CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Selena stayed in the car a moment longer than she needed to.
From her spot near the edge of the sheriff’s office parking lot, she watched Connor pull in and cut the engine on his SUV.
Morning had settled properly now, pale sun over the low buildings of Eagleton, light catching on windshields and the dusty edge of the lot.
Connor stepped out with a folder under his arm and headed inside.
Even from a distance, his stride looked familiar. Even in the sheriff’s uniform, there was something rebellious about the way he walked. His swagger had not completely abandoned him. It made her wonder if the wild guy she had fallen in love with in high school was still in there.
Inside, they were going to go over the murders together.
Two victims. Two abandoned places of worship.
Two bodies displayed like warnings. Details pinned down, cross-checked, arranged into something useful.
Work she wanted to do. Work she needed to do to get her life back in DC.
And all of it would happen in a room where she and Connor could not step around each other, could not pretend the past was waiting politely outside.
Her eyes stayed on the front doors.
A different morning rose up in her head without warning.
Beach. Heat. Salt in the air.
They had been on their honeymoon, a gift from her family and friends, sitting at a little bar built almost on the sand, both of them sunburned despite the sunscreen Connor swore he had applied properly.
He’d ordered a ridiculous tropical drink because the woman behind the bar said it was the house special and he had never liked backing down from a dare.
When it arrived, Selena had laughed so hard she nearly spilled her own.
The glass had a flower the size of her hand stuck into it, bright orange and pink, with three separate straws jutting out at different angles. Connor had stared at it like it was an engineering problem.
“What is this?” he’d said.
“Luxury,” Selena had told him.
He’d tried one straw, then another, getting almost nothing, his expression turning more irritated with every failed sip until he finally pulled all three straws and the flower out in one annoyed yank.
“There,” he’d muttered. “Now it’s a drink.”
Selena had laughed again, really laughed, head back, shoulders shaking, while he took a proper sip and then tried not to smile at her over the rim of the glass.
Back then, she had looked at him and seen hope.
Selena watched as the sun in front of her caught the emergency lights on the top of Connor’s SUV. For a second, the ray of sunshine turned blood red. Just as quickly, another image cut across her mind. The memory she feared the most.
Flashing hazard lights.
Twisted metal.
A sleepy street at night and the awful slowing of a car before impact came fully into view as it smashed into a woman on the road.
Her stomach lurched so sharply she had to grip the steering wheel.
Selena blinked. The sheriff’s office returned around her. Sunlight. A pickup rumbling by on the road. She drew in one slow breath and let it out through her nose. Deep down she knew she would have to confront that memory with Connor one day. But not yet.
Not now.
Laptop tucked under one arm, she got out and headed inside.
The front desk area smelled faintly of coffee and a cheap air freshener. Cheryl looked up from behind the reception with that same composed face Selena remembered from her first day back in town. Blond curls pinned neatly back. Makeup precise. A woman who liked to meet the world dressed for it.
“Good morning,” Cheryl said.
The smile arrived on schedule. Selena had the distinct sense it did not travel any deeper than the lipstick.
“Morning,” Selena said. “Where’s the briefing room, Cheryl?”
Cheryl pointed down the corridor. “Fifth door on your right.”
Selena shifted the laptop slightly under her arm. “Thanks.”
“How’re you settling back in?”
The tone was light enough to pass for casual. Selena doubted it was casual.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Like an old glove.”
Cheryl’s mouth lifted a fraction. “You must be desperate to get all this done and get back to Washington.”
“Yes,” Selena said. “I am.”
That answer seemed to please her, though not in a friendly way. More like a box had been ticked. A promise to get out of Dodge.
Selena headed down the corridor before the conversation could sharpen.
Framed photographs lined the walls. County fairs.
School safety visits. Connor with his arm around old men in seed caps and young deputies fresh out of the academy.
He had built a life here in plain view. People could point to it with one hand while buying feed with the other.
Voices drifted from the fifth doorway.
Selena slowed just outside it, caught the edge of an argument, then stepped inside.
Connor and Arnold were in the middle of dragging a folding table across the room.
Arnold had one end. Connor had the other. A pin board stood against the far wall already loaded with scene photographs and notes, and two smaller desks had been shoved off to the side to make space.
“I’m telling you, by the window makes more sense,” Arnold said. “Better light.”
