Cherry arrived halfway through and they questioned her as well.
Prita couldn’t help but shudder as more came to light. This person had been watching her for a while, biding their time. Carter and she were just lucky they’d gone to dinner at CoalCliff that Saturday night and weren’t at home like they usually were.
God, if anything happened to her little boy, she didn’t know what she would do.
Flynn squeezed her hand again and edged closer, the comfort of him just what she needed to calm herself down so the panic didn’t take over. The constable and Detective Harrington didn’t show any sign that they’d noticed but Prita knew that Cherry had.
Damn it. She wasn’t in a mood for answering twenty questions today, yet, she didn’t let go of his hand.
They finished with Cherry and let her go into the office to start putting things in place for their first clinic in the morning, and said, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to mention?’
Flynn looked at her, a strange expression on his face, before turning back to the police and saying, ‘Prita’s estranged husband is in town. He’s demanding she come home.’
‘You’re married, Doctor Brennan?’ the detective asked her, phone raised again to record her response.
‘Yes, I am, but we’re separated. It’s not a nasty separation. Chandra was just worried about me, that’s all.’
‘We might need to have a few words with him, regardless. Do you have contact details for him or know where he’s staying?’
‘He and his boyfriend are staying at Finchers B&B at Wilson’s Bend.’
She jerked in surprise as Flynn said that. How did he know that when she had no idea? Of course. Nat had mentioned Chandra and Vivaan had seen Flynn and Reid at her burned down house yesterday when they’d gone to find Maccy. She wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it.
‘Well, we’ll endeavour to catch him today too. We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions or find anything. You let us know if there are any other calls.’
Prita and Flynn walked them to the front door and watched them drive up the road, their patrol car leaving a cloud of thick dust from the road in its wake.
‘Why did you say that about Chandra?’ She turned to face him, arms crossed.
‘I know he probably had nothing to do with it, but at the moment, anything’s a possibility.’
‘It’s more likely to be someone related to Doc Simpson or Bob Thompson.’
‘You’re right. But I think it’s worth checking out every avenue.’
‘He wasn’t even here when it happened.’
‘That’s what he says. Best let the police find out for certain and make sure there’s no possibility.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘You trust him that much?’
Chandra might be afraid of his life imploding because of choices she was making, but he would never hurt her. Or Carter. Not on purpose. ‘Yes. I do. He doesn’t have that kind of nasty in him.’
‘What about his boyfriend?’
‘Vivaan? No, he’s a teddy bear. He’s even less likely to hurt anyone than Chandra. Also, he loves Carter and would have wanted us to stay if not for the fuss Chandra’s family put up about us obviously being ready to have children ourselves if we were ready to parent Carter.’
‘Was that one of the reasons you left?’
She shook her head, uncertain of his meaning.
‘You weren’t prepared to have children with him to help him save face with his family?’
‘Oh. No. I never really thought I wanted children until Carter came along, so we were one there. Now I wouldn’t want to bring children into a relationship that wasn’t truly equal, that wasn’t truly loving. What kind of an example would that be?’
‘That’s true.’ He had a strange look on his face, but then he shook his head and looked down at her.
She met his gaze. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen him when you were looking for Maccy?’
He winced. ‘We had a few heated words.’
‘About me?’
He tipped his head in a funny kind of nod. ‘Not really. More about who I was to you.’
‘Really? What did you say?’
‘I might have told him that it wasn’t any of his business and that he should stop trying to control you.’
She snorted. ‘I bet he didn’t like that.’
‘Not really. But Vivaan arrived before things got too heated and they left to go have a look around Walhalla. I didn’t tell you because you’d already been through so much and I didn’t want you getting upset.’
‘You shouldn’t have kept it from me.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He dipped his head and then looked up at her in a way that reminded her a little of Aaron when he’d done something wrong. ‘I’m also sorry that I brought him up to the police without checking with you first.’
‘Thank you for saying that.’ She sighed and rubbed her head. ‘Although, I’m probably going to get an irate call from him at some stage.’
He pulled a face. ‘Sorry about that too. Would you like me to go talk to him?’
‘No. That definitely wouldn’t be a good idea. Let’s just wait and see what happens. The police might realise it’s pointless to talk with him at all.’
‘Maybe.’
She could see by his expression that he didn’t think so. They had to look at all possible leads for something this serious, no matter how long that lead might seem to be.
Flynn reached for her, fingers curling gently around her arms. ‘I just want to make sure you’re safe.’ His fingers made circles on her skin.
‘I know.’ She smiled up at him, the sensation of his touch shivering over her like a warm breeze. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
He hugged her to him, but let her go easily when she pulled away to look up the road where the dust was just now settling, an icy sensation stealing over her. She’d been so caught up in the police being here that she hadn’t checked where Carter was. It wasn’t bad enough
