Tommy froze. The fear and adrenaline rush came from the realization that not only was she was certain Sgt. Laughlin was up to no good, but that without anyone else around, he was capable of extreme violence.
A loud cell phone ring sent her pulse skyrocketing. Sgt. Laughlin immediately answered in hushed tones. Tommy strained to listen.
“I told you I had some paperwork to finish up. Yep. Shutting down my computer right now. See you soon.”
After a moment of silence, Tommy heard him swear loudly. A second later, she could hear brush rustling and realized Laughlin was heading away from her toward the road.
Tommy strained her eyes in the dark so she could remember exactly the area that Sgt. Laughlin had been searching. When she heard the sound of Laughlin’s vehicle drive off, Tommy took out her camera.
Using her strobe light, she surveyed the area he’d been looking. The ground was covered in leaves. It didn’t look like a crime scene. There were a few matted leaves, but nothing else to indicate anyone had been there.
Thinking like a photographer, Tommy decided to look at the scene from different angles. She scrabbled up a small tree and then used the strobe to look around down below. Nothing.
What had he been looking for? Then, she decided to try it from another angle and lay flat on the ground. She then made a complete circle from her prone position in the middle of the clearing, turning her body like the hands on a clock and flashing the strobe. She was about half way around when something shiny caught her eye. It was over at the edge of the clearing. She Army crawled over there without taking her eyes off it so she wouldn’t lose track of it.
A class ring. A huge blue stone said 86. The class of 1986. Tommy used her sweatshirt sleeve to scoop it into her pocket without touching it. Crawling back out of the brush, she hiked up the hill to her car and immediately set off for Jackie Chandler’s house.
A few moments later, a sleepy looking Don Chandler answered the door. She explained her theory: The killer was Jackie Chandler’s high school sweetheart.
Don Chandler’s eyes grew wide.
“You don’t mean that cop fellow who was at the reunion?”