“The back wall,” Connor said. “Less glare on the board.”
“We’re not painting a portrait, Sheriff.”
“We’re trying to work effectively, Deputy.”
Neither of them noticed Selena.
Arnold set his end down with a huff. “Let’s settle these like men.”
Connor looked at him for a second. “Agreed.”
They both raised their hands.
“Ready?” Arnold said, and Connor nodded.
They threw.
Connor won.
Selena laughed before she could stop herself.
Both men turned. Arnold looked caught out. Connor straightened slowly, let go of the table, and cleared his throat.
Selena raised an eyebrow. “Rock, paper, scissors? Really?”
Connor tugged once at the hem of his shirt like that might restore some dignity. “It’s as good a way as any around here.”
Arnold tried to recover. “I still think the window was better.”
Connor pointed to the door. “Out.”
The deputy didn’t move at first. “You need anything else?”
“I need you to do the job I actually gave you.”
Arnold nodded quickly. “Yes, sir.”
He slipped past Selena with an apologetic half-smile and vanished down the corridor.
Once the room had settled again, Selena glanced toward the door and then back at Connor.
“You should probably be stricter with him. He’s a deputy, you’re the boss.”
Connor set his end of the table down properly. “I try to treat people how I’d want to be treated. I’m never going to be the total tight-ass.”
Selena crossed her arms. “It takes all kinds, I guess. For what it’s worth, I get the feeling you’re well thought of around here.”
His eyes flicked to her face, reading more into that than she intended to give away.
The pin board held photographs of Brenda and Lauren side by side.
Church tower. Graveyard stone. Candles in the church, but not in the graveyard.
Blood. The Roman numerals, copied and enlarged.
Maps of Harlan County with circles around both scenes.
Underneath it all lay the same ugly fact that had been pressing on her since dawn.
Two women were now dead and a killer was still moving through Harlan County.
“Where can I set up?” Selena asked.
Connor gestured to a small desk near the board. “Is over there good?”
A desktop computer sat on the desk opposite. He took that one while Selena opened her laptop at the first. The room itself was little more than an oversized meeting space with peeling paint near the radiator and a coffeemaker shoved onto a cabinet in the corner.
Selena powered up the laptop. “What’s the station Wi-Fi?”
Connor didn’t answer right away.
She looked over. “What’s wrong?”
A hint of embarrassment crossed his face, which was rare enough to be noticeable. “Password’s MaplePool2011.”
For a second Selena only stared at him.
Maple Pool and a cabin by the lake. Three quiet days there in 2011, a last throw of the dice to save their marriage. It had been before everything came apart. A weekend of cedar walls, bad fishing, rain on the roof, and Connor insisting he could build a fire faster than any man alive.
“We did like to go there,” she said.
Connor looked down at the desk. “Don’t read anything into it. I just use passwords I’ll remember.”
Of all the things he could have said, the plainness of that hit hardest.
“Of course,” Selena said.
She entered the password and opened Lauren Gimble’s social media accounts. Public posts first. Photos. Shares. Comments. Church quotes. Videos from sermons in different towns. Soft-focus graphics about forgiveness, rebirth, renewal.
Connor settled into his chair opposite. “What are you looking for?”
“A thread between the victims.” Selena scrolled. “Lauren’s social history might give us one. Anything we can find that could link her and Brenda together. Something the killer hung onto.”
Before she could go further, her phone buzzed across the desk.
Washington field office.
She answered at once. “Raven.”
“Hey,” a masculine voice said. It was Brent. Her sometimes partner, both off and on the job. “You up to your neck in rural charm yet?”
The voice landed oddly. Familiar, easy, once close enough to know her habits, now filed away with the other lives she had not kept.
“I suppose it’s found me, Brent. What do you have?” she asked.
“Well, first of all,” he said in a tone she knew all too well, “we got your message and we can send another forensics team, but it’s going to take a few days. Meg is a bit concerned it might ruffle local feathers, but if it’s what you need…”
“It’s what I need, Brent.” She looked over and caught Connor’s line of sight. He looked away quickly and back at his computer.
Brent continued: “Calloway got me to dig into the database for you as well. No evidence of a previous church killing in or around Harlan County in recent years. We checked open and closed cases, suspicious deaths, female victims near abandoned religious sites. Nothing that fits.”