“You’re an asshole. A Grade A prick.”
“For taking what was thrown in my face? Repeatedly? Does it make you feel better to lie to yourself?”
“Nothing can make this better.” She backed away.
“Don’t fucking look at me like that.” He stepped closer. “You know me. You know I couldn’t do what was done to her.”
The awful thing was, she couldn’t imagine anyone she knew hurting Darcy the way she’d been hurt. But what did she really know about anyone, if Chris could’ve hidden this from her?
Jim came up beside her, his hand gently gripping her elbow. “You should go now, Sheriff,” he said grimly. “Go find Deputy Cameron and tell him what he needs to know.”
“Darcy…” Chris stared at her for a long minute, then cursed under his breath. “We’re going to talk about this. We need to talk about this.”
She turned her back on him and walked to the house.
“THAT’S THE WACKIEST theory I’ve heard in a long time,” Trish said bluntly. “Maybe ever. You’re trying to pin first-degree murder and arson on the same subject, with years in between crimes. It’s highly unlikely.”
Jared met her gaze and nodded grimly. “I know. But there are connections. After looking over Kelley’s notes, I found out Danielle’s obstetrician’s office is catty-corner to the phone booth where the tip came in for the shelter fire.”
“Could be coincidence.” She sat back in her chair at the small table in her motel room and rubbed the back of her neck, her dark eyes capped with a frown. “Think of the premeditation required to copy both the Prophet’s and Merkerson’s MOs.”
“I’ve requested a cross-check of library lendings of true crime stories on both. It’s a long shot, but at least we’ll tie off that thread.” He looked at his laptop screen and the case files Kelley had sent his way. “There was DNA from the fetus, but not one man in this town—regardless of age—volunteered a sample to rule himself out. Not one? And no probable cause on anyone to justify a warrant, because no one pointed a finger anywhere. Everyone knows everyone’s business in this town, but not who’s intimate with the vet, a woman who’s lived here her whole life?”
“They don’t believe he’s one of them. Everyone’s innocent, so there’s no one to be guilty.” She sighed and grabbed another slice of pizza out of the box they’d tossed on the bed. “Small towns. When everyone knows everyone else’s business, they can’t believe there’s something they don’t know.”
“You sound like you speak from experience.”
“I grew up in a small town. Some things are universal.”
He filed that information away for further pondering. “Our subject has no imagination. He hasn’t been thinking about killing and burning for years, as we’d expect, or he’d have his own pattern, his own style. Instead he has to borrow someone else’s, right down to the tiniest details. And when he’s done what he set out to do, he puts the urge away. Goes back to being himself. Forgets about it. Because he’s crazy as a loon, but his crazy doesn’t eat at him every day. Something has to set it off.”
“So we need to figure out what set him off. Maybe it was the baby the first time around. Maybe the guy’s married. That’s why they kept the relationship under wraps. I’ll look up the men in this town who were married at the time and see what shakes loose.”
He looked up at her. “We also need to find out what happened in the last year or so that set off the fires, with a cushion for the learning curve required to build those incendiary devices. Then we can try and tie that back to the murder. I’ve already started searching through the local paper’s archived articles on the web, but they didn’t have a website three years ago, so I’ll have to hit the microfiche at the library if we need to go back further.”
“It’s a wide net we’re casting.” Trish wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“Inspector Michaels is working on drafting a list of locales in town that had some special tie or significance to her sister. All three locations so far met that criterion.” He closed his laptop. “We’ll need Miller to cover surveillance on the best options.”
She snorted. “That may be asking a little too much from our friendly sheriff. He didn’t take it well when I mentioned your theory.”
“He’ll get over it.” Jared pushed back from the table and stood. “I’ll meet up with him tomorrow and get him on board.”
“You going back to the inspector’s place?”
He shot her a look.
“Hey.” Grinning, she held up her hands. “Just surprised is all. You’re different with her, in a good way. I hope it works out.”
He’d do whatever was necessary to make sure it worked out.
He was shoving his laptop into the padded sleeve in his workbag when a faint hiss caught his awareness. He stiffened as the hairs on his nape prickled with warning. His nose twitched; his gaze darted to the door, then to the vent in the wall near the ceiling. Sleek tendrils of smoke reached into the room like skeletal fingers, curling sinuously. He yanked the bedspread off the mattress, sending what was left of the pizza flying, and tossed the floral material over Trish’s head.
“What the hell, Cameron?” she gasped as the fire sprinklers in the ceiling sputtered to life. She lifted the comforter over both their heads, shielding the table as he swept everything into his open bag.
He’d barely yanked the door open when the room exploded.
Chapter eleven