Page 387 of A Matter of Time

“What?”

“We’re taking you both to Mr. Harcourt’s residence. He’s agreed to house you both for the remainder of the investigation.”

“I wanna go home,” I told him.

“If you prefer.”

“I do.”

“And Mr. Reid?”

I shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Jory.”

I looked up into his face.

“There can’t be any more running around town tracking down leads. It’s too dangerous, and we will be forced to charge you with evidence tampering and interference in an ongoing criminal investigation should you persist.”

“I didn’t mean to⁠—”

“We’ll charge you with obstruction. Do you get it?”

I nodded. “I won’t do it anymore… I don’t know how Sam does this every day. I don’t know how you guys look at dead people and don’t just pass out right there.”

He nodded. “It’s the job, Jory.”

“Yeah…you can have it.” I sighed deeply.

I felt like a cold wind was blowing right through me.

“You’re shaking.”

“That’s because I’m freezing.”

There was a trace of a smile before he nodded. “Tell me again, Jory, from the time you got out of the car.”

So I did.

They told me that Joyce Fain had been dead for at least two days before we found her. From how she was lying and the lack of any defensive wounds, she had been attacked from behind and her throat had been cut. There were all kinds of things they knew from the blood spatter and the pool by her head. Apparently, it would not have been hard to overpower the sixty-eight-year-old woman, as she wasn’t in good health. Nothing had been taken from the house, her purse had a hundred and fifty dollars in it, and all her jewelry remained. There was no reason for her to have been killed but for the fact that whoever had done it had gone there specifically to do so.

“Jory, you don’t look good.”

“It’s because I’m wearing orange.”

Detective Moore chuckled. “You need food and fluids and lots of sleep.”

I nodded, folding my arms and putting my head down on top of them. “Can I go see Sam?”

“Sure.”

I closed my eyes. “Thanks.”

“What were you hoping to gain by going to see Ms. Fain?”

“We were—I mean I…I was thinking that if I got to talk to her, then maybe she would be able to tell us who Greg hung out with.”

Moore nodded. “That’s good thinking.”