Now we had the problem of Courtney James on our hands. If what she was saying about Cecil Hawke and Nelson Toomey turned out to be true, she was in danger. You didn’t just turn a kid like Courtney out on unfamiliar streets, in unfamiliar towns, and ask her to take care of herself. I doubted, at this point, that returning to England was even the right thing to do. Courtney was ours until this investigation was over.

I had a bad headache. With a bad headache nothing else seems as important as the pain. What I wasn’t letting into my brain was something that was scaring the hell out of me—if I even thought about it. I was the only one who had read Cecil’s manuscript. Now that Lila was dead, I was the only one, other than Cecil, who even knew it existed. I was glad I’d made copies. Not to show to anyone, but to protect myself. The book was about a serial murderer, and his good friend. With two totally real murders on our hands here, I was beyond feeling uncomfortable about Cecil’s book. I was moving into a place where I wondered if I was intended as a target too—in this biography that wasn’t a biography, in this story of two men who lived to kill.

Jeffrey signaled he wanted to talk outside of the chief’s office. I knew what had to be coming. We gathered at the front of the police station. Jeffrey leaned back against one of the scarred tables and looked from me to Dolly. “You know we can’t let her go,” he said. “If this Toomey hears that she’s in Leetsville, she’ll be dead in twenty-four hours.”

Dolly nodded. “She’s the only witness to anything that we’ve got.”

“And she can identify this guy,” I said. “Cecil told me he never heard of Toomey. Big lie. I don’t know what kind of an awful game they’re playing …”

Jeffrey nodded. “Don’t get carried away.” He gave me a hard look. “We don’t know for sure what the guy’s done, as yet. Or even this Toomey. Let’s take it slow. I’m going out to that sheep ranch and take a look around. That’s what’s holding us up.”

“Maybe Cecil Hawke’s not even involved,” I said, wanting to believe the man I worked for wasn’t as evil as I suspected. “Maybe it’s all Toomey and he’s only protecting him because they’re old friends.”

“Yeah.” Dolly looked disgusted. “So he lets this Toomey kill his wife, maybe two wives now, and a Mexican agent here looking into threats against her cousin, and denies knowing him.”

“I’m checking with Australia—see if there’s a criminal record. On either one of them,” Jeffrey said.

“What about Bristol?”

Jeffrey nodded. “Got that already. Nothing. As far as they’re concerned Courtney’s mother died of natural causes.”

“They say anything about Courtney?”

“Said they know what she believes, but there’s no proof. Cecil was out of the country when his wife first went into shock from the insulin. They had nothing on him.”

“What about Toomey? They ever hear of him?” I asked.

“Only that the daughter said he was involved. They like the girl, but all she’s got are suspicions. And, according to the officer I spoke to, there is the matter of her mother willing all her money to Hawke instead of to her. Makes for a bad grudge that could get in the way of the kid’s judgment.”

We stopped talking to think.

After a while, Dolly offered, “I believe her. Maybe I wouldn’t if it weren’t for our own two murders.”

“We know Hawke didn’t kill his wife,” Jeffrey said. “You two are his best witnesses. He was in plain sight when the shots from the library were heard.”

“And it wasn’t Jackson,” I put in quickly. “Ballistics showed the same gun was used to kill the dog. And the Mexican agent.

“But there’s Toomey,” I went on, knowing we were going around in circles. “And there are things about Hawke that worry me …”

“Like what?” Jeffrey lifted his chin, challenging me.

“Like, well, I think you could call Cecil a game player. I saw it with Lila. I read …”

“Read?” Jeffrey was fast.

Not yet. I wasn’t ready to give up Cecil’s book. What was it, after all, but fiction? And I’d agreed, in writing, not to divulge anything about it to anyone. It was a bind I didn’t appreciate. Depending on how bad things got, did I have a breaking point? A place where I’d be forced to show the book to Jeffrey or Dolly? I could be sued by Cecil Hawke. At some point I was going to have to face my fear—of maybe losing the only thing I had in a lawsuit: my house on Willow Lake—and do what I knew I had to do.

That point wasn’t yet. I couldn’t take the chance until I was sure …

“Books I’ve read about psychopaths.”

He nodded then got right back to Courtney James.

