CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
Selena sighed. “I know he’s being watched. If a field office has a bug in that house, or a long lens on the gate, or a file you don’t know about, then there’s a recording of a sitting sheriff handing cash to a crime boss during an active murder investigation.”
Connor looked down.
The anger drained from his posture and left weariness behind. He sat again, slower this time.
Selena finished her drink. “But I guess it’s done now.”
“For what it’s worth, I thought I was helping.”
“I know, but that doesn’t make it right.”
He lifted his eyes.
“If you pull any shit like this again, talk to me first.”
“I don’t need permission.”
“No, you need good judgment. You’re emotionally compromised.”
His expressions tightened.
Selena poured another drink and took a harder swallow than she should have. “Connor, if you were anyone else, I’d make sure you got suspended for this, pending a further investigation. You’d lose your badge.”
“But I’m not anyone else, am I?”
She held the bottle by the neck and looked at him.
Connor stood, calmer now but not softer. “We can’t just act like we’re two unconnected officers of the law and there’s nothing between us. The past matters.”
“Get this straight. There’s nothing between us.” The words felt like glass as they left Selena’s mouth.
“There was.”
“Yes. There was once. And I still care what happens to you.”
“As a colleague?”
“That’s right.”
His expression said he did not believe her, or maybe that he did not want to.
“It’s not like I’m asking you to get back with me,” Connor said. “I’m saying we have a connection. We shouldn’t pretend otherwise. It changes how we act. It’s also an advantage. We can play off each other like no one else.”
Selena set the bottle down too hard. Whiskey slopped against the glass neck. “A connection doesn’t give you the right to make reckless decisions and expect me to soften the consequences.”
“Maybe I came here because I knew you wouldn’t.”
That quieted her for a moment.
Outside, a car passed on the road, tires hissing over warm pavement. In the next room, water ran for a few seconds, then stopped. Eric’s battle with Room 6 continued in muffled thumps.
Connor rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked at the evidence of her interrupted sleep. The turned-back covers. The lamp. Her bare feet on the motel carpet.
“I shouldn’t have come this late.”
“No,” Selena said. “You shouldn’t have disappeared all day.”
A trace of a smile almost came to his face, but he stopped it before it formed. “Right… Anyway, are you going to debrief me? How did your day go?”
Selena sat back down on the bed. “You’re not going to like that, either.”
“Like what?”
“I have evidence that Marlene Schmidt lied to us about her alibi.”
Connor went still.
“She was in town the night Victor was killed,” Selena said.
“That can’t be true.”
“I have an informant.”
“Who?”
“Cheryl’s sister. Amanda Lee.”
“Oh, come on.” Connor set his cup on the dresser with a dull tap. “Amanda? She likes a tall tale; I’ll tell you that.”
“She was certain, Connor.”
“She’s always certain. That’s what makes people listen.”
Selena kept her voice level. “Marlene believed Victor was having an affair. She dropped the kids at her mother’s, then drove back to Harlan County to catch him.”
Connor shook his head. “No.”
“Her mother lives about three hours away. Amanda says Marlene texted her around eleven-thirty to say Victor’s car was home. Your staff verified the text is real.”
“No,” Connor said again, but quieter this time. “This is a nightmare.”
“Connor, listen to me.”
“I am listening. I’m hearing you try to turn a grieving widow into a killer because Amanda Lee likes being at the center of a story.”
“Marlene lied about her movements.”
“Maybe because she was ashamed,” he said.
“Maybe. Or maybe because she killed him.”
The sentence cut through the room.
Connor looked at her as if she had slapped him.
“You don’t know Marlene.”
“I know what people are capable of.”
He paced once toward the door, then back. “Marlene adored Vic.”
“Marlene may also have believed Vic was humiliating her.”
“Lots of people get cheated on. They don’t shoot their husbands.”
“And lots of men lose contracts without being killed by rivals. Yet you went after Carl.”
“That’s different.”
“It isn’t. You want Carl to be viable because you can stomach him as a suspect. You can’t stomach Marlene.”
Connor’s face flushed. “Careful, Selena.”
Selena continued: “Someone killed Victor. The likelihood is that whoever killed Warren and whoever killed Victor, whether it’s two killers or not, they’re likely someone you know in town. If you’re not up to the task of doing this above board and keeping distance, then we have a serious problem.”
Connor stared at her.
For a moment, the years between them seemed to compress into one familiar look. Pride wounded. Trust withdrawn. The old fight waiting in a new room.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he said.
He went to the door.
Selena stood. “Connor.”
His hand closed around the handle.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Connor opened the door, then stopped with one foot over the threshold. His shoulders shifted.
“It’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
No answer came in time.
He left, closing the door with care instead of anger.
Selena stood in the middle of the room, nightdress hanging loose around her knees, whiskey warm in her throat and regret settling heavier than fatigue. Outside, Connor’s vehicle started. The engine idled for a few seconds, then rolled away across the lot.
She listened until the sound faded.
Only then did Selena lock the door.
The bottle sat on the dresser between the two paper cups. One untouched now. One nearly empty. She looked at them, then at the phone on the bed.
There were calls she should make.
Arnold. Cheryl. Maybe even someone at the Bureau, if Connor's visit to Morimer became a problem she could not bury with a warning. But that would make things worse if Connor had been lucky and had not been recorded in his interactions.
Damn you, Connor, she thought. She just could not bring herself to call it in. And that put her at war with her own ethics. Yes, she should have called the FBI.
Instead, she stood there with one hand on the deadbolt and prayed she could somehow avoid having to choose between her duty and her ex-husband.