“A bunch of things!” The words blurted out quickly like she hadn’t been able to control them. She cleared her throat and continued, a little more measured. “Weird, out-of-place things. Asking when I was coming home, how my mom was, telling me about this movie she wanted me to see—even though we did see it. Last year. Some horrible slasher film she’d dragged me to—I still have nightmares about it…” Her voice trailed off as she met Avery’s eyes once more and she realized she was getting off-topic. “She had to check that she locked the door. The door had to be locked. Something was out there. Was I safe? Did I have my keys, because she didn’t want to lock me out. Then it would sort of repeat all over again? I don’t know, maybe she’d taken something.”
“Was that like her? To use recreational substances?”
Rachel shook her head. “Not when we were together, but… It wasn’t unusual for her to use a bottle as a therapist, so it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility.”
Saga’s nose scrunched, betraying her own opinions toward Rachel’s attitude, but Avery’s face remained placid.
“Do you mind if my associate and I look around?”
Rachel shook her head. “Go ahead… All of her stuff should still be here.”
Avery stood, smoothing down her vest. She caught Saga’s eye and cocked her head toward the hallway, indicating for her to follow.
As Saga joined her, that strange sense of something feeling wrong that struck her as she entered began to settle somewhere between her stomach and sternum. It was hard and uncomfortable.
“I don’t suppose,” Avery began so quietly that Saga had to practically lean against her in order to hear her. “You could illuminate me on what exactly a ‘drunk dial’ is?”
A stifled snicker escaped Saga, but when she met Avery’s eyes, her smile faded. “Oh, you’re serious.” She had definitely been in a different country—clearly there was some sort of language breakdown with colloquialisms. “It’s when you call someone while inebriated… Usually it’s someone you shouldn’t be calling, like an ex-girlfriend, for instance.”
Avery’s eyes slid darkly back toward the living room but she didn’t move. “So she did see the victim that night. She called upon her.”
Saga blinked, unsure of how she’d miscommunicated. “No, they just talked on the telephone. But you should probably follow up on that, make sure it actually happened.”
Thoughtful, the taller woman mouthed “telephone” as she worked through something in her head.
Saga thought she heard the faint whisper of the words, “Greek” and “voice”. She attempted to lip-read further, but lingered on the shape of Avery’s mouth, and how soft and flawless her lips looked from this short distance.
“Fascinating…” Avery remarked quietly to herself, and her attention came back to sharpen on Saga.
This noticeable shift made Saga jolt back to the present, and she fumbled for something to say that wouldn’t betray her thoughts. “That’s a thing cops can actually do, right? It’s not just a TV show thing, checking phone records?”
“I will look into it,” Avery answered enigmatically before walking farther down the hall. “How doyouknow Eira Goff?”
“She was my grandmother’s best friend. Like sisters since college. I guess you could say she was like a second grandmother to me.”
“Could these deaths be in any way connected?”
Saga blinked. “What? No, why?”
“Maybe someone wasn’t particularly pleased with the care of their elderly relative,” Avery echoed Saga’s own theory back to her.
“Yeah, but that was before I knew who her last patient was.”
“Does that change things?”
“Well,yeah.Plus Eira’s only child is Elis, and he doesn’t really strike me as the maliciously complicated murderer type, and Carys…” Saga mulled over all the stories she’d heard secondhand through both Eira and Saoirse about Crazy Cousin Carys. “Carys wouldn’t care enough togetrevenge on someone who wronged Eira.”
“So you believe Eira’s death was purely natural causes.”
Again, Saga’s face must have betrayed her thoughts in regards to the absurdity of it all.
“It’s a connection, Saga, and one that we would be fools to ignore completely, regardless how absurd it may seem. Do you think Eira’s death was purely from natural causes?”
“I mean, she had heart problems, and it was a heart attack, so…” Yet doubt had been sown in her thoughts. “It would be worth looking into, I guess?”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“At the wedding.” That, Saga didn’t even have to think about—though it was difficult to recall any details about that day but her own humiliation.
