast that she’d left on top of a filing cabinet.
Sloan stood, too, and looked at the honey-filled donut on the paper plate and her cup of still-warm cinnamon cappuccino. “Hey, where’d you get that?”
Sloan’s apparent envy made Carley smile. “Main Street Diner.”
He moved closer, staring at it. “They make donuts that look that good?”
“They do now that Donna Hendricks bought the place. She brought in a real honest-to-goodness chef.”
He flexed his eyebrows. “Donna is one of the prime suspects in these murders.”
“Yessss,” Carley enunciated in a way that made him seem mentally deficient. “And your point would be?”
This