Katie’s mouth pressed into a line.
Eleanor glanced back at the report.
“You suggested they start at the Riverbend development,” she said. “Why?”
“Because he wouldn’t shut up about it,” Katie said. “How proud he was. How much money it made. It was going to put him on the map. He said it was the project that changed everything.”
“Did he ever mention Caroline’s name in connection with Riverbend?”
“No.”
“Did he ever say, ‘That’s where I buried her’?”
Katie opened her mouth.
Closed it.
“No,” she admitted. “But he said he buried her at ‘a site.’ And then he couldn’t stop talking about that one.”
“And in a fight, a man wanted to scare you,” Eleanor said. “So he reached for the most painful thing he could. The missing woman everyone in this county knows about.”
“Then why did he sayburied?” Katie shot back. “Why not ‘left her’ or ‘hurt her’? Whyburied?”
Eleanor paused.
“That’s a fair question,” she said. “So I’ll give you one back: in eight months, how many times did he say things he didn’t mean?”
Katie’s throat worked.
“Plenty,” she said.
“How many times did he scare you and then tell you you were overreacting?”
Katie looked down.
“Enough.”
Eleanor leaