Maybe not totally. It was time to corner Gage and demand information. She needed to be kept in the loop, not only for herself, but so she could better assist Duke in ways that wouldn’t cause trouble with the legal case they were building.
How was she to know what to keep him from plowing into if she didn’t know the status?
If Gage had thought that herding Duke would be easier when she was wearing blinders, he was wrong. What was the chance that she would allow information to escape her? Zilch. She knew how to protect investigations.
She thought of Duke again, allowing herself a few moments to think about how attractive he was. She was a woman, she had normal impulses, and even in the midst of all this, she wasn’t impervious.
Then she brushed such thoughts aside. Given the circumstances, Duke couldn’t possibly entertain such thoughts, nor should she.
Then there was Larry. Whenever she thought of Larry, she pictured him smiling. A big grin, filled with the joy of life. A man who should never have been the target of a killer.
Maybe she needed to talk to Gage about the fact that she couldn’t read any of Larry’s articles. She’d tried once, searching his name online, but the articles were in the paper’s archives, behind a paywall. It hadn’t seemed worth the money when she’d just been curious.
But it might not be curiosity now. If Gage authorized it, she could call the paper and say she was investigating Larry’s death. Right now she didn’t have the authority to say any such thing, but it might be important to learn what the man had been doing.
All she knew about Larry was that he was a friendly, outgoing guy, and that she’d liked him a bunch. He’d been a wide-ranging conversationalist, able to talk about many things comfortably and always eager to learn something he didn’t know. Never afraid of admitting to gaps in his knowledge.
When she thought about it, she realized he had gotten her to talk more with him than she usually did with anyone. He’d brought her out of her introverted shell easily.
A great gift for a man who spent his professional life digging information out of people, many of them reluctant to speak.
Determined to speak with Gage in the morning, she let her thoughts drift more freely.
That Duke was like a puzzle box. She’d been seriously worried about what he might do when he’d arrived here, and now she was getting more worried about him.
So far he hadn’t given her any major headaches, but if he felt he was getting nowhere, if he was left to deal with his grief without a resolution, how would he handle it?
Would Duke feel as if he’d failed his brother in this final, monumental task? Would guilt overwhelm him because this whole ugly mess was worsened by his rift with Larry?
She didn’t understand how anyone could handle it well. A double heaping. She’d seen other people hit with this double whammy, though. Mothers who’d fought with a kid before the kid disappeared, only to be found dead. That was just one example. She’d seen plenty of others.
People dealt because they had to, but Duke was a man of action. He’d already shown that he wasn’t prepared to wait for the police to do this job.
She sighed and rested her head in her hand. All she wanted to do was help. That had been her motivation in becoming a cop. She hated it when she couldn’t.
OUT IN THE COUNTRYSIDE, three men sat in a different gully. Moving was always wise in case someone had sighted them and started to wonder. New digs, no better than the old ones, but at least far enough away.
The chill didn’t bother them much, and besides, they had the correct clothing. Dark jackets covered them; hoods covered their heads and shadowed their faces from the rising moon. After a brief debate, they’d decided to build a small fire and now were making coffee in a battered tin coffeepot.
They used water warmed on the fire to soften dried foods enough to eat and swallow. Not the best grub, obviously, but marginally better than rations. Evidently companies catered to hikers and campers who insisted their food be palatable. Sort of.
Anyway, there was no grousing that night. Just a lot of silence as they tried to think their way through their current conundrum.
“We could kill Dan Duke,” said Man Three.
“Oh, for crap’s sake!” growled the second man. “We’re supposed to stay under the radar, and you want to kill the brother of the man we just murdered? You don’t think that would send up a dozen flares?”
Man One, who hadn’t said much for a while, spoke quietly. The other men sometimes resented the fact that the first man seemed to think he was smarter than they, never mind that he patently was. It was when his tone and pacing grew obviously patient that they resented him most. Right then he was sounding patient.
“We need to get a charge on that laptop. The cops are still watching Larry Duke’s house.”
“They’ve been there too long,” groused Man Three.
“Maybe,” said Man One, growing even more obviously patient, “they’re concerned about ghouls. Especially teenage ghouls. Word must be getting around that the guy was tortured. Or at least that the scene is gruesome.”
“I wish we were plugged into the local gossip,” said Man Three.
“Wishes and horses and all that,” said Man Two.
Man One didn’t disagree. “The real problem here is lack of intelligence. We didn’t expect all these complications, and we sure as hell weren’t prepared for them. But this isn’t some backward country where we can operate freely.”
“No kidding,” said the second man. “A lot of places we’ve been, I’d just take out the guard, go into the house to charge this freaking laptop and do whatever else I want to. Not here. Kill a cop, and we’re up to our necks. Kill Dan Duke, and we’re in
