CHAPTER FOUR
Late-afternoon light lay flat across the front of the Harlan County Sheriff’s Department when Selena turned into the parking lot.
Connor’s SUV occupied the space nearest the entrance.
Road dust coated the lower doors, and a spray of dried mud marked one rear wheel.
The vehicle had probably come straight from the Montgomery property.
Two patrol cars stood farther along the building, leaving a narrow space beneath a maple that had begun dropping leaves.
Selena parked and switched off the engine.
For a few seconds, she remained behind the wheel with her phone in her hand.
The sheriff’s department was a low brick building with narrow windows and a flag moving above the entrance.
She knew what waited inside. Connor, Arnold, Cheryl, interview rooms, evidence forms, and people who had known her before she learned how to become Agent Raven.
Washington had been easier in certain ways.
No one there remembered her at seventeen.
No one knew which boy she had taken to prom or how long she and Connor had tried to save their marriage before it failed.
The office had given her distance, and distance had allowed her to build a version of herself that did not have to answer for the past each time she entered a room.
She found Meg Calloway’s number and called.
A receptionist answered. “Section Chief Calloway’s office.”
“It’s Selena Raven. Is she available?”
“One moment, Agent Raven.”
Hold music began, faint and tinny. Selena watched the department entrance while a deputy she did not recognize crossed behind the glass doors. The music stopped after less than a minute.
“Selena,” Meg said. “What’s happened?”
“We have a homicide at a property outside Elmsview. Karen Sloane, forty-one, recently divorced. Multiple stab wounds, defensive injuries, and her tongue was removed.”
Meg’s tone sharpened. “Removed at the scene?”
“Yes. It was left on the floor beside a smashed word processor.”
“What’s the sheriff’s read?”
“Connor asked me to assist, but I’m not sure this is FBI business yet. We don’t have interstate movement, an identified serial pattern, or anything showing a federal nexus.”
“If the sheriff requests Bureau assistance and you document the cooperative basis, you can support the case. Keep the state charges with Connor unless a federal nexus develops.”
“That broad?”
“You’re running a violent-crime and rural liaison office, Selena. This is exactly the kind of support the post was created to provide.”
“Okay,” Selena said.
“Do you need resources?” Meg asked.
“Yes. I’m handling the scene consultation, case coordination, and everything waiting at Eagleton. Can we get someone to assist like I asked?”
“I told you another agent was coming.”
“You said soon.”
“And I meant it. I’ll get someone transferred over, at least temporarily, to help with this case and the office setup.”
Selena watched a leaf slide across her windshield before dropping onto the pavement. “Thanks.”
“I’ll call you when I have a name. Anything else I should know?”
“Not yet. We’re about to speak with the ex-husband.”
“Keep me updated.”
“I will.”
“Call me after the interview if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Meg.”
Selena ended the call.
The silence inside the car settled around her.
In Washington, the same conversation would have ended with office noise continuing beyond the phone.
Tanya leaning over a partition with a question.
Brent appearing beside her desk with a file he could have emailed.
Meg summoning someone before Selena had returned to her chair.
Here, the old school building waited in Eagleton with three empty desks and a corridor that magnified every footstep.
Maybe accepting the post had been a mistake.
She could have stayed in Washington and fought the people who wanted her out of the way.
She could have appealed every decision, called in every favor, and forced the higher-ups to defend what they had done.
Instead, she had accepted an office in Harlan County because Meg presented it as a way to protect her career.
A few months. A year at most.
Such arrangements had a habit of lasting once they became convenient for everyone else.
The sheriff’s office door opened.
Arnold stepped outside carrying a paper cup. He spotted her through the windshield and raised his free arm.
“Are you going to come in,” he called, “or are you having a staring competition with the building?”
Selena lifted a hand in reply, slipped the phone into her bag, and got out.
“You could’ve given me another minute,” she said as she approached.
Arnold held the door. “You’d already been sitting there long enough for Cheryl to ask if something was wrong with your car.”
“Tell Cheryl I was conducting surveillance.”
“On us?”
“You’re a suspicious group.”
Inside, Cheryl sat behind the front desk with a telephone receiver against one ear. Her dark hair was pinned away from her cheeks, and a legal pad lay open beside the computer. She ended the call as Selena entered.
“Hi, Cheryl.”
“Hi, Agent Raven.”
