The whiskey went untouched. They sat in moonlit silence until Adam finally said, “I also have a confession to make.”
Nikki turned with a scowl. “If you tell me you’re married, I’ll shoot you with your own gun.”
He waggled his ringless finger. “Ex-fiancée, remember?”
She exaggerated her relieved sigh. “What’s the confession?”
“I wasn’t really surprised the other night at the Ruins when you found that watch.”
Her head snapped around. “What? You knew the watch was there?”
“Let me rephrase that. The watch surprised me, but not the hiding place. I knew about that loose floorboard.”
Her heart thudded as their gazes met in the dark.
“I came across it that summer while searching for clues. There was a notebook inside. A journal.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I always wondered. It’s like how you can tell when someone has been in your house. I just knew somehow.” She stared up at the moon. “You read it?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“I found a handwritten journal hidden beneath the floorboards of an abandoned mental hospital. What do you think?”
She glanced back at him. “You didn’t say anything that summer. Why tell me now?”
“Because I don’t like secrets.”
She dropped her gaze to the garden, where shadows danced gently against the fence. “So you’ve known all along what I did.”
“I know that you talked to Riley Cavanaugh on the night she disappeared. You may have been one of the last people to see her alive and yet you never went to the cops. Yeah, I know all that. But for what it’s worth coming from me, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
He sought her gaze in the moonlight, but she avoided the contact, keeping her focus on the shadows instead. “I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but I didn’t do the right thing, either. She came to me that night. Me. Because I was the only one who could help her. At least that’s what she thought. She and her friends had been dared to go out to the Ruins and she said she wanted to make sure the place was safe. She’d heard that I went out there a lot. She asked if I’d ever seen Preacher there. But that’s not really why she came to me. She wasn’t seeking reassurance. She was scared and she wanted me to give her an easy out. A way to save face with her friends. But instead, I told her she should take the dare. There was nothing to be afraid of at the Ruins. It was a beautiful place by moonlight.”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen.” Adam put his hand on her knee, squeezing ever so lightly. The gesture was intimate and comforting.
Nikki drew a breath and nodded. “I know that. Rationally, I know her disappearance wasn’t my fault, but I also know that if I’d told her not to go, she would probably still be alive. Married with a family, maybe. An interesting career. And Jenna Malloy wouldn’t have spent the past fifteen years in and out of psychiatric facilities.”
“You didn’t make those girls go out to the Ruins, Nikki. It was like a rite of passage back then. They probably would have gone regardless of what you said.”
“We’ll never know. But it wasn’t just my guilt that kept me silent. Tom Brannon’s father was the sheriff. He considered me a person of interest. People were already whispering that the Belle Pointe Five had lured those poor girls to the Ruins for some dark purpose on the night of a blood moon. I was scared of what would happen if anyone found out that I’d talked to Riley before she disappeared, much less that I’d encouraged her to take that dare.”
“So you wrote it all out in your journal. That was your confession.”
“I took the coward’s way out,” she said. “Withholding information in a police investigation is illegal. If anyone had ever found out, my scholarships would have been rescinded. So I kept my mouth shut.”
“What do you think happened to your journal? I assume that’s why you went to the Ruins the other night.”
“Whoever put Dr. Nance’s watch under the floorboards must have taken it. I can only assume they’ve read it by now.”
“Yes, and if they’d wanted to use it against you, they would have already done so.”
“Unless they’re keeping it for another reason.”
“What reason would that be?”
Nikki shivered. “I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling that journal is going to come back to haunt me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Nikki arrived at work early the next morning and threw herself into the day’s tasks, letting the autopsies and routine paperwork occupy her hands and her mind. She didn’t talk to Adam all day. She assumed he was out replacing his phone and she hoped he had enough sense to stay away from the salvage yard. He was a grown man, though, and she reminded herself that she couldn’t worry about his every move. She had her own concerns.
Still, his silence niggled. Despite that, the day flew by and she got so much accomplished that she considered taking off an hour or two early. But then Tom Brannon called. Seeing his name on her phone was never a good sign.
“Hey, Tom. What’s up?”
“We’ve got another body, Nikki. How soon can you get here?”
“Where are you?”
“Ten miles east of town on Highway 30. I’ll text you the address.”
“It’ll take me a good half hour and that’s if I don’t hit traffic. Have you ID’d the victim?”
“Yeah,” he said grimly. “It’s Eddie Bowman.”
Nikki gasped. “The junkman, Eddie Bowman?”
“Can’t say I’m surprised. That guy has been living on borrowed time for years.”
Nikki clutched the phone. “What happened?”
“Looks like someone capped him in the chest a couple of times. We’ve got the place locked down. No one in or out until you get here.”
Nikki signed out and checked her kit to make sure she had everything she needed. Then she headed out to the salvage yard. Traffic was light and she made
