Chapter 17 Sara Batcher
Sara Batcher
“Sara was a pain in the ass when it came to law enforcement. She would call every day when David was first missing, trying to get someone to take the case seriously. But guys run off, you know? Especially when married to a type-A woman like her. Hell, I was exhausted just from ten minutes of listening to her. I couldn’t imagine being in a relationship with that.
She was lucky the chief liked her. He catered to her demands and made us dig into a case that was pretty much dead.
So we dug. But there wasn’t anything there.
The husband ran off to the Cayman Islands or wherever it is that rich people go to escape their problems.”
Sara and Chief of Police Joel Stanton had sex first, as they normally did.
No dinner, no conversation—just a quick strip and screw.
Tonight’s session was unusually unsatisfying, and Sara analyzed the reasons while on her forearms, her knees digging into the worn-out mattress, the fan above them rattling.
It could be David. The potential for his body to turn up after all these years was of concern.
Maybe not a concern, because it was kind of a good thing, having closure.
Finally, everyone would have all their questions answered.
No more speculating. No more suspicions.
It would be like ripping off a Band-Aid. Painful for a moment, then over.
Of course, Sara might have to move out of Crestmore. Maybe not. It would depend on what the police determined.
“You like that?” he grunted from behind her, his breaths getting louder, and she gave an encouraging sound in response.
It normally didn’t take Joel this long. Maybe he was waiting for her to come.
Had she? Probably not. She began to rock against him, giving her own grunts of pleasure, and then she let out a long wail that sounded very convincing.
She stretched it a little longer than normal, then swore with a string of compliments about his enormous size.
All false, but it did the trick. He completed his own celebration of pleasure and then collapsed on the mattress beside her, his hairy chest heaving, eyes closed.
Joel needed to work on his cardio. That would be her luck, him having a heart attack while they were screwing. She could just imagine how that would go over at the station, the sort of questions they would ask.
No, if Joel were going to die, it needed to be somewhere far, far away from her, and right after he’d wiped his cell phone.
She pulled a pillow over her head in an attempt to muffle the overhead fan’s rattle. Joel always asked why she never stayed the night, yet she had mentioned this stupid fan four or five times and he hadn’t fixed it. “Do you have any updates on the search?”
“No. They’ll call me when they find something. And then I’ll tell you.”
“Like you told me this morning?” She turned her head and shot him a glare.
He chuckled and raised his hands in innocence. “Hey, it was just a bone. By the time we got forensics out there and verified it was human, I still didn’t know what was what until past noon. It wasn’t until we nailed down an age of decay that David’s name started getting brought up.”
She rolled toward him and he lifted his arm, putting it under her head like a pillow.
It was an unusual pose for them, but she completed the position, snuggling into the crook of his arm and appreciating, for just a moment, the warmth of a human body.
Joel had a good body. Just soft enough, but still strong.
She shifted closer and wrapped her leg around his.
“But there are a couple of people it could be, right?”
“Kind of. He’s the top of the list. You should touch base with your attorney.”
She already had, and they’d gone back over her detailed alibi for the twenty-four hours before and after David’s disappearance.
It was easy—everything was time-stamped and documented.
Back when he’d vanished, she had pulled and filed the three months prior and post of credit card statements and phone records, plus the exterior security camera footage of her home, ready for sharing.
Ian had worked with a psychiatrist to build psychological reports on both her and David’s state of mind.
They’d created a list of character witnesses, and Sara was trained on how to defeat lie detector tests and skirt questions.
Five years was a long time, and she had spent it waiting and preparing for every possible outcome.
She ran her hand across the soft hair of Joel’s chest, then farther down his stomach. His penis was flaccid and wet, and she gently ran her fingers over the top of it. “What’s going to happen if it’s him?”
“You’ll be a prime suspect. We’ll reopen the case and look at his last twenty-four hours. It doesn’t help that you sold the condo.”
Well, it wasn’t her job to help their case. “So, you’re thinking foul play?”
“Well, he didn’t bury himself in the neighborhood.” He chuckled. “So, yeah.”
No, Sara thought. He definitely didn’t.