Chapter 37 Annie
It was absurd. Ridiculous. There was no way Annie could entertain the possibility of what Ian had suggested, but as she climbed back into the sweltering Jeep and drove the half mile to the station, the idea would not leave her head.
Jake was the one who had told her that Jamie and Daniel were together. And if Daniel was telling the truth that he was never involved with Jamie, then Jake had lied. One of them was lying.
Had Jake been deflecting on purpose? Going out of his way to drop those seeds of doubt in the soil of Annie’s mind before committing the crime?
It would have been too easy, planting the idea that Jamie and Daniel were seeing each other—an idea that would later sprout and grow into hideous vines of doubt once Jamie was dead.
Jake had also been the one to suggest the hike, then steered her through the remote woods to the exact place where Jamie’s body had been dumped mere hours before. What were the odds?
Despite the heat inside the car, a chill broke out across Annie’s shoulders.
The notion was diabolical. Evil. And Jake was the kindest, most decent man she knew.
What possible reason would he have for killing Jamie Boyd, a neighbor girl he’d grown up with?
Even if they had been secretly involved, as Ian implied, Jake seemed like the last person on earth who would commit murder over a mere breakup.
… And yet, wasn’t that what friends and neighbors always said about someone after they’d been caught for murder?
That they never saw it coming. That the killer was a perfectly pleasant guy and a model citizen?
The last person on earth who would do such a thing.
Even Ted Bundy had his coworkers fooled into thinking he was a nice, normal guy.
Annie shook her head to clear it. She was losing her grip. Barely sleeping. Questioning everything.
She pulled in beside the cruiser on Hughes Street and forced a deep breath into her lungs.
Ian was messing with her head. That’s all this was, but her hands were still trembling as she climbed out of the Jeep and shut the door behind her. Clutching her keys so tightly that they dug into her palm, she stepped into the station.
Jake was behind the desk, scribbling away at a stack of forms, and didn’t glance up as she came inside.
Two voices warred inside her head as Annie looked at him.
The one who knew Jake Proudy to be a good man, and a good cop—and the other, who repeated in a whisper the words that Ian had said in his office.
“Hey,” Annie said, taking a step forward.
It took all of two seconds to realize that Jake was giving her the silent treatment. He was stone-faced and sullen, his pen flying across the paper.
Annie rounded the counter.
“Hey,” she said again, standing over him, and he gave the subtlest of nods. She set her keys on the desk with a sigh. “Jake… look at me.”
He swiveled in his chair to face her. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, his jaw lined in fine stubble, and Annie’s words of defense died in her throat.
There was a terrible well of pain in those eyes, deep and gut-wrenching. From his perspective, what he’d seen last night must have looked like an utter betrayal. He had caught her in the enemy’s camp on the eve of battle.
Maybe she should have told him before all of this that she was seeing Daniel, but she hadn’t, and now that decision was blowing up in her face.
There was too much to explain, and Annie didn’t quite know where to start, so she sank silently into her chair instead, bringing her hand to her temple.
“Where is he?” she asked quietly, and Jake turned back to his paperwork.
“There’s a holding cell in the basement of the church. The building used to be a courthouse before they built a steeple on it in the forties.”
Annie balked. “You put him in a basement?”
Jake turned slowly to look at her again. “It’s better than the cell he’ll have in real prison.”
She couldn’t tell if he was saying the words to wound her or not, but they hit their mark and her anger flared.
“For your information,” she said icily, “I took the canoe out on the water last night to see if I could piece things together by re-creating the crime. On my way back, I capsized it and soaked my clothes. The splash woke Daniel, and he offered me something to change into. Nothing else happened.”
Annie stopped short, leaving the so there implied, and Jake blinked up at her, surprised.
“I thought…”
“I know what you thought. And we weren’t… but… but we…” Her bravado faltered and broke. The truth was written on her face, she was sure of it, and Jake must have found it there, because he nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair.
“I see…”
Annie met his gaze for another moment, but the hurt there was too deep, and she looked away.
“I’m going to see him,” she said, standing again.
“Fine.” The etching of his pen picked back up.
Annie turned her back on him. If he wanted them at odds, so be it. She didn’t have time to waste sitting around the station bickering.
When she reached the door, she remembered and turned back, smoothing her features into casual nonchalance.
“Oh, before I forget.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the lighter. “Is this yours?”
She held out her hand, and for a moment, half a heartbeat, she saw it, the spark of recognition in his eyes as Jake stared at the lighter. And then it was gone.
He shook his head. “No.”
Annie waited, keeping her arm outstretched for a few moments.
“Why?” Jake asked.
Annie stepped forward and set the lighter down on the desk, hard enough to make him flinch in his seat.
“I found it last night on a path that cuts through the briars from the lake to the woods. The path Jamie’s killer used when he dumped her body.”
She turned and pushed through the door, leaving the words hanging in the air behind her.