Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,77
of my lawyer. And now I’m finished here.” He turned and walked out the door.
A half an hour later, Cameron sat at his desk writing notes to himself. A knock on the door sounded and Ben came inside the small office and sank down across from him. “Nothing from the local professor?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” Cameron replied truthfully. “We certainly don’t have any evidence that he had anything to do with the crimes, nor can we tie him in any way to McKnight, but there’s no question the man is an odd duck.”
“So, he’s still a person of interest?”
Cameron went through the high points of the interview with Ben and then hesitated a moment and slowly nodded his head. “Yeah, he’s still a person of interest. Something about his flat affect just seemed off to me. He talked about his wife like he was talking about a stranger he bumped into on the street. I don’t know, maybe he’s on some kind of medication.”
“Or maybe he’s just so much in love with himself there isn’t room for love or passion for anyone else in his life,” Ben said drily.
“In any case, he told me if I wanted to talk to him again I could get in touch with his lawyer.”
“Lawyered up already?” Ben frowned. “That’s a little odd.”
“And Denver still hasn’t delivered any paperwork to me to show that his sudden windfall is from any inheritance,” Cameron said, his mind whirling. Did they have the killer in their sights or were they completely off track?
He’d talked Mary into staying here, but had he talked her into staying in a place that would wind up to be her grave?
* * *
At four, Cameron entered the café not only with Matt in tow but with Jimmy along with them, the two boys asking Mary if Matt could spend the night at Jimmy’s house.
“But it’s a school night,” Mary protested as she looked at her son. “You know we don’t usually do sleepovers on school nights.”
“Mom always makes me go to bed on time on school nights, even when I have guests over,” Jimmy said. “She really wants Matt to stay with me tonight. She’s got a bunch of work to do at home and she tells me when I’m there by myself I’m always in her hair.”
Jimmy held out his cell phone to Mary. “She said for you to call her and she’ll tell you she wants Matt to spend the night with me.”
“Sheriff Evans isn’t some taxi service to be running you boys wherever you want to go,” she said.
“I don’t mind,” Cameron replied, his voice brisk and businesslike.
Mary took Jimmy’s cell phone and a quick call confirmed what Jimmy had said. With both boys and Jimmy’s mother’s pleas echoing in her ears, Mary reluctantly agreed to the plan. “Get clean clothes for school tomorrow and make sure you brush your teeth tonight before bed.”
“Will you kiss Twinkie for me tonight?” Matt asked.
Mary rolled her eyes and grinned. “Don’t push your luck. Go on, get out of here.”
“And I’ll be back here at closing to take you back to my place,” Cameron said as he ushered the two boys toward the front door. “Oh, and I just heard an updated weather report. It seems there is a bit of sleet forecasted for the evening.”
“I thought we were in for a warm-up,” Mary said, wishing there wasn’t any distance, any strain between them, but there was and she knew she’d put it there by not being able to accept what he’d offered to her with his heart.
“You know those weather guys, they don’t always get it right. I’ll see you later.” And with that the three of them headed out the door.
Instantly what flew through Mary’s mind was that without Matt at Cameron’s this evening there would be no buffer. The chasm between them would be more obvious, more uncomfortable than ever.
It was around six that the last of the workers, Brandon, Jeff and John Taylor, two of her off-duty waitresses and Junior left the backrooms. “By tomorrow the paint should all be dry and you will be good to move back in,” Brandon said.
They all looked happy and tired, with their faces speckled with beige paint.
“I can’t tell you all how much I appreciate what you’ve all done for me today,” Mary said, her heart once again filled to capacity. “However, I can tell you that you’re all my guests for dinner. Anything and everything you want is on the