CHAPTER
SIX
Sean Mercer leaned closer to the window in an attempt to cut the glare so that he could see inside the neat three-story white clapboard Victorian house that Amanda Crosby called home, but the sun was behind him at precisely the wrong angle and he couldn’t see a damned thing.
He rang the doorbell for the third time, though he suspected that she’d have answered the door if she were there. She didn’t seem to be the type who would hide. Then again, she didn’t seem to be the type to put a gun to the head of an old friend and pull the trigger, either. It remained to be seen whether she’d done just that.
Curious, though, that her car was in the drive.
Maybe he’d just take this opportunity to look around the property. One never knew what one might find.
The front lawn was neat and newly trimmed, the flower bed mulched. Baskets of purple and white flowers—tired blossoms at summer’s end, in need of a watering—hung from the porch railing. Out back, black-eyed Susans grew in an unwieldy clump near the base of an apple tree that was long past due for a pruning, and daylilies with withered blooms grew in a patch along one side of the one-car garage. The lawn mower stood abandoned near the back porch, and the yard looked half-mowed, as if the person doing the job had been called away in the middle of it. He wondered what it was that had called Amanda from her yard work on this Sunday morning.
Peering through the glass panes in the back door gave him a view of the unlit back hall. As tall as he was, he could lean up to a high, small window to the right of the door and see into half the kitchen. It was a small square-shaped room, with a short row of cabinets and counters along the inside wall. The sink, stove, and refrigerator were just along the outside wall, the sink under the single window from which a wooden box of herbs had been hung. He reached up and grabbed a leaf, and crushing it between his fingers, held it to his nose. Spearmint.
It was an evocative scent. Mint had grown in the scrappy little garden his grandmother had tried to grow in the minuscule yard behind the Philadelphia row house they’d lived in when he was a kid. Nowadays, in some parts of the city, they called them town houses. He suspected that in his old neighborhood, they were still called rows. He couldn’t imagine that gentrification had arrived in that part of town. If it had, it could only have come kicking and screaming bloody murder.
For years, he’d avoided thoughts of that house, that neighborhood, that time in his life. Lately, he’d thought of little else. That’s what happened when the past unexpectedly collided with the present. He had a feeling that the rest of his day would provide ample proof of that.
He glanced at his watch. Almost noon. His stomach clenched. Only another hour . . .
He forced his attention back to Amanda Crosby and the results of the forensic testing that he’d found in an envelope on his desk when he stopped by the station last night. He still couldn’t figure out whether he was surprised by the findings. He just didn’t have a clear read on her yet.
The backyard was narrow but deep, with a koi pond complete with a lightly bubbling fountain and a stone bench near the rear boundary. At least, he assumed the post and rail fence marked the rear of the Crosby property. He wondered if Amanda spent much time back here. It was peaceful, serene, the sort of place one might seek out when the world got to be too much. He wondered idly what she might have on her mind those times when she sought some little bit of sanctuary.
For a moment, he was sorely tempted to sit on the bench and listen to the fountain and watch the koi for a while. But he had somewhere to go, someone to see. He walked straight down the drive and to his car. Later, maybe, after he’d done what he needed to do, he’d stop back to see Ms. Crosby. He couldn’t help but wonder just what frame of mind he’d be in by then.
“. . . and I just can’t help it, Manda. I know it’s silly, but I just can’t stay in that house right now.” Clark rubbed his forehead with his fingers.
“I don’t think it’s silly at all.” Amanda leaned over and patted his arm. “You’ve lost the most important person in your life. Of course you’re going to grieve. If you feel you will deal with this loss better someplace else, then for heaven’s sake, Clark, go. You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“Oh, I feel as if I do. I know that you and Derek were like sister and brother. I know how much he loved you.” He wiped his eyes with his napkin and tried to smile. “You know, there was a time, early on, when I was so jealous of you. I knew how close you two were, and I was always afraid . . . well, that someday, maybe . . .”
