He stared. “She’s in the room Pauline stayed in?”
Laney nodded.
“Did that happen randomly?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “No. I remembered just now. When she made the reservation, she asked specifically for that room. She said a friend of her family had stayed there before and she knew it was a good room.” Why hadn’t she noticed that odd fact before? Rita had asked specifically to stay in the same room as the murdered Pauline Sanderson.
A chill wave passed through her body, rippling her skin. She looked to Beckett, hoping there would be something in his glance that would reassure her that it was strange coincidence.
But Beckett’s demeanor told her nothing of the kind. He knew, and she knew, that something was wrong about Rita—very wrong.
* * *
Beckett clicked off the phone again. He’d left two messages for Jude, neither of them returned. In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have made them sound quite so much like demands. What is the status with Kenny? You need to investigate Rita Brown. He wished he could erase the messages and try again. That was the problem, Beckett thought. When would he learn that asking and telling were two different things? Reflexively, he bent his head to pray and then stopped himself. What was the point of that? Laney often would ask him to pray with her, and he’d always declined. Something about the vulnerability of it made him squirm. God didn’t want to hear his woes and it was embarrassing to give them an audible voice. In jail he’d given it up altogether. If God was listening, Beckett wouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place.
He shoved his phone into his pocket and spent time pulling up a warped floorboard in one of the unoccupied tent units. Practically all of them were unoccupied. Maybe when he’d left Furnace Falls, potential visitors would forget there had been a murder on the premises.
How much time would that take?
After he plucked a sliver out of his thumb and returned the hammer to the toolbox, he lent a hand packing the van and stationing himself there to prevent anyone from adding or subtracting any items. There was no way there would be any intruders this time, reptilian or otherwise.
He sat on the bumper waiting for his opportunity. Rita’s door opened. She shouldered a backpack, a camera in her other hand. The Timmons family was still gathered on the porch, doling out water bottles and snacks for each person. They were appropriately dressed, he was happy to note, with full sun protection and windbreakers in case of a rain shower. Sturdy shoes, faces shiny with sunscreen.
Rita too was clad for the adventure, in jeans and a T-shirt, with a canary yellow slicker tied around her waist. So as not to spook her, he waited until she approached.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “Are you our driver now too?”
“Yes.” He paused for a beat. “I figure you’ll have plenty of time to ask me questions directly, instead of interviewing people in town.”
She shrugged. “Small-town scandal is interesting, and I’m a curious person.”
“Me too. I’m curious about why you requested Room 205.”
She went still. “A family friend…”
He held up a palm. “Spare me. How about the real reason?”
Laney walked toward him, her wary glance darting between the two of them. The breeze blew her oversize shirt taut over her stomach, outlining the slight swell of her abdomen. A baby, their baby. He had to force himself to concentrate.
Rita unwrapped a stick of gum and put it in her mouth. She nodded to Laney. “I’ll be ready to go as soon as I finish enduring this interrogation.”
“I’m sorry. We don’t mean to offend.” She tugged the shirt straight.
“I was politely asking why she wanted to stay in Room 205,” Beckett said.
“The truth is exactly what I said, about my family friend who stayed in the unit,” Rita said.
Laney stepped in before Beckett could answer. “Please, Rita,” she said quietly. “We’ve been through a nightmare and all we want is to get on with our lives. The truth…that’s all we want to know.”
Rita’s mouth pursed for a long moment and something seemed to give inside her. “All right.” She tipped her chin up. “I’m a reporter. I’m writing a story about what happened to Pauline.”
A reporter…all they needed. He resisted the urge to groan aloud. “For what paper?”
“An online publication.”
“Which one?”
She was about to answer when Mrs. Timmons rallied her family to start walking to the van. The teens were in the middle of a noisy squabble.
Another interruption, a further delay in getting the real story. Or had he gotten it already? Was she really a journalist reviving a story? She’d rake him through the mud again, but that was preferable to thinking she was in league with Kenny.
Truth or lies?
Was Rita a nosy nuisance? There was way too much at stake.
Keep your guard up, Beckett.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Laney sat in the passenger spot, Beckett behind the wheel. Rita had been only too happy to climb into the middle row seat with Mrs. Timmons. Mr. Timmons sat strategically in the rear between his sons, who both stared stonily at their cell phones. She watched the scenery pass by without feeling the usual rush of pleasure as they crested the Funeral Mountains and dropped down into the area where they would meet Levi at the Keane Wonder Mine. Though Mr. and Mrs. Timmons kept up a sporadic conversation, remarking on the variety of colors the waning sun teased from the rocks, the van was mostly quiet.
“Your visit is well-timed,” Laney said, putting on her tour-guide hat. “The mine was closed by the National Park Service for several years to make it safer.”
“How?” said Mrs. Timmons.
“They covered over some exposed mine entrances and shored up the old structures.” She did not add that mines seemed to be magnets for exploration and more than one thrill seeker had lost their lives.
They rumbled into the parking area, and the guests were freed from
