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I swallowed. “Miranda?”
Mack nodded.
I held the photo with trembling fingers. “Miranda? “ I said again. “The woman who was murdered?”
Another nod.
I stared at the woman in the photo. She was probably Laura’s age, or at least close to it, with long blonde hair and green eyes. Freckles dusted her cheeks, and a small diamond stud pierced her nose. There was a small scar above her right eyebrow, only a quarter of an inch long but the redness of it stood out against her fair complexion.
“Where did you find that?” I asked.
“It was in the camper,” he said as he snatched it from my grasp. “Stuck between all those papers and catalogs on the desk.”
I leaned back against my seat. “Why would Tim have a picture of Miranda?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, sounding as though he thought it was the most obvious thing in the world.
I waited.
“Tim and Miranda were involved,” he declared. “Lovers. Something went wrong—some kind of lover’s quarrel—and he killed her. A crime of passion.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You got all that from a picture?”
“Of course.” He tapped the side of his head. “I’m good.”
“I think that’s all a bit of a reach,” I said. “You found a picture in his camper, hidden in a stack of papers, and you’re convinced he killed her?”
“Why else would he have her picture?”
“I don’t know,” I said, throwing up my hands. “Because they were friends, maybe? Because he found it during one of his scavenging expeditions and decided to keep it? Who knows?”
“You’re right,” Mack agreed. “Who knows? Which means that I could be right.”
“It also means you could be wrong.” I pointed out.
He scowled.
“Besides,” I said, “that doesn’t explain how Tim ended up with your car. You’re telling me he just happened to take the car of the man his girlfriend had slept with the night before?”
“Maybe he did it on purpose,” Mack said. “Maybe he did it to frame me.”
“But how? Why?” I asked. “That seems like an awfully big stretch, don’t you think? You came through this way by accident, because the freeway was closed. Your car veered off the road and into the ditch. None of those things were predetermined.”
Mack was quiet for a few seconds. “Stranger things have happened,” he remarked.
I couldn’t argue with that, especially not after the things I’d experienced during my time living in Latney.
I shivered.
Mack noticed. “You cold?” he asked, reaching out to adjust the heat.
I shook my head.
“So,” Mack said, settling back into his seat, “are you going to drive me to the sheriff’s office or am I gonna have to walk there?”
It was an absurd question. Of course I was going to drive him. Not just because the air was cold enough to make my nose sting or because Winslow was still another four miles down the road.
It was because, as farfetched as Mack’s theory was, it was better than letting the sheriff assume the worst of him, that he was somehow responsible for Miranda’s disappearance and death.
The fact that I was also under suspicion, and that this piece of evidence might exonerate me, also was front and center in my mind.
I released the parking brake.
“Let’s go.”