“You know it was never like that between us. Derek never had any real love in his life before he met you.”
“Thank you, Amanda.” Clark did smile at this. “You have such a generous spirit. I know it’s one of the things that Derek admired about you. He could be so . . . bitchy . . . at times.”
“It was part of his charm.” She reached over and took his hand and squeezed it.
She looked up just in time to see Chief Mercer slide into a booth on the opposite side of the aisle and up about four tables just as the brunch crowd at the Sawmill Inn had started to thin. She had to look twice to make certain that it was in fact the chief of police at the table near the window. For one thing, she’d never seen him out of uniform, and today he was wearing khaki Dockers, a blue-and-white-striped shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and shoes without socks. For another, it was unusual to see any of the locals here on Sunday afternoon. The Inn was generally more popular with people passing through than with the residents who, if they were having breakfast out, tended to go early to the small café in the center of town or the diner just off Center Street. She wondered idly what brought him all the way out here on a Sunday afternoon.
Wonder if the results of any of the tests have come back. Wonder if he’d tell me if they had.
She’d just decided to excuse herself to the ladies’ room so that she could stop by his table and see what she could find out, when the door opened and a woman walked in.
Amanda noticed her the second she stepped into the room. Everyone noticed. She was impossible to miss.
In her late twenties, with pretty features on a soft, round face and rich auburn hair that cascaded halfway down her back in thick waves, the woman wore a plaid sleeveless shirt over a tank top that left little to the imagination and black capri pants. Her biceps and what Amanda could see of her calves bore tattoos of thin branches with thorns interwoven with roses that wound around, front to back, to form a complete circle. Her nail polish was deep red and she carried a large tote bag. Mercer stood at her approach and she embraced him, holding him tightly and closing her eyes. Amanda couldn’t see his face, but saw one of his big hands patting her somewhat awkwardly on the back.
When the woman sat across from him, there were tears in her eyes. She spoke softly, reaching out every once in a while to touch his hand. Feeling too much the voyeur, Amanda turned her attention back to Clark. There was something about witnessing such tender moments between others that made her uncomfortable. And just for a moment, there was a prickle of something that felt a lot like disappointment to find he was in a relationship. Not that she should care. After all, wasn’t this the man who wanted to put her behind bars?
“. . . so you won’t be upset if I stay with Chris and Tammy for a while? Maybe a few weeks, maybe longer. I just don’t know.”
“Oh. No.” Amanda tuned back in. “No, of course not. You just go ahead and do what you need to do. I understand perfectly.”
“I was hoping you would. I mean, if it bothered you, I wouldn’t go. I know you’ve gone through a lot, too.” He leaned forward just slightly. “I know those pesky police have been asking you a lot of questions.” He pretended to shiver. “Neanderthals, all of them.”
“Well, you don’t want to say that too loudly”—she lowered her voice to a stage whisper—“since the head Neanderthal just seated himself a few minutes ago four tables behind you.”
He swiveled his head around, then wide-eyed, turned back to Amanda.
“Is that him there with the tattooed lady?”
Amanda nodded.
“Oh, where are the fashion police when you need them?” He rolled his eyes. “Gorgeous eyes and hair to dye for—get it, hair to dye for?—but those tattoos . . . those clothes.” He groaned. “Everything about her just screams biker chick.”
Amanda giggled and sipped her iced tea. “Enough, Clark . . .”
“Oh, not by a long shot. I haven’t had this much fun in days.”
“Forget it. She’s with the chief of police and she’s—”
“He should charge her with assault on the sensibilities. Dressing with intent to offend.”
“Enough. You are wicked.” She laughed.
“Derek was wickeder. He’d be unmerciful if he were here.” His smile faded as he picked up the check the waitress had left on the table. He barely glanced at it. “Ready?”
“Yes, I’m ready.” They stood in unison. Clark took her arm as they walked to the cash register by the door.
