“Randall Bowe has unleashed a huge load of crap and misery on this town and has to pay,” Bryce said.
“Davison has to be stopped,” Clarke said. First and foremost. He wanted Bowe badly, but at least they’d already taken away that man’s ability to hurt them. But Davison...
“We’ve both been looking for Bowe,” Troy told Clarke, motioning toward Bryce. “But so far have no actionable leads...”
“I’ll get a team together and take on the hunt for Davison.” Bryce spoke up, sitting forward as though ready to spring into action. “We know he was an accountant, was laid off from his job at a large company, was an average employee. He has a daughter, Tatiana. We talked to her when Davison was a suspect for the first murder. I’d heard she went to Paris, but I’ll see if I can track her down. With this looking like a serial case, the FBI should be the lead...”
“Fine.” Melissa looked at the agent and nodded. “You get some officers together and deepen your search for Bowe. All overtime will be approved.” She looked down the table to Clarke. “You mind doing some digging into the two victims? See if they have anything else in common besides their ages and walking dogs in the park? You can do that from your place...”
He gave her an immediate thumbs-up. Stood as the others did, eager to get home, but paused long enough to let the others depart before him.
“How’s Everleigh holding up?” Melissa asked him as he shrugged into his coat, pocketing his notepad. Though tall and clearly strong, wearing her title with confidence, she still looked like his little sister to him, even in the way she held her folder of papers up to her chest.
“Better than you’d expect,” he said. “She takes everything on the chin...but I know it’s getting to her inside. Her grandmother’s situation appears to be bothering her most of all. Is there anything you can do there?”
Her blue eyes shadowed with concern, Melissa shook her head. “Other than what I’ve already done...seen to it that she’s housed with minimum offenders, and that she has all the perks anyone can get in prison...no. It’s with the DA now.”
He’d known what her response was going to be. Wasn’t sure why he’d even asked. Nodding, he turned to go.
“Clarke?”
The authoritative tone in her voice had him turning back to her. She wasn’t his boss. He was his own. But she hired him on a regular basis, and... “Yeah?”
He was used to the way she studied him. Held up to the scrutiny just fine. Until she said, “What’s with you and Everleigh?”
“Nothing. Why?” He held her gaze, but it was tough.
“Your voice just sounds...different...every time she’s mentioned.”
“It’s been, what, twenty-four hours since I met her? I’d hardly think that would give you time to assess a damn thing.”
Oh, but he knew differently. Knew that the anger in his tone gave him away, to himself as much as Melissa.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be so protective with a woman that wasn’t a member of our family.”
He couldn’t speak to that. Didn’t go around assessing his levels of protectiveness.
“I’m just doing my job, sis,” he said, attempting to calm himself with that truth. “Maybe it’s not me that’s different, but her. Everleigh accepts inequities in her life as though they’re meant to be there, and yet she doesn’t get bitter. Or hard. She just keeps moving forward. Doing the best she can. She’s smart, maybe too loyal, if there is such a thing, but no matter what gets thrown at her, most of it unfairly, she doesn’t complain...” He kept picturing her calmly returning more tackle than any one man needed to various boxes, knew he was saying too much. Told himself to wrap it up. “She was done wrong by the city of Grave Gulch. We owe her. And that’s what this is. Me being extra vigilant in an attempt to pay her back.”
All true.
And yet, as he quickstepped it out to his vehicle, he knew that he hadn’t fooled Melissa. Or himself.
Chapter 9
Everleigh spent much of Friday on the phone with lawyers, bankers and insurance brokers. She canceled Fritz’s remaining policies, and let the bank know she would no longer be paying for Fritz’s sports car.
He’d driven it to the house just before he’d been killed. As far as she was concerned, the bank could come repossess it.
No one seemed to know if he’d come to the house alone that day.
There’d been no break-in the day of the murder, implying his killer had had a key or Fritz had let them in. That had been part of the rationale for blaming her. And due to the murder weapon and the type of injuries, they’d labeled it a crime of passion.
Clarke’s thinking that the killer could have been one of Fritz’s mistresses made good sense. She’d far rather think that an unknown woman, rather than someone she actually knew, was behind this.
Clarke had texted to let her know that he was home less than an hour after he’d left. His brother was already gone, and other than the brief introduction, she hadn’t seen or spoken to him. At noon, she went down and put together a chef salad for lunch, using her own groceries, texting Clarke to let him know that his was in the refrigerator if he wanted it.
And just after one, a good four hours before they had to even think about leaving for her mother’s, he texted to ask if she was up to a trip to the apartment Fritz had rented for himself. She’d been planning to visit the small place, to clean out his stuff, after grocery shopping the day before. The estate lawyer had told her that Fritz had paid six months’ rent up front, so she had time, but...