The title remained carefully formal.
Arnold took a sip from his cup. “We’ve got the usual room all set up.”
Selena adjusted the strap of her bag. “Any more murders you need my help with and I’ll have to move in.”
Cheryl’s attention dropped to the legal pad. “We charge rent.”
Arnold led Selena through the security door and into the main corridor. The building carried the low activity of an office moving toward evening. A phone rang behind one closed door. Someone typed in the records room. The scent of overheated copier paper drifted from an alcove near the break room.
“How’s Connor been?” Selena asked.
Arnold kept walking. “Keeping himself busy.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“He’s had plenty to do.”
There was something held back in the answer. Arnold drank again, though the cup had to be nearly empty.
“Is everything okay with him?”
“Yeah.”
The response came after a fraction too long.
Selena waited, but Arnold did not add anything. Pushing him would only make him retreat behind loyalty to his sheriff.
“All right,” she said.
They reached the room the department used for case coordination. Arnold opened the door.
Connor stood beside a counter, fighting with the coffee machine.
A red warning light blinked while he pulled at the plastic tray beneath it. The machine made a grinding sound. Connor released the tray and reached toward the power cord.
Selena laughed. “For a second, I thought you were going to shoot it.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“You’d have to explain the report.”
“I’d make Arnold write it.”
Arnold stepped back into the corridor. “I didn’t see anything.”
Connor abandoned the machine and pointed toward a whiteboard on the wall. “We’ve got a murder board started for Karen Sloane.”
The board held Karen’s driver’s license photograph, a printed map of the Montgomery property, and a timeline beginning with her move from Loyall.
Beneath those were the names HANNAH MONTGOMERY and GERRY TOMES.
Photographs from the cabin had been placed inside paper sleeves and clipped along one side, with the most graphic images turned inward.
Selena crossed to the board.
“Mail carrier arrived at ten twenty-three this morning,” Connor said. “Karen’s last confirmed contact was a phone call two days ago. We’re working through her cell records and the rental paperwork.”
“Any sign of forced entry yet?”
“Nothing obvious. Matt’s still processing.”
Connor leaned against the edge of the table. Fatigue showed in the set of his shoulders.
“Do you think this is the start of something bigger?”
Selena considered the question. The county had not forgotten the Pruitt murders or Renee Beaumont. Connor would be thinking about both.
“I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“The tongue makes it personal. The killer wasn’t only trying to hurt Karen. The removal meant something to them.”
“A warning?”
“Maybe. The message could have been for Karen herself, or for someone connected to her. Either way, I don’t think the killer chose her at random.”
Connor turned toward the board. “The word processor supports that.”
“It does. Someone wanted to destroy her means of writing as well as speaking. We need to know what was taken from her storage unit and whether any written material was among it.”
A knock sounded at the open door.
Cheryl stood in the corridor. “Karen Sloane’s ex-husband is in Interview Room One.”
Connor straightened. “Did he come voluntarily?”
“Yes. A deputy picked him up and explained we wanted to speak with him. Gerry asked if he needed a lawyer. The deputy told him that was his decision. He hasn’t asked for one yet.”
“Thanks,” Connor said.
Cheryl’s attention moved briefly to Selena before she returned to the front desk.
Selena closed her bag. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”
*
Gerry Tomes sat at the metal table with both forearms resting near the edge.
He was slim, with pointed features that made his chin and nose appear more pronounced in profile.
Dark hair lay flat against his scalp, thinning near the temples.
His gray T-shirt hung loose beneath an unzipped jacket.
Cigarette smoke clung to him so heavily that Selena could taste it from the opposite side of the room.
A paper cup of water stood untouched before him.
Connor entered first and took the chair nearest the door. Selena sat beside him, placed her notebook on the table, and switched on the department’s recording unit.
“For the record,” she said, “I’m Special Agent Selena Raven with the FBI. Sheriff Connor Chase is here with me. Mr. Tomes, you came to the station voluntarily. You’re not under arrest, and you’re free to leave. Do you understand?”
Gerry’s fingers worried at a rough patch on the table. “Yeah.”
“Do you consent to this conversation being recorded?”
“Sure.”
Connor folded his hands. “Gerry, do you know why we asked you to come down?”
“If it’s to do with Karen, I’ve got nothing to do with it.”
Selena and Connor exchanged a glance.