Paul reddens. “I didn’t pay for it. I wouldn’t. I know Isabel hates Jen freelancing. I mean, not that I’d pay for it anyway. But since Jen was offering it free, and I was kind of stressed, I didn’t see any harm in accepting. It was quick.”
“How quick?”
He goes even redder. “Not that quick. But she does know what she’s doing and—”
I raise a hand. “No details required. I’m just establishing a timeline. Did this take place on the front step where you met her?”
I don’t think it’s possible for him to get redder. I’m wrong.
“It … started there. I mean, she, uh, reached in on the porch and then—”
Dalton cuts in. “Like Casey said, we don’t need details. We know the mechanics of the operation. So it began on the porch and then continued inside where it was warmer. In the room where the patient was sleeping?”
“What? No. That would be wrong. We, uh, completed it here, in the front room. The door was closed, so even if he woke up, he wouldn’t have seen anything. That’d be disrespectful.”
I don’t continue pressing for an exact timing. I doubt he had a stopwatch running. Dalton dismisses him, watches him go and then says, “Way more information than I needed.”
“But just the amount I needed,” I say. “String it all together, and Roger was alone in that room long enough for someone to break in the back and do the damage. Which works with the time line. Jen took over, and he seemed fine, but by her first check, he was dead.”
“Murdered,” Dalton says. “And I quadrupled perimeter patrols last night. Which means we can be almost certain no one snuck in from the forest to do this. And if this was a local, then Nicole’s capture probably was, too.”
“I think we can stop saying probably. We have a killer in Rockton. Again.”
FIFTY-SIX
A few hours ago, I’d pictured my perfect breakfast. Hot fire, hot coffee, hot boyfriend cooking over a hot stove. I get all of that. Dalton has forbidden me to join Nicole’s search party at first light. We’d be taking spots better given to people who are physically rested and mentally alert.
So I get a quiet start to my day. I even have the warm puppy nestled on my lap. What I don’t get, though, is perhaps the most important part of that fantasy—the peace of mind to enjoy it all. I’m petting Storm and sipping my coffee and watching Dalton, and I’m barely registering any of it, my brain immersed in Roger’s murder, the implications and the possibilities.
“There’s something we need to discuss,” Dalton says as he slides an egg onto my plate. “An issue we probably should have discussed four months ago.”
“Personal or professional?”
“The intersection of the two.”
“Ah, the tricky kind.”
He finishes serving breakfast, and we sit on the sofa and eat half of it in hungry silence before he says, “When we got together, you said me being your boss would be a problem. I didn’t understand why. But now I get it. Here”—he motions around the room—“we’re equal partners. I’m better at cooking, so I do that. You’ve got a different idea of what ‘tidy’ means, so you do that. It all works out. In the office, I’m in charge, and you don’t seem to have a problem taking orders from your boyfriend.”
“Because I’m not—I’m taking orders from my commanding officer. And when we leave the office, you never keep trying to give me orders. We’re good at separating those roles.”
“But sometimes that separation isn’t so easy.” He takes a bite of his toast and chews. “As sheriff, I’m entrusted with secrets. Some would be helpful to your job, and I’d like to share them because knowing you as more than my detective, I know I can trust you with them.”
“Except they aren’t your secrets to share.”
“That’s the problem. But there is discretionary wiggle room. You’ve read my notes on what I suspect about residents. Those here under false pretenses.”
“Which are secrets you uncovered. Not ones you were entrusted with.”
He takes another bite of toast. Chews slowly. “So by that token, am I obligated to tell you everything I’ve uncovered?”
“You aren’t obligated to tell me anything, Eric.”
“Ethically obligated.” He stops, shakes his head. “No, that’s still the wrong phrasing. Ethically, I can tell you, because I uncovered it myself so it’s become my secret to share. But there are things I uncover that aren’t in that book. Just stuff I stumble over and file away here.” He taps his forehead.
“You can’t be expected to share all of that.” I put down my fork. “I know we’re circling the theoretical, slowly approaching a specific.”
“Just get to the damned specific?” He puts his plate down. “Yeah, I’m still feeling this shit out. I’m used to being in charge. Sheriff and detective, the only person who needed to know anything until I was damned well ready to share. I wasn’t deliberately withholding. I just never considered telling you this until I realized, fuck, I should have said something and now—”
“Absolution comes after confession, Eric.”
“It’s about Mathias. I told you and Will why he’s here. There’s more. Something I found a couple years back while double-checking his story.”