“Honestly, that’s very plausible. Coal country isn’t what it used to be.”
“And I kind of thought the same thing. But there’s this kid, he was best friends with Lorelei. He had a heart condition, but it wasn’t really serious. According to his medical records, he died of a heart attack due to extreme stress. But he was an eighteen year old kid. He had one job and he was supporting his family, but I didn’t see anything that would put him under extreme stress. He didn’t play sports and he wasn’t a runner. As far as I can tell, the kid just went to work and then stayed home.”
“So, what do you think killed him?” Eric asked.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there. It was a pretty dark theory, but if I wanted Robert’s help, I had to be honest.
“She always spoke of her mother fondly, but I got this feeling that she was holding something back, so I did some digging. It turns out, her father was quite abusive. So, I got to thinking that maybe the abuse wasn’t just directed at Lorelei. Maybe it was also directed at her mother.”
“Why would she kill her mother for her father beating on her?” Robert asked.
“Resentment? It’s hard to say. I mean, she wasn’t very open about her home life. But if I’m right, Lorelei has psychopathic tendencies. Maybe she couldn’t deal with the fact that her mother couldn’t or wouldn’t protect her. My assumption is that she killed her mother, probably with a drug overdose, and the friend found out. And when the friend found out, she had to kill him too.” I thought about that for a second. “Oh, and I also think she killed her father. He just vanished one day after he nearly beat Lorelei to death. How suspicious is that? No, I think Lorelei killed the dad and has just been pretending he disappeared.”
“What do the cops say?”
“Not much. He vanished and they haven’t found him. Rumors spread from time to time about him, but nothing concrete.”
“Alright, so what happened after the friend died?”
“She split town two months later. Suspicious timing, don’t you think?”
Robert nodded, a frown creasing his face. “Definitely suspicious, but still not enough to say she murdered either of them. It could have just been bad luck and she wanted to get away from that town, make something better of herself.”
“And I would agree with that, except she got engaged to someone just two years after she left her hometown, and he was pretty well off.”
“Let me guess, he was the fiancé that died,” Robert added.
“Exactly.”
“Heart attack?”
I shook my head. “Car accident. But the police report suggests that there was another person in the car. Some of the lug nuts were loose on one of the tires, which could have caused the accident.”
“But then what happened to the other person?”
“There was a hair in the car…” I said hesitantly. “I…um…I accessed the database and I…”
Robert rolled his eyes. “Christ, you got Lorelei’s hair and you want to compare them.”
“It would prove she was in that car. If she was, and she was innocent, why would she run?”
Robert’s brows furrowed as he thought about it. “It does look suspicious.”
“It looks more than suspicious. It looks damn guilty,” Eric muttered.
“Look, the fact is, we can’t just pick up a hair and tell the police it’s hers. There’s a chain of evidence that has to be followed. But Andrew, you’d better be really fucking sure you want to go through with this, because the moment you put the police on Lorelei’s trail, there’s a shit storm headed her way, and you can’t take that back.”
“Not to mention that I doubt she’ll still love you after you hand her over to the cops,” Eric pointed out.
“Wait, you’re in love with her?”
I winced at Robert’s tone. Hell, I knew it was ridiculous that I was in love or possibly in love with the woman. Knowing she was a murderer, I slept with her and fell in love. It was the most fucked up thing I’d ever heard and I knew it, but that didn’t mean I could help how I felt. Still, love or not, could I let a murderer walk around free?
“So, what’s the deal?” Eric asked. “What are you going to do, stand by your woman or turn her in?”
I leaned forward on the table, needing to talk this out. “Okay, let’s say for a second that I love her and decide that I don’t care about her past. Let’s say that I want to try and make it work with her.”
“Let’s say you don’t end up with a knife in your back,” Robert pointed out.
I waved him off. “I’m guessing poison is her style. Anyway, let’s say that I do all that, and she never tries to kill me, but things just don’t work out between us.”
“Because you’re not rich enough for her to kill,” Eric adds.
“I have plenty of money,” I snarled. “But true, I’m no Arlen Henning. So, she doesn’t kill me, but then she decides things have gotten too stale. She misses the hunt. She misses the kill…”
“And she moves on to some other poor schmuck and kills him,” Robert nodded. “Now, you’ve withheld evidence, aided and abetted a criminal, and you’re partially responsible for the next man’s death. Not to mention that there’s a slew of other charges that could be put your way.”
I nodded. “And if I turn her in, and let’s say by some miracle she’s innocent…”
“That’d be some miracle,” Eric muttered.
“Right, but say she is…”
“Then you’d lose the woman you love. I don’t know that there’s any way you come back from putting your woman through a murder investigation,” Robert sighed.
“You came back from a lot of shit,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I didn’t try and send Anna to prison.”
“So, my
