Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Morgan walked the trail back down to the car park to wait for Declan.
The forest ranger had arrived and had explained the satnav directions to get to the old logging road that Declan could drive down, but he would still need her to guide him.
It wasn’t an easy route for a big car, she thought.
Lynsey’s little Fiat had done well to get there in one piece, and she wondered how she knew about this place.
She must have prior knowledge and either spent a lot of time in this forest or she knew about it from someone else.
Had her killer followed her here? They needed to look for other tracks. Had they made their way by foot?
As she reached the car park, she looked around at the picnic benches set back a little in the treeline for families to enjoy their picnics.
There was a laminated flyer on a solar-powered light post. Her interest piqued, she wandered over to it to read what it said, and as she got nearer the words MISSING in red block capitals screamed into her mind.
She saw the familiar picture of Lydia’s dog on the poster and a fresh wave of sadness washed over her.
They should really take all those posters down, because even if it turned up, who was going to take care of Barney now? The entire family had been wiped out.
Morgan felt her fingers clench into tight fists at her side, and she sucked in a deep breath.
This wasn’t helping; her anger at the tragic situation the Williams sisters had endured was almost too horrific to think about.
Yet, she was going to have to think about it nonstop to figure out what was going on.
Barney’s cute face, his big brown eyes and the white, almost crescent moon-shaped marking on his tan-coloured chest made him one of a kind.
She had never seen anything like it on a dog before.
Not that she was a dog expert. Caeser, her favourite police dog, had a white mark on his chest, but it was just a splotch.
This was much more defined. What happened to you, Barney? Where did you disappear to?
‘Morgan.’ She turned in the direction of the voice and saw Declan standing next to his car in front of the police tape. She waved at him, hurrying over.
‘Hey, how are you?’
‘Better for seeing you, although for once it would be nice not to meet at a crime scene. What’s going on with you and Ben? I haven’t seen you out of work for ages, not since you got back from New York. Theo asked if we’d fallen out.’
‘Why would we fall out? It’s just been too busy, you know, and I suppose since the pub shut down and the quiz night stopped, then all these murders have been taking up so much of our time, I feel as if we walked off the plane and straight into a waking nightmare.’
Declan reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder. ‘I’m not having a go; I just miss you both on a personal level. Apart from Theo, you two crazy birds are my best friends.’
She smiled at him. ‘The scene is a bit of a hike up a steep hill.’
‘Well now, there’s a surprise.’
‘But I have secret directions so we can drive there.’
‘You do? Oh, you actually do.’ He bent down and planted a big kiss on her forehead. ‘I love you, Brookes, have I ever told you that?’
‘Maybe, come on, Ben will be foaming at the mouth. He’ll think we’ve got lost.’
‘Ben can take a chill pill and calm the fuck down.’
Morgan laughed so loud it echoed around the almost empty car park, which on a normal day would have been full to overflowing with people parking anywhere they could squeeze their cars – on the grass verges, in-between trees, mounting the steep banking that ran alongside the hillside with reckless abandonment.
‘You can tell him that when you see him.’
‘I will, don’t worry. Is he giving you a hard time when he didn’t even have the courtesy to propose to you in New York? Because if he is, I’ll give him what for. Even Theo thought the pair of you were going to come back engaged. He’s buzzing at the thought of marrying you both in his church.’
Morgan smiled, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to get married full stop, but she definitely didn’t want to get married standing on the steps where Des was so brutally murdered.
Having flashbacks to his broken, bloodied body on her wedding day wasn’t something she wanted to endure.
It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, and she imagined that Ben would feel the same way.
‘Maybe Ben doesn’t want to marry again after Cindy, and that’s okay with me.’
Declan shrugged. ‘Maybe, but he’s a bit of an old romantic at heart and I think he would want to do the honourable thing, eventually. I wonder if he’s scared you’d say no. I mean would you have said no if he had asked?’
‘I can’t answer that because I’m not sure. Why don’t you and Theo get married? I’ll be your maid of honour.’
He snapped his head in her direction. ‘Me and Theo?’
Morgan nodded. ‘Why not, you love him, don’t you?’
‘Of course, I do, but I don’t know about marrying him or if it’s anything he’d want to do.’
‘Well, I’m just putting it out there for you to consider, if you’re so desperate for a wedding. He might be waiting for you to propose to him. Or you could always ask Ben to marry you.’
Declan looked thoughtful. ‘I think you’re right. Though to be fair, there’s more chance of the pair of you getting hitched than me and Ben.’
‘Really, I will if you will.’
‘I don’t want to marry Ben, I mean he’s fit, and I do have a bit of a guy crush on him, always have done if I’m brutally honest with you, Morgan. It’s those rugged good looks, but I don’t think he’s really my type and I know for a fact I’m definitely not his type.’
Morgan snorted. ‘You idiot, I meant Theo not Ben.’
He winked at her. ‘You’re so easy to wind up, Morgan, those big green eyes just suck it in every time.’
‘Come on, we need to get to the scene before Ben’s blood pressure gets too high.’
She climbed into the front passenger seat of Declan’s car, and when he started the engine, she typed the postcode the ranger had given her into the satnav.
‘He said we need to drive a mile down the main road and there’s a sharp turn off on the left.
It’s wide enough but overgrown to stop vehicles from driving up there. ’
‘Great, I better not explode another tyre because if I do, I’m billing your department.’
‘Then you better watch where you’re going this time. It’s not my fault you’re a crap driver.’
He grinned at her. ‘You know, if anyone else insulted my driving skills I’d deck them, but I’ll let that one slide because I love you.’
‘You’re the sweetest.’
‘Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t we marry each other? That would give them something to talk about. I’ll buy you a beautiful engagement ring and you would look stunning in a wedding dress. If it’s good enough for Hollywood actors it’s good enough for me. We could have the perfect lavender marriage.’
‘Thanks, if I ever get desperate not to be left a spinster, I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘That’s what gay best friends are for.’
Morgan laughed and felt her shoulders drop as all the tension she’d been holding in them subsided a little. Declan was good for her soul; every woman needed a Declan in her life.
As they bumped along the narrow track and she rocked from side to side, she noticed he was gripping the steering wheel as if his life depended on it.