“You can get something else, if you want.”
“I know, but why would anyone want anything else?”
He shrugged. “Beats me. Do you mind, Steve?”
“No, I’m on it. Be back in a flash.”
After he was gone, as Zach unlocked the door, I asked, “Is it that bad?”
“What? Steve’s doing just fine.”
“I’m not talking about that, and you know it.” I looked around the room, and noticed that since I’d been there yesterday, a large whiteboard leaned against one wall. It was already filled with my husband’s notes, and I knew it was a way he liked to think out loud. “I meant the case.”
“It’s no surprise Davis called me in,” Zach said. “I just had a meeting with him, and it’s pretty clear that Grady’s breathing down his neck. He wants results, and I’m not sure how fast I can give them to him.”
“Why the sudden urgency? We just got here yesterday.”
“This is all new to us, but they’ve been dealing with it for eight days. I don’t blame them. I just wish I had something for them.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll solve this.”
“Savannah, I wish I had your faith in me,” he said.
“You always were your worst critic.” Zach looked glum, and I had to do something to snap him out of it if I could.
“It’s a beautiful day. Why don’t we go outside and wait for Steve? When he brings us our sandwiches, we’ll have a picnic across the street.”
“I don’t know,” he said as he looked around the room. “There’s a lot of work I still need to do.”
“You can’t do it if you’re focused on how much there is to accomplish. Trust me, you need a break.”
He shrugged. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get out of here for a little while. Let’s go.”
As we left the room, he pulled out a key and locked the door. “What’s wrong, don’t you trust your officers?”
“That’s the problem, I know them too well. I don’t want anyone snooping around and walking through my evidence.”
Steve was startled to find us out in front of the station waiting on him. “What’s wrong? Did I take too long?”
“No, we decided to eat outside today.”
He shrugged, then he handed Zach our lunches. “I’ll wait upstairs. There’s more work I can do while you’re eating.”
“Why don’t you take off, and I’ll catch up with you later.”
“You got it, Chief,” he said.
Zach and I walked across the street and found a weathered old wooden bench. It wasn’t exactly a park, but there was grass and some trees around us, and it felt like we were getting away from it all.
Zach immediately dove into the bag and pulled out a sandwich. To his credit, he handed the first one to me before he retrieved the other one for himself. As we ate, we enjoyed the day and tried not to talk about murder. After we finished, Zach collected our trash, but he made no move to leave.
“This sunshine feels great, doesn’t it?”
“I bet it’s not as humid at home,” I said.
Zach laughed. “You don’t have to sell me on it, Savannah. I wouldn’t mind being back there myself right now.”
“I thought you were looking for a little excitement in your life.”
“I would at least like to have a chance to solve this,” he said. “The problem with investigating these murders is that I have to push some powerful people to get answers, and I still can’t be sure they’re telling me the truth. Hank and Cindy deserve better than that.”
It wasn’t odd to hear my husband talk about the victims as though he knew them personally. He’d been trained by a woman who was an expert in the criminal thought process, and she’d stressed the need for the detective to distance himself from the victims, but it went against Zach’s nature. By personalizing the victims, he worked that much harder to find their killers.
I just hoped he could do it before the murderer struck again.
Chapter 9
WHEN WE WALKED BACK INTO THE POLICE STATION, Davis was waiting for us by the front door.
“What’s going on, Chief?” my husband asked. “You’re not going to bust my chops about taking a lunch break with my wife, are you?”
Davis frowned. “Zach, while you were gone, we got another note from the killer.”
“It wasn’t about me, was it?” I asked, suddenly getting the insane impulse that I was the killer’s next victim, even though I had no real ties to the case. I didn’t know either victim, though we had a mutual friend in Grady. The
