Holding Out For A Hero. Pamela Tracy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ thought you didn’t know the family,” Riley countered.

      “I know that the young man managed the store my dad used to manage. My window looks right down on their house. I did see enough of them to realize who they were.”

      “Funny thing,” Riley said. “Her husband is out of town and you left town. Were you meeting up with him?”

      Oscar almost slid off the chair. For a small-town cop, Riley knew how to unnerve a witness. He was unnerving Oscar. The cop in him should have been prepared. The human in him wasn’t. He’d been watching Shelley for weeks. He knew she wasn’t seeing Cody Livingston. The woman took care of her son and took care of her father. That was about it.

      “I don’t even know his name,” Shelley said indignantly.

      “You sure packed quickly.”

      “Did you see the size of my garage apartment? Everything I own will fit in a laundry basket. Oh, and take a look at what’s in my car,” Shelley offered. “You’ll find what amounts to fifteen minutes of packing up clothes, games and food. I had no intention of putting myself, or my son, in front of the media again. Fat lot of good it did me.”

      “You could have done a fat lot of good yesterday,” Riley stated. “We’d have found the body sooner. The first twenty-four hours are the most important. You cost us a few of those hours when you didn’t report what you saw immediately.”

      Shelley huffed. It was the wrong reaction. It bothered Riley enough that he tossed out words like subpoena and civic duty and even mentioned that leaving the scene of an accident was a class two misdemeanor.

      The last one, Oscar knew, was overkill. There’d been no accident. Candace had been murdered. Then Riley pulled out his cell phone. Oscar watched as his fingers danced over the screen, and suddenly he was swiping through photos.

      He was probably going to show Shelley a close-up of Candace Livingston—go for the shock and guilt tactic. Oscar closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself against the sudden pain in his heart.

      Senseless death.

      He’d seen way too much of it in Afghanistan. As a cop, he wanted to help people. Yet cops and murderers were uneasy dance partners with one always trying to lead the other.

      He wished the case was all his, that he could take over the questioning, demand answers, but he was pretending to be the new kid on the block.

      “Here, maybe you need to see this.” Riley turned his cell phone toward Shelley, showing her a photo.

      Shelley looked away. Oscar started to protest. This wasn’t the time or place, but her rescue came from a different source.

      “Hello, Mr. Vaniper,” Shelley said. The piano player had returned. For a moment, Oscar thought Riley would continue to talk right through “Amazing Grace.” Oscar’d had to “ahem” twice to get Riley’s attention. Riley passed the cell phone to Shelley. She glanced at it, gave it back to Riley and announced that she’d be calling her lawyer.

      Oscar saw the tears in her eyes. They barely shimmered, but they were there, and just as an hour earlier, when he’d seen the proof of her grief, he almost interfered. Oscar almost told Riley what he could do with the photo.

      “Good,” Riley said. “Have your lawyer meet us at the station. I’m sure you know where that is.”

      If looks could kill, Riley would have been a chalk line on the floor, because Shelley was now one very annoyed pregnant woman.

      Shelley stood and started to leave, but her cell phone pinged. He watched as she pulled it from her pocket, checked a text or message and then turned pale.

      “Everything all right?” he queried, wishing he could get a look at her phone.

      “Just a typical day.” The words were typical; the tone was not. An edge that hadn’t been there earlier was present, a terseness.

      Whatever she’d read on her phone had changed things. She’d been both angry and wary during the questioning; now she was visibly shaken.

      She retrieved Ryan from the front desk, hefting him into her arms and holding him tight. She made it look easy, but the kid had to be heavy.

      Oscar took one step toward her. “You need some help?”

      She gave him a look that put him in his place. Alongside Riley, he was pond scum. Usually it didn’t bother him. Rarely could a cop arrest a perp without being called worse than pond scum. Shelley’s look, however, bothered him.

      Bothered him a lot.

       CHAPTER SIX

      “SHE’S NOT TELLING us everything.” Riley strode toward his vehicle, Oscar at his heels.

      “You’re absolutely right,” Oscar agreed. “She just got a message on her phone and it spooked her.”

      “What kind of message?”

      Oscar knew Riley was hoping for details. Instead all Oscar could provide was “It was an email or a text, and she didn’t share.”

      “I’ll see if I can’t get her to open up,” Riley said. “Usually talking to them at the station works. Doesn’t matter, male or female. It’s all about turf. If that doesn’t help, I’ll get a subpoena, make sure we can legally get to her phone messages. I can’t believe that she packed up her belongings, didn’t inform her landlord, was heading out of town and is unwilling to tell us where or why. Something’s going on. She didn’t act this hinky back when we were dogging her about her husband’s whereabouts.”

      Riley got in his vehicle, but before he started the engine, Oscar rapped on the window until the man rolled it down.

      “Everything’s happened so fast today. I probably should mention that Shelley Wagner and I have met in the past.”

      “Really?” Riley frowned. “Where?”

      “Here. I spent a summer with my aunt when I was twelve.”

      “Anything I should know about?”

      “Not really. Look, for what it’s worth, I think she’s telling the truth about what she saw. It’s what she’s omitting that has me worried.”

      Riley just shook his head.

      “Why is she omitting anything?” Oscar went on. “Why would she do that? What will it get her?”

      It was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and Oscar didn’t have an answer. He pressed on. “Call it a gut feeling, and what would her motive be?” Oscar waited, hoping the other man would do a little back-and-forth, share scenarios.

      Riley waved Oscar away before starting his vehicle and driving toward the station.

      Oscar stood for a moment. He’d overstepped the boundaries set between new cop and seasoned cop. He’d questioned when he should have listened. He’d argued when he should have reasoned. СКАЧАТЬ