I swallowed hard. “Like I’m missing my own heart.”
“You have a lot of good in you, Odin,” she said. “No one said you have to have a good bedside manner, but I think the people of Jesper County deserve to have you take over. And I know you’re bored at the medical examiner’s office.”
How had she known that?
“Plus, you can do both, can’t you?”
She had a point.
The area was small. Less than fifteen thousand people. Twenty-five if you counted the surrounding area.
Pendelton saw five patients a day, max.
On top of my current caseload, it wouldn’t take much to add in seeing Pendelton’s patients.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
She squeezed my torso.
“Do you think that the kid killed Errol?”
I shrugged. “I have no clue. I mean, he admitted to all the others. Why wouldn’t he admit to that one if he did it?”
“True.” She paused. “What was it that you were saying about it looking professional?”
“Something Gentry said,” I answered. “He said that he was shot execution-style in the back of the head with a forty-five. I’ll confirm when I get to the office in the morning.” I groaned. “Now that I have two murder cases to comb through, I should probably be there right now.”
She tightened her hold. “Do you have to?”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing that I can find tonight that I won’t find tomorrow. His murder was too long ago. I’ll be lucky to find anything useful.”
“I’m not upset if you don’t,” she admitted. “He deserved to be dead. Mackey’s parents…” She trailed off, her breath hitching.
“What is it?”
Her chest hair petting came to a halt.
“His parents said something once,” she said softly. “Mackey’s dad in particular.”
“About what?” I asked, curling a few loose strands of her hair around one finger.
“That Nepal didn’t have extradition to the United States.”
My lips quirked. “You think his parents hired a hitman?”
She sat up and reached for her phone.
She typed in a number and waited, her breathing slightly accelerated.
A woman answered with a worried, “Constance. Is everything okay? Wendy okay? I know it’s the middle of the night there.”
A worried grandmother.
“Everything is fine,” Constance promised. “More than fine. I wanted to tell you the good news.”
There was a quietness to her tone before she said, “I’m glad, honey. If anyone deserved it, it was him.”
Silence.
