Page 17 of D for Dead

‘Williams. Nadine Williams.’

Angell smiled. ‘We’ll check her out.’

Sullivan was leaning back against the wall, arms and ankles casually crossed, still regarding Amy intently, most likely trying to figure her out and what part she might play in all of this.

She didn’t appreciate the scrutiny. It had been a long day which had steadily gotten worse as it went along.

‘Do you have any more questions?’ She made a point of glancing through the patio doors at her friends. ‘We were about to eat.’ Truth was her appetite had gone. All she wanted to do was to go back to her friends and drink a few more glasses of wine.

‘We’ll be in touch if we need anything. In the meantime, you call us if you think of any information that might be useful.’ Sullivan pulled a card from his jacket pocket and their hands brushed briefly as he handed it to her.

Amy quickly pulled away. ‘I’ll show you out.’

Closing the door after them, she drew in a deep sigh and turned to face her friends. ‘I need more wine in my glass.’

* * *

‘You were a little hard on her,’ Rebecca noted casually as they left Amy’s apartment.

‘I guess a little.’ Jake was tired; the lack of sleep from the previous night catching up on him and making him grouchy. Still his mind was working overtime. ‘Don’t you find it convenient she has a new book out to promote?’ he questioned, opening the car door and dropping down into the driver’s seat. He turned the ignition and lowered the volume on the stereo as the Foo Fighters blasted out.

‘Yeah, I guess the timing is coincidental, but murder to promote a book?’

‘They say there is no bad publicity.’

Rebecca looked at him. ‘You honestly believe she is somehow involved in the murders?’

Jake thought of the pretty girl they’d been talking to. She didn’t come across as your stereotypical nutjob, but that could be a mask. She had appeared genuinely stunned when they’d told her why they were there. And when he’d run into her walking her dog, she hadn’t been acting in any way suspicious. There had been nothing in her demeanour to suggest that a couple of hours earlier she had killed two people.

She said she had been working and he had a feeling that, when they checked out her alibi, it would be the truth. Still, something didn’t sit right.

‘Well, no, not directly involved, although I guess she could’ve paid someone else to do it.’

Rebecca wasn’t having it.

‘I don’t buy it. She was genuinely shocked when we told her what had happened. She’d have to be a hell of an actress to pull off a performance like that. You’re on the wrong track with this one, Jake.’

‘Maybe, but she’s involved somehow. It wasn’t a coincidence the killer left her book for us to find.’

It was getting late and he needed to sleep on it. His apartment was only a block from where Amy Gallaty lived, but first he had to drop Rebecca off; then, when he got home, walk Roxy.

A good night’s sleep and he could view the case with fresh eyes and hopefully see the lead they were missing.

* * *

Her friends stayed with her till gone midnight, talking mostly of murder and hot detective, Jake Sullivan. Amy humoured them on both counts and didn’t bother to point out that she thought Sullivan was a jerk.

Gage took Huckleberry for his night-time pee while the girls cleared up the kitchen, then there were hugs and kisses before Amy and the collie were alone. Huckleberry was supposed to sleep in the living room, but within two nights of staying with Amy had muscled his way into the bedroom. He whined if she tried to kick him out, so it was easier to let him sleep on the floor beside her bed. She had finished the best part of a bottle of wine and her drunken thoughts of graveside murders and Nadine causing a scene in Too Many Books rolled into one as she drifted to sleep. Those thoughts disappeared as she entered dreamland and an old nightmare surfaced, one she hadn’t suffered from in a long time.

Stone stairs leading downwards.

She knew she shouldn’t go down them, that something terrible waited at the bottom, but she couldn’t stop herself from descending.

The steps went on forever. Lower, closer, the fear suffocating her as she approached the door.

The nightmare always ended in the same place, as she was stepping into the room.

Amy would wake herself up at this point, screaming and soaked in sweat.