“Did you want to stop by and say hey to the chief?” he asked as he paid the bill.
“No.” She shook her head and opened the door, held it for him while he put his wallet away. “I have the feeling I’ll be seeing him soon enough as it is.”
She couldn’t have imagined just how soon that would be.
The sun was out in full when she arrived home. Feeling sluggish from having eaten an unusually full meal in the middle of the day, Amanda decided the best remedy would be physical activity. She’d left the backyard half-mowed the previous evening when she’d turned off the mower and gone into the house for a bottle of water and stopped to check the answering machine. The two hang-up calls had spooked her. While she was debating what to do about them, she’d gotten a call from Iona, and spent the best part of an hour sitting on the back porch, chatting on the phone. By the time they’d hung up, it was dark, and the last thing she wanted was to be outside in the dark, alone, armed with nothing more than an old lawn mower.
On her way home from the shop tomorrow, she’d stop at the gun club and head out to the firing range for some practice. It had been two weeks since she’d dug out her .38 and shot off a few rounds. She liked to keep in practice, needed to feel sharp when it came to her handgun. She needed to know that if she had to use it, she could hit her mark. She hadn’t come this far to do anything but.
Thinking about the gun club seemed to nag at her. . . .
She rolled up the sleeves of her cotton shirt and started the lawn mower. By the time she finished the back section of grass she was in a serious sweat. She shed the shirt and tossed it onto the stone bench, then set out to finish the job in her tank top.
The feeling that she was being watched began to creep over her as she started on the strip of grass on the side of the house that linked the front and back yards, and the sensation grew stronger as she returned to the back and turned off the mower. The slamming of a car door out near the street drew her attention and she walked to the end of the drive in time to see Chief Mercer standing near the mailbox and studying the house.
Never one to wait for trouble, she walked down to meet him. She wondered how he’d managed to slip the tattooed wonder as quickly as he had.
“Hi,” he called when he saw her.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.” She stopped at the sidewalk and folded her arms over her chest.
“That the advice of your lawyer, or your brother?”
“My brother.” She didn’t have a lawyer yet, but he didn’t need to know that.
He appeared to be debating with himself. Finally, he asked her, “Do you own a gun, Ms. Crosby?”
“Yes.” She nodded. It was no secret. Half the people in town knew she had taken lessons at the firing range on the outskirts of town. She’d written about the experience in one of her newspaper columns several months ago.
“When was the last time you fired it?”
She paused, and it came back to her. The gun club . . .
Uh-oh.
Her eyes met his, and before she could remind herself not to answer the question, he said, “I was just wondering, because the GSR results are back.”
“And?” She went cold inside. Her stomach flipped, then sank. She knew exactly what he was going to say and why he was there.
“You want to tell me the last time you fired that gun, or are you going to wait until I tell you what I found on the sleeves of the sweatshirt you gave us?”
Amanda sighed. She’d forgotten. Completely forgotten . . .
“I was at the range two Mondays ago. You can check with the gun club. They’ll confirm that. You have to sign in—”
“What kind of a gun do you have?”
“A .38. Everyone in the county knows about it. I’m surprised you don’t.” Her hands were on her hips now, defiant. Derek had been killed with a bullet fired from a .38. Everyone in the county knew that, too. “I wrote all about learning to shoot the damned thing for the County Express back in March.”
“Where’s your gun now?”
“It’s in the drawer in the table next to my bed.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for it.”
Amanda sighed. “I can make you get a warrant, can’t I?”
“Sure. But what would that do besides delay the investigation? If the bullet that killed your partner wasn’t fired from that gun, we’ll be able to confirm that right away. Like you said before, the sooner we eliminate you, the sooner the investigation can move ahead. I’d think you’d want to clear that up as soon as possible. I mean, with the finding of the GSR on your sweatshirt . . .”