“That leaves you and Dolly to keep this kid safe,” he said, wiping his hands together. “Here’s what I propose. You two take an hour, go off somewhere, and come up with a plan between you. The chief and I will take her statement, have Courtney sign it, and use that as a way to get moving on this. I’m taking on the sheep ranch. Don’t know how, but I’m getting in there to have a look around, maybe talk to men who work there. Lucky’s following up with the farmers. You two stick tight to Courtney, and, Emily, we’d like you to keep seeing Hawke, if you think you can handle it. You’re editing for him? What’s that book about?”

I shrugged and said, “You know, about Noel Coward.”

That satisfied Jeffrey. My first lie to him—a big one. But maybe not for long. If we found proof linking Cecil to any of the murders, I’d drag that manuscript out in a flash and face the rest later.

_____

Dolly and I had an hour to come up with a plan to keep the girl alive and have her around as a witness when we caught up with Toomey. EATS was out of the question. They’d know the whole story before we drank a single cup of Eugenia’s strong coffee or, in my case, a cup of weak, generic tea.

Dolly said we could talk at her house, since she was still off duty. “We’ll work out how I can help you—having her there with you,” she added.

“With me?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard that right.

That set us off, arguing over who was best set up to protect a young woman who some creep nobody could find was after.

Cate Thomas, Dolly’s grandmother, was sitting at Dolly’s kitchen table when we got there, a cup of hot tea in front of her. She stared off, out across Dolly’s backyard toward a stand of tall fir trees. Her greeting was halfhearted, though she offered tea, which I knew would be hot and dark and good.

“So, you don’t want to take her in?” Dolly said.

We sat at Dolly’s white, wooden table. I remembered coming here before Cate arrived and having to carve a place to sit at the table, clearing off cereal boxes, newspapers, and books on forensics. Then there were dirty mugs, plates with dried chili stuck to them, and small blue pots with food burned at the bottom. Cate, with not much of a place to call home herself, got busy when she moved in. Now it was a pleasure to sit at Dolly’s kitchen table without the fear of a bug carrying off your cup.

“You got a dog,” Dolly went on.

“And you’ve got Cate, here,” I said with perfect logic. “When you’re on patrol, Cate can keep an eye on her.”

Dolly made a noise, expressing her disagreement. “You think this is some runaway kid we got on our hands? You think all she needs is watchin’? You’re nuttier than ever.”

“And you think me and Sorrow can keep away some killer bent on getting to her?”

“Better than here, in town. How about Harry’s house? Think he’d keep an eye on her?”

“Yeah. The house is big enough for about a half of a human being, and you’re going to put this young Englishwoman there.”

“Got a better idea?” Dolly asked.

Cate Thomas, dressed in her usual getup of green scarves twisted around her neck, a long pink cotton skirt, a lacy blouse, and tons of make-up, cleared her throat. “Don’t count on me.” She shook her head vehemently. “I’m going. I’ll be in France, looking for my daughter. It’s time she stepped right up to the plate …” She sipped her tea and stole a look at Dolly. “Now that this one’s gone and got herself pregnant. I’m not a young woman. I can’t take on a baby. No sirree.”

Cate turned to me. “I told her, dumb thing to get yourself pregnant.”

“Didn’t get myself any way at all.”

“Well, this mysterious immaculate conception of yours,” Cate turned to me. “She tell you a father’s name?”

I shook my head.

“Me either. Could at least get some support …”

“Don’t put on, Cate,” Dolly growled across the table at her. “You’re doin’ what all the women in our family do. You’re runnin’. So, what’s new? Guess you can’t break a cycle like ours. Only thing I know is, I’m not runnin’. This kid is going to have a great mother. Best ever, if I have anything to say about it.”

Dolly’s hat was off, that short, dirty-blond hair sticking up like a teenage boy’s buzz cut. Nothing beautiful about Deputy Dolly, but I had to admit there was something new there. If this was the glow of pregnancy, maybe she was right. She was already improving.

Dolly slumped down in her chair, staring at her hands. Cate kept her eyes turned from both of us. I sipped my tea and stayed out of this ongoing battle.

“So, what are we doin’ about this Courtney James?” When Dolly got back to the subject at hand her voice was strong and unemotional. We were on the work track again and off babies, mothers, and traitorous grandmothers.