THE NIGHT WAS dark as tar, with only a small cone of light from Test’s headlamp.
When she glanced to her side it was as if she was looking into starless deep space. It was unbalancing.
She took the dirt road slow and steady, wanting to work her heart rate up and clear her mind.
The kids would be devastated when they woke in the morning. And Claude would be left to deal with it on his own, because Test would need to be out the door in a couple hours.
She heard a branch snap and slowed her pace, listening.
The sound did not come again, and she relegated it to the noise of a raccoon or some other creature of the night. What else could it be?
She picked up her pace.
A crime committed against a police officer or her family needed to be officially reported and handled, but she would not report the poisoning. She was the detective who would have handled it if it was called in. So. She’d file papers that no one would ever see. She could do that. Right now, the fewer people who knew, the better. If she kept it quiet she’d be able to work this thread herself. Despite what she’d told Claude, she now suspected it was linked in one way or another to Jessica. She just did not know how. She hoped it was a pissed-off local who would not harm the family. Though it seemed extreme and cruel for anyone to do. It occurred to her: What if more than one person had killed Jessica? Brad was in custody. So, he could not have poisoned Charlie. What if he’d had an accomplice? What if it was not Brad at all who had killed Jessica, and Test’s gut was right? If it wasn’t Brad, the person who killed Jessica remained at large.
SHE TOLD HERSELF again that whoever had killed Charlie was long gone and the kids and Claude were safe at home. But believed it less with every step. Anyone who would kill a dog was a sadist. Why was she not listening to music on her iPod as she always did when running? She told herself it was because she had not thought to bring it. But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was she hadn’t brought her iPod because she had wanted to remain acutely aware of every sound in the darkness.
She stopped running and listened. It was hard to hear anything other sound over the pulse of blood in her ears. But, from the understory of the woods, came a rustling.
It had to be an animal.
No person could possibly keep up with her running on the road by crashing through the woods in the complete darkness.
It was impossible. Even in the daylight, it would be impossible.
Tomorrow she would crack Brad. Break him down and get the confession she knew was coming. Then she would focus on who had killed her dog. Perhaps Brad knew.
She’d break him down for that, too.
She sprinted the rest of the way home.