“Do you even care what that narrative is?” She bolted off the bench. “No. You don’t because you’ve done nothing to find my sister’s killer since you were forced off the case.”
That wasn’t true. Not even close, but he wasn’t ready to show her exactly how much time and energy he’d spent searching for a ghost. He wasn’t sure if it was because his ego couldn’t handle the fact he’d found almost nothing.
Or he was still holding on to the notion that he’d tell her when he found something.
“That’s not true,” he said.
“Fuck off,” she mumbled, storming off into the tent. She tossed out one of the sleeping bags and zipped up the flap. “You can sleep in the damn Jeep.”
Callie lay on her back and stared at the ceiling of the tent. Her eyes burned, unable to release the tears that stung at the corners. Memories of Stephanie flashed through her mind. They had been close their entire lives, and she helped her sister navigate her transition and subsequent surgery into becoming the woman that had been trapped inside the male body she’d been born with.
A few days before Stephanie had been killed, she’d called Callie, all excited about a new girlfriend, but it was new, and she wasn’t ready to share. Callie suspected it was because Stephanie hadn’t told her new friend she was a transgender woman. Even with having had the surgery, it often freaked people out, and many didn’t understand.
Poor Stephanie had many friends who thought they were open-minded, but it turned out they weren’t even close, leaving Stephanie with a wounded heart.
But on the night of her death, she’d left a frantic message, begging Callie to call her. However, Callie had been having a romantic evening with Jag who had popped the question. When the call came over that the Trinket Killer had struck again, they were in bed, celebrating.
The sound of metal ripping open caught her attention. “I told you to sleep in the Jeep.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s not going to happen.” Jag stepped into the tent, tossing the sleeping bag onto the foam mattress. “There is a divider you can put up if you want, but the space heater is on my side, and that will keep the warmth mostly with me, and it’s already dropped to about forty degrees outside. But that’s your call.” He shimmied out of his jeans before hiking up a pair of sweatpants and slipping into the sleeping bag. “And for the record, I’ve never stopped looking for your sister’s killer. Never. But it’s fucking damn hard when the trail is as cold as it is.” He rolled, turning his back to her. “Good night.”
“Have you uncovered anything? Because I have come across some things when it comes to my sister, and I have some new theories.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure you do.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I have a new theory, but it doesn’t fit the FBI profile, and when I’ve talked to Matt Montgomery and Levi Crawford, they’ve poked holes in it.”
She reached out and rested her hand on his back. “Jag. Talk to me. Please. I’m sorry how I reacted.”
He rolled, tucking his hands under his cheek. The light from the lantern lit up his dark eyes. “A lot of people don’t understand that your sister was a lesbian. They think because she was born with male parts that as a woman she still liked women that as a man she must have been straight.” He let out a long breath. “Stephanie was a gay woman who just happened to be transgender. Renee was a gay woman. I think whoever killed them might have been their gay lovers.”
“Wait. Are you suggesting that Renee was cheating on Kara?” She propped herself up on her elbow. “Kara always said they had such a great relationship, and just about everyone I talked to said they had the kind of marriage most of us dreamed of having.”
“Well, as you know, Renee’s hairdresser told the police that Renee was thinking of leaving Kara.”
“That’s why the cops thought Kara could have killed Renee, but she was cleared pretty quickly.”
“After I was reinstated and I had some time to lick my wounds after we broke up, I went back to that theory, and I found something disturbing.”
Callie found herself snuggling closer to Jag as he wrapped his arm around her waist.
Old habits died hard.
“What was that?”
“Renee did have an affair with a woman by the name Alley Gilbert. It was a short fling, and Alley thought no one knew about it. She also didn’t know Renee had been murdered since the affair happened right before she was deployed for six months, and when she came back, she reunited with her girlfriend and got married. It wasn’t until you named the killer that she even knew, but she never said anything until I started poking around.”
“So, it couldn’t have been this Alley chick?”
“Nope.”
“But if Renee cheated once, she could have cheated another time,” Callie said. “As my sister always said, once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“I don’t know if I buy that, but in this case, if the Trinket Killer is a woman and knew both Renee and your sister, then it’s possible.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“I didn’t know until about six months ago, and we weren’t talking right around that time.” He scooted a little closer, pulling down the zipper of his sleeping bag.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s cold.”
She laughed. “The heater is on.”
“We’ll be warmer this way.” He fiddled with the clasp of her bag, tugging it down slowly. He groaned.
