Chapter 3
“Why am I not surprised?”
Foley leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head, and sighed.
Whitlock laughed, nudging me with his elbow. “You should know … we made a bet about how long it would take before you got involved in our case.”
“Who won?” I asked.
“Neither of us. Foley said one week, and I said two. We didn’t think you had it in you to restrain yourself for an entire month. No offense.”
“I was trying to let you two do your jobs.”
Foley cocked his head, raising a brow. “Since when? You’ve been in here every week since the girl’s murder. Maybe you weren’t running your own investigation, but you sure as hell angled for details.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Suppose not. Word is your sidekicks are out of town. You planning to work the case without Hunter and Simone?”
I grinned and said, “They’re not my only sidekicks, though, are they?”
Foley wagged a finger at me. “Oh, no. If you think we’re your backup, you’re mistaken. If anything, it’s the other way around.”
“I never asked you to help me. I’m here to help you.”
“Help us how?”
“I haven’t worked that part out yet. Why don’t we start by you telling me what you know. And I’ll … well, I’ll listen.”
Foley snorted. “Listening isn’t helping.”
Maybe not, but it was a start.
“If you’re done giving me grief, I’d like to know where you are on the case,” I said.
“And if I’m not done?”
I shrugged. “Then I’ll wait. I have time.”
Foley glanced at Whitlock, and the two of them burst out laughing.
“All right, let’s get to the case,” Foley said. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Everything, huh? We want to know everything too, starting with what Rosemary Ashford told you.”
“We talked about Audrey’s friends and the guys who were interested in her, and then she walked me through the day Audrey died. She told me it was Dustin, Audrey’s father, who found her.”
“Yeah, that was rough,” Whitlock said. “Poor guy.”
“I feel for him,” Foley added. “When he found her, he tried to pick her up, like he meant to carry her home. But his legs gave out, and he collapsed. The problem is, he moved her from the spot where she died. Disturbed the ground all around her. I don’t blame him, but it sure would have been better if she hadn’t been moved. ”
“Did you find anything at the scene, anything useful?” I asked, leaning forward in my chair.
“Not a thing. Her throat was slit, and if the killer left a knife behind, we’d have found it. We didn’t.”
Whitlock shifted in his seat, rubbing a hand along his jaw. “Crazy thing is, she almost made it to her friend’s house. Couple more minutes, and she would’ve been there.”
“I’m not familiar with that part of the woods,” I said. “Anything I should know?”
“I’d say it’s a wooded area that’s not used all that often. About a five-minute walk from where we found Audrey, we came across a cabin. Well, the remains of what used to be a cabin. Old place. Needs to be torn down.”
“How old are we talking?”
“Hundred years, maybe more. I dug into the records, tried to figure out who built it and who owned it last. Nothing. It’s like the place doesn’t exist on paper.”
“Someone must know something about it.”
“If they do, they’re not talking,” he said, his gaze fixed on me.
I paused, gearing up for my next question. “Do you have any suspects yet?”
“Everyone who knew that girl is a suspect. We just haven’t tied the murder to anyone yet.”
“Do you suspect one person over the rest?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute. First, I want to circle back to the cabin and what we found there. For starters, it seems someone had been inside it in recent months.”
“How do you know?”
“Place should have been crawling with cobwebs. It wasn’t. Didn’t see a single one.”
“You think someone cleaned it up?”
“Seems so.”
Whitlock, who hadn’t been as talkative as usual, raised a hand as if needing permission to speak. “And then there’s the initials we found.”
“What initials?”
“AA. Carved into one of the wooden beams.”
My stomach tightened.
AA
Audrey Ashford.
She could have carved it herself—but why?
Was the old cabin a place she frequented, somewhere she could go to be alone with her thoughts? Or had it served a different purpose, one we weren’t aware of yet?
“Who have you talked to so far?” I asked.
“Family, friends, classmates. You name it, we’ve spoken to them.”
“Before, when I asked if there was someone you suspected over the rest, you didn’t give me a definitive answer.”
Foley and Whitlock exchanged glances, remaining silent.
Whatever detail they were keeping from me, it appeared to be a juicy one.
“All right, you two, what aren’t you telling me?” I asked.
“Our main suspect is Logan Lambert,” Foley said.
“The guy Audrey was dating? Why? Have you spoken to him?”
“We have.”
“And?”
“He was nervous, more nervous than he should have been if he was innocent.”
“Where was he at the time of Audrey’s murder?”
“He said he was home alone. I spoke to his parents. They were out to dinner on the night of the murder. They said Logan was home when they went out that night and when they got back. But they were out for a couple of hours, and it just happened to coincide with the time the murder took place.”
“It doesn’t mean Logan’s guilty of anything. Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why is he your main suspect?”
“We dropped by his parents’ house a few days ago to speak to him again. They said Logan had left town for the weekend with a couple of his friends, but we talked to those friends. They said they’d made no such plans.”
“Why would Logan lie about it?”
“That’s what we would like to know. I circled back to Logan’s parents again this morning, hoping he was back so we could ask him a few more questions. But he wasn’t around, which means no one’s seen the kid in four days.”