“I wore the shirt to the range two weeks ago. I didn’t happen to wash it between wearings, so I imagine there would be residue on the sleeves.”
“Why didn’t you mention this to me before?”
“Because I wasn’t thinking . . . I wasn’t thinking about having shot off my handgun at the range as having to have anything to do, however remote, with Derek being killed.”
“You knew though that he’d been shot with a .38?”
“Of course I did. It was on the news. But he wasn’t shot with my .38.”
“Let’s prove it.”
They stared at each other. She was the first to blink.
“All right. Evan will scream bloody murder when I tell him I did this, but you’re right. You can prove that Derek wasn’t killed by my gun.” She started toward the front steps.
She was almost to the front door when she saw it.
She stopped abruptly and uttered a quiet little, “Oh.”
Mercer followed her gaze to the porch. On the decking, just outside the door, lay a long-stemmed red rose.
“Looks like someone left a token of their sympathy,” he said.
Amanda’s face had drained of color and her eyes had grown wary.
“Ms. Crosby? Are you all right?” He touched her arm, and she recoiled as if she’d been burned.
He went up to the door and picked up the rose. “There’s no card.”
“There never is.” She remained on the step.
“There have been others?”
She nodded.
“Any idea who they’re from?”
She shook her head.
He held the rose out to her, but knew she’d decline to take it.
She shook her head a second time, then walked past him and unlocked the front door with a key she’d withdrawn from her back pocket.
“Nice house,” he said as she closed the door behind them.
“You’ve seen it before. You were here before.”
“Yes, but things were a little hectic then. We’d just found your partner that morning, we were trying to get statements—”
“So what you’re saying is that in all the confusion, you failed to notice how nice my house is.” Before he could respond, she added, “So maybe you can understand how, in the midst of that same confusion—and considering that it was my partner and best friend who had been murdered—I forgot to mention that I do own a gun, and that I’d fired it the day before. It just never occurred to me, since it wasn’t used to kill Derek.”
“Ruling out your gun as the murder weapon will certainly go a long way to prove that, since there is that matter of gunshot residue on the sweatshirt you were—by your own admission—wearing on the night Mr. England was killed.”
“Because I’d worn it to the firing range.” Her jaw was clenched. “And I can prove that. There’s a video camera set up on the range. Check it out and you’ll see exactly what I was wearing.”
“Thanks. I’ll do just that.”
Muttering under her breath, she turned and marched up the stairs to the second floor. She stopped midway up and looked down at him over one shoulder.
“You tested my hands and arms as well. What were the results of those tests?”
“They were clean. No residue.”
“I could have told you that.” She made no effort to hide the touch of smugness as she continued up the steps.
She held the gun out to him handle first, as she came back down a moment later.
“Here. It’s not loaded. But you were taking quite a chance, weren’t you? I mean, how did you know I wouldn’t come back down, gun blazing?”
“My very obvious error.” She would have expected him to look a bit embarrassed by this oversight, but he did not.
“I’ll get you a plastic bag from the kitchen so that you don’t even have to get your prints on it”—she waved for him to follow her toward the back of the house—“since you obviously didn’t expect to gather any evidence this afternoon.”
He walked behind her down the short hall and into the kitchen.
She opened a drawer and pulled out a plastic bag into which she unceremoniously deposited the gun. Handing the bag to him, she said, “There you go. In a few days, you’ll know for certain that I am absolutely, positively telling you the truth. I did not kill Derek.”
He accepted the bag and folded over the top. “Thanks,” he told her. “I hope it proves you didn’t.”
“Why, Chief Mercer, I believe you—”
The air between them was split unexpectedly by the harsh ringing of the phone.
She glanced at the wall unit.
“You going to answer that?” he asked.
Amanda hesitated.
The answering machine in the front hall picked up. Even from the kitchen, the sound of heavy breathing was clear and distinct. Her face drained of color as she walked quietly into the hall, listening. Finally, Sean followed, then lifted the receiver and said, “Hello? Who is this?”
The phone immediately went dead.
The caller ID displayed two words. Unknown number.
He hit the buttons for the return call feature.
“The number of your last incoming call is unknown,” the recording announced.
“You get a lot of those?” Mercer asked.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“When did they start?”
“A few days before Derek was killed.”
“Any thoughts on who the caller could be?”
“No. I called the phone company and they said they couldn’t trace the calls. That they were most likely being made from a cell phone using a phone card.”
“Did it occur to you to report this to the police?”
“No, frankly, it did not.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve made it clear that I’m your number one suspect in Derek’s death. How seriously would you take me? Besides, the last time—” She stopped in midsentence.
“The last time?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, come on, Chief.” She ran an agitated hand through her short spiky dark hair. “You’ve been here long enough to have heard the story about how I was stalked and attacked. An attack which was followed by your predecessor’s being fired, as I’m sure you know.”
She turned on her heel and went back into the kitchen, where she ran water in the sink and filled a glass, which she drank down.
“I did know that you had been attacked, but I wasn’t familiar with all the details. Since it was a closed case, I didn’t look at the file. This is how it started, with heavy-breathing hang-ups?”
“Yes.”
He leaned back against the counter. “The man who attacked you went to prison.”
“He’s still there.”
“Do you think it’s him making the calls?”
“Not a chance. He’s been ordered to have no contact with me. Ever. Even a phone call to me will cost him more time.”
“That’s no guarantee that he isn’t making the calls.”
“No, but the timing is wrong. The calls come at all hours of the day and night. Inmates don’t have such free access to phones. I admit that I’ve been thinking about calling the district attorney about it, but I just haven’t gotten to it, with all . . . everything . . . Derek . . .” She shook her head.
“I’ll look into it tomorrow.”
“I said I’d do it.”
“A phone call from you will not have the same effect as me showing up in the warden’s office first thing in the morning.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Of course I do. It’s part of the investigation.”
She looked at him quizzically.
“Someone killed your partner. Now someone appears to be harassing you. Coincidence?”
Amanda frowned. “That wouldn’t make any sense.” She shook her head. “There isn’t any reason.”
“No reason that you can see. Maybe someone sees something you don’t.”
“Are you still thinking there could be some connection to the goblet?”
“There could be. Maybe someone’s figured out that it went directly to you.” He picked up the gun that he’d earlier placed on the counter. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
She shook her head.
He nodded at the rose he’d left on the table. “Most women love to get roses. You went white when you saw that on the porch. Any particular reason why?”
“Archer Lowell—the man in prison for stalking me last year—used to leave red roses in that same spot near my front door.”
“And now someone else is doing the same thing? And you didn’t think it was important enough to report?”
“I found the first one the day after Derek was killed. One every day since. At first I thought that maybe a neighbor had left them. As you said, an expression of sympathy.”
“Where are the others?”
“I stuffed them down the garbage disposal.”
“Even though you thought they were innocent gifts from a neighbor?”
“Since . . . since before, I can’t stand to see or smell them. Regardless of where they come from, or from whom, or the sentiment intended.”
He looked around the room, then, locating the roll of paper towels that hung from the end of the counter, tore off a sheet and wet it at the faucet before wrapping the stem in the damp paper. “I’ll take this with me, since you don’t want it.”
“Fine.” She shrugged her indifference.
“Well, anything else I should know? Anything else you didn’t bother to report?”
“No. Just the calls and the roses.”
“I’ll get back to you when the tests on the gun are complete. In the meantime, I want you to tell me if you get any more calls or roses, or if anything else happens that might seem out of the ordinary. Anything that doesn’t feel right, anything that makes you the least bit uncomfortable, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem at the time. Deal?”
“All right.”
He nodded and walked toward the front of the house.
Amanda saw him out. She stood on the top step, watching his long form move down the walk. He paused midway, turned, and said, “I almost forgot. Earlier, when I asked you why you didn’t report the calls, you started to say something about the last time, but never finished. What were you going to say about the last time?”
“The last time, I did report the calls.” She crossed her arms. “I was told everyone got hang-up calls, that it was probably nothing more than someone dialing the wrong number.”
“And the roses? You reported those?”
“Of course. But Chief Anderson told me that I was a lucky girl. That most women would love to have a secret admirer sending her flowers every day.”
He visibly winced. He’d made a similar remark earlier.
“I’m sorry. That I wasn’t any more . . .” He appeared to be searching for the right word.
“Sensitive?” she offered sarcastically. “Informed?”
“Both. I’m sorry,” he repeated, and without waiting for her reply, proceeded down the path to his car.
As he drove away from Amanda Crosby’s house, Mercer’s eyes kept returning to his side view mirror, in which he could see that she still remained on the steps, even as he reached the stop sign at the end of her street. He wondered, after he’d made his turn, how long she stayed there.
He made two stops on his way home. One was at the station, where he immediately tagged and bagged the gun. The second was at the neighborhood convenience store, where he ordered a take-out sandwich. While the young man behind the deli counter made his ham and cheese, Sean strolled around the store, picking up a bag of chips and a plastic container of iced tea. On his way back to the counter, he passed a circular bin filled with flowers.
3 FOR $5, a handwritten sign announced.
“You sell a lot of those?” he asked the woman at the register.
“Sure.”
“You ever have roses?”
“Sometimes we get a few in. It depends on what the distributor has on his truck that day.” She began to ring up his purchases. “But you want roses, the supermarkets usually have those.”
“Which supermarkets?”
“All of them. They sell them by the stem or by the dozen. Nice to be able to stop and pick up something for dinner, grab a pretty something for the table at the same time.” She smiled at him. “The regular flowers are nice, but a rose really makes a statement, you know?”
He nodded and handed her a ten. While he waited for his change, he wondered what kind of a statement was being sent to Amanda. He was pretty certain it couldn’t be anything good.
It was almost ten when Sean closed Amanda Crosby’s file. He’d known that the mishandling of her case had led to the removal of the previous chief of police nearly a year ago, but he’d been unaware of all the facts, as had been painfully apparent earlier that day. He’d not known that the stalking had continued for a full six weeks before culminating in an attack that had left Amanda facially scarred. He’d noted the L-shaped mark on the upper part of her cheek near her left eye. According to the report, the cut had been made by a ring worn by her attacker. After witnessing her reaction to the hang-up calls, Sean was well aware that she’d been left with more than a physical scar.
He tried hard to push the image of her from his mind. Sweaty in shorts and that little top, her tanned, muscled arms and legs, her feet in bright yellow flip-flops.
She had pretty feet, he’d thought at the time. Long and slender, the toenails painted a deep burgundy red . . .
Don’t go there. She’s a suspect in a homicide investigation. Doesn’t get much more taboo than that. Don’t even think about it.
Work. Focus on the work.
Right.
Focus on the work . . .
He couldn’t believe that the reports she’d given to the police back then had been dismissed so easily. The stalker’s pattern had all the signs of classic erotomania.
According to the file, Archer Lowell, age nineteen, was a truck driver for a nearby auction house and had delivered purchases to Amanda’s shop on several occasions. Over the course of a year, he’d come under the delusion that Amanda was in love with him, though she’d testified in her sworn statement that she’d never given him any reason to believe that the kindness she’d shown to him was anything other than that. Simple kindness. She’d given water to him—and to the others on the truck—on hot days when they’d dropped off those items she or Derek had bought at auction the night before. Yes, she always greeted him—and the others—by name. No, she never treated him any differently than she treated any of the deliverymen. No, she never knowingly encouraged him.
Yet Lowell believed she was in love with him. That they were meant to be together, always, through all time. That she was the single most important thing in his life. That he was the most important thing in hers.
It was a case right out of a textbook. How could the signs have been missed by anyone who’d been paying attention?
Sean stood up and stretched, then went into the kitchen for a snack. He scanned the top shelf of his refrigerator. Half a tomato, half a six-pack of Coors, half an orange. He grabbed a beer and made a mental note to try to find time to hit the grocery store tomorrow. Well, he’d been planning on checking out the selection of roses. Maybe he’d do a quick shop while he was at it, save a few steps. He slammed the refrigerator door and went back to the living room.
He eased back into his chair, an old dark brown leather number he’d bought at a secondhand store for his first apartment, and put his feet up on the ottoman. They were the only pieces of furniture he’d brought with him when he moved to Broeder. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes, rejoicing in the silence. No television, no radio. Just—silence. He wanted it to settle around him and linger for a moment or two while he cleared his mind of everything that clamored for his attention. Just for a few minutes, he wanted to be a blank slate. That’s how he’d taught himself to picture his mind anytime he felt headed for an information overload. The skill had come in handy over the years.
He took a few deep breaths and opened his eyes, ready to go back into the Crosby file, when the phone rang.
“Mercer,” he answered.
“Did you see her? Did you meet with her?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Sean said truthfully.
“Did she show you the photos?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Didn’t you recognize anyone?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about the surroundings, then? Didn’t any of it look familiar?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was taking on more of an edge.
“Of course you do.” A pause, then, “Why are you being so difficult about this?”
“I need to think this through. . . .”
“What’s to think about?”
“There’s no proof.”
“You saw the birth certificate. How much more proof do you need?”
“How do you know it wasn’t a fake?”
“Oh, come on, Sean.” His sister, Greer, burst out laughing. “Why would anyone claim to be related to us if they were not? For a share in the vast Mercer fortune? Please.”
“I don’t know what motivates people, Greer.”
A heavy sigh whispered through the phone line. “I’m going to tell Ramona that you need time to digest all this. That it’s all been a bit of a shock, coming out of the blue as it has. But that you’re going to think things over for a while.”
“All right.”
“I just want you to think about it.”
“I said I would.” His nerves were beginning to fray. He was all but out of patience.
“That’s all I’m asking, Sean. Please just keep an open mind.”
He replaced the phone gently into its cradle, then rubbed his temples. He didn’t want to think about Ramona anymore tonight.
After the death of her only child the previous year, Greer’s longing for roots had driven her to search for family until she had found Sean. Greer had traced her brother through the foster system—the records of which were often missing—tricked him into a reunion he hadn’t wanted, then through the sheer force of her will had made him believe they could be a family. Maybe they could still be. He wanted that, or at least thought he did, for her sake if not for his own. He’d been alone for so long that he wasn’t sure he understood what the word family really meant. He wasn’t sure either if what he felt for Greer could be called love, but he wasn’t about to let anyone use her big heart to hurt her. Now she was elated to have found what she believed was another of her long lost siblings. She couldn’t understand why he wasn’t as thrilled as she was. As far as he was concerned, Ramona might or might not be the real deal.
He rubbed his temples, then forced himself to put it aside. He had work to do.
He reopened the file at the spot he’d marked earlier and resumed reading the witness statements.
“Well, shit,” he said aloud.
Barely a week before the attack on Amanda, Derek England had called the Broeder police department to report that Archer Lowell had, on three separate occasions, threatened his life.
Complainant alleges that Archer Lowell told him that he had “a bullet with your name on it.” See Incident Report 1497-02, and companion file 1554-02.
Sean stared into space for several minutes, pondering the possibilities, before closing the file and turning out the light.
At dawn tomorrow, he’d be at his desk, looking over the cross-referenced file on the incident involving Derek England. When the warden pulled into his parking space at the prison in the morning, Sean Mercer would be waiting for him, and by then he’d know all there was to know about Archer Lowell.