“Your words say you don’t think Luke is involved, but your tone says otherwise,” Heidi snapped.
“Summer and Hope were inside. All they know is that someone shot at the house. All we have to go on is Luke’s account of things, and it was very vague,” Allina said.
“I don’t see why Luke would be shooting at Summer’s house anyway,” he said. “He was alone with her all morning. If he had wanted to hurt her, he had ample opportunity without having to resort to something so public.”
“Actually, I agree.” Heidi nodded. “I just don’t like a second crime occurring in the vicinity of our main suspect in the nursery rhyme murders. We need to work on getting search warrants for Luke Sleigh’s house, at the moment I think that is our best bet of finding something conclusive and being able to arrest him. I know this case is rough on you, Jonathon, given the family connection. And I know it’s tough for all of us because we used to work with Nick. But let’s not forget some of the things Nick has done. We know why he did it, but he was willing to break the rules to get what he wanted. We cannot discount the fact that his brother might have taken the next step.”
Knowing that didn’t make it any easier.
He liked his brother-in-law. Okay, things had gotten off to a rocky start, but now he and Nick were family, and he knew that Nick loved Aggie just as much as he loved Clara, which made it hard to see Nick’s brother as anything other than a good guy. But the evidence was stacking up against him.
Could it be nothing more than a coincidence that he had interacted with two sets of victims? Could it be a coincidence that the killer had the same hair as him? Could it be a coincidence that both Luke and the killer liked snakes? Could it be a coincidence that the killer had an affinity for animals from Australia and Luke had lived in Australia? One coincidence was nothing, but four? That seemed unlikely.
Jonathon wanted to give Luke the benefit of the doubt, but was that his cop side or his family side talking?
When it came down to it, he couldn’t risk an innocent person’s life for anything, not even for peace in his family. If Luke Sleigh was the killer, he would bring him down even if it destroyed his family.
* * * * *
10:01 A.M.
Hope was standing listlessly in her kitchen wrapping mugs and glasses in newspaper and stacking them in boxes. While she worked her mind wandered.
Well, not really wandered. It kept fixating on the same thing. The same thing she had been thinking about for the last twenty-four hours.
The shooting.
It was like she hadn’t left that room since. Her mind was constantly replaying it. The gunshots, the shattering glass, the terror as she threw herself to the ground, the uncertainty of not knowing whether her friend was dead or alive.
Her heart had been hammering in her chest, her pulse thumping in her ears. She had pressed herself into the carpet as though that might protect her from the bullets flying through the room.
She had kept waiting for pain to strike her, but thankfully it never had.
She could have been killed.
That was such a terrifying thought.
She didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
If she had died, she would never have been able to move into her new home with Chance. He would never propose to her. They would never get married. They would never have kids. They would never grow old together.
Thinking about how Chance would have felt losing her physically hurt.
It grabbed hold of her heart and squeezed it so painfully she clutched at her chest. She knew how she would feel if anything ever happened to Chance. She would be crushed. It would be like her life was over. He was everything to her, and she couldn’t wait to start their lives together, but one person could have ended that in a heartbeat.
One second.
That was all it would have taken.
One bullet piercing her chest or her head and she would be dead.
Hope didn’t want to think about it anymore. She wanted to pretend that it had never happened. She just couldn’t seem to stop.
She had relived it talking to the cops, and while she waited for Chance to show up, and all throughout the rest of the day. It had invaded her dreams and given her nightmares. And now this morning, memories continued to grab hold of her with their icy tentacles and refused to let her go.
Something touched her.
She screamed and jumped, dropping whatever had been in her hands.