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“Going on eighteen years.” Hailey beamed like a proud trophy wife. “And you said I’d never end up an officer’s wife.”
“No, I think I said stay away from him. He’s a prick.” Leigh ignored Boucher’s growled warning as her patience ran thin. “So let me get this right. Your husband—a Lebanon police officer—told you to keep potentially vital information in a homicide investigation to yourself?”
Hailey’s defenses kicked in, but hesitation spread into the corners of her eyes. “Sometimes you have to compromise in a marriage, Leigh. Not that you’d know anything about that.”
“Hailey, no one is accusing you of anything,” Boucher said. “But I’m going to need you to come to the station to give an official statement as to what you saw.”
“I can’t do that. Donavon doesn’t like it when I come to the station.” The pride and smiles slipped as Hailey got back to wiping down the same spot on the counter for the third time since they’d stepped through the door. “Besides, I’ve gotta keep this place running.”
“You said sometimes you have to compromise in a marriage.” It was all fake. A show from Hailey to prove she hadn’t made the worst decision in her life. Leigh had only gotten a taste of what Donavon Pierce was capable of over the course of the past few days. If he was the man behind the mask as she suspected. But living with that hell 24/7, having kids with it, tying herself to it—that took guts. And pain. “What else does Donavon make you compromise on?”
Hailey’s bottom lip trembled, and her hand slowed its obsessive routine with the towel. She straightened herself up, no hint of the doubt that’d taken hold a minute ago. “The SUV Michelle was chasing came out of our drive-thru. I’m happy to give you the receipts from that day. Maybe you can find the driver through those.”
“That would be helpful. Thank you.” It wasn’t much, but if the driver of that SUV was the last person to see Michelle Cross alive before she’d disappeared, it would have to be enough. All they needed was a name. Leigh watched Hailey disappear into the back room. “Makes me wonder what else Officer Pierce isn’t telling us.”
The lieutenant stared after the door Hailey had gone through, something dangerous and alive simmering in the shape of his mouth. It was the same look he’d given Katherine Garrison when she’d asked what he would do to protect his child. She could physically see the anger churning within him, and in that moment, she feared for the man who’d tried to make her job harder the past few days. “It’s not your job to worry about my officers, Brody. It’s mine.”
Leigh liked him better without the dark cloud.
Hailey returned with the receipts and handed them over. “My boss doesn’t know I’m doing this. I could get in a lot of trouble if he finds out you took them without a warrant.”
“He can call me anytime.” Leigh handed off her card, her cell number written on the back. As much as she’d despised Hailey for abandoning her after years of friendship and trust, past feelings couldn’t hold any weight now. No one deserved to live in fear every waking moment of their life. “So can you.”
Hailey pocketed the card as they turned to leave.
“Shouldn’t take long to go through this stack for a name.” Leigh headed for her rental. She fought the urge to scratch at the gauze around her shins. “Whoever was behind the wheel of that SUV might be the last person to see our victim alive.”
“We don’t need the receipts.” Boucher wrenched open the passenger side door. “I already know who Michelle Cross was chasing down.”
TWENTY
Lebanon, New Hampshire
Monday, March 15
9:30 a.m.
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve coming here, Ms. Brody.” Chief of Police Brent Maynor took a seat behind his large oak desk and collapsed back. It seemed the lines in his face had tripled since he’d ambushed her in the hospital, his hair thinner and whitened. A new stoop to his shoulders exaggerated his age in a matter of days. Or maybe she’d just been on so many painkillers, she hadn’t noticed how worn he’d gotten.
“It takes a lot of nerve to solve a murder, Chief.” Nerve he hadn’t had when this town needed it. Leigh and Boucher took the chairs opposite the desk. “So I’ll just get right to it. Michelle Cross assaulted your SUV outside Jack’s Coffee Garage the same day she disappeared.”
“And you think I had a part in what happened to her.” The accusation lingered for a string of seconds. “Is that what you believe, Lieutenant Boucher?”
“I’m just here to get the facts, Chief. Way you taught me,” her partner said.
Leigh’s stomach acid surged upward. The chief had been Boucher’s training officer. Funny how he hadn’t bothered to mention that during their time together these past few days. Kind of a big conversation to keep to himself.
“The facts are Michelle Cross was a very disturbed woman. She was convinced she had the right to come into this office, to follow me home, to call me incessantly about a case I closed twenty years ago in hopes of uncovering new information. She was obsessed. Threw away her entire life because of it.” Chief Maynor set both hands against the edge of his desk. Walls had gone up in his eyes at their mere presence. Her brother’s case had put him in that seat, but to him, she’d always be known as the teenage girl who’d tried to prove him wrong. Just playing pretend at being an FBI agent. “Now, I’m a reasonable man. I played along for a while. I gave her a few quotes to use in the book she was writing, but that wasn’t good enough. She wanted more. She wanted access I wasn’t willing to give. She hounded me for months. So I stopped taking her calls. Told her courthouse security wouldn’t let her through the front door, and if she kept pushing on this, I’d see her charged with harassment. That day in the parking lot, she practically threw herself in front of my vehicle to try to change my mind.”
“According to the barista working that day, Michelle Cross was acting as though she was waiting for someone,” Boucher said. “She was waiting for you, wasn’t she, Chief? How would she have known you’d be there?”
“She must’ve learned my routine.” The chief’s determination to brush off his involvement with a woman murdered in his town didn’t sit as well as he’d hoped. “It’s no secret around here I’m at Jack’s every morning. She could’ve asked my secretary. Hell, she could’ve put a GPS device on my vehicle for all I know.”
“You didn’t tell me any of this when you came to see me in the hospital.” The chief was right. This was Lebanon. A poor place to hide secrets, but no matter where she looked, lies and omissions flourished. How many more would they have to dig through before they got to the truth?
“Of course I didn’t, Ms. Brody. Because it doesn’t have anything to do with Michelle Cross’s death, and from what I’ve been told, your sole duty here is to put together a file about this killer’s habits and criminal tendencies to stop the son of a bitch from killing again. Not to investigate. A task, I’ll point out, you’ve failed to accomplish, given we now have three bodies inside our city limits.” A strange calm smoothed the lines from the chief’s face, as though he’d just vindicated himself of any connection to Michelle Cross’s death and put her in her rightful place. But Leigh wasn’t here to exist as this town’s scapegoat. She was here to find a murderer, to vindicate her family, and to prove her father’s innocence. And not even the chief of police would stop her. “That last time I spoke to Michelle, when she accosted me in the parking lot, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I filed a restraining order as soon as I got back to my office.”
The chief tugged a drawer free off to his left and dropped a yellow carbon copy folded in thirds on the desk between them. “Now you tell me, Ms. Brody, why would I bother filing this paperwork and scheduling a court date with the judge if I was in the middle of planning Michelle Cross’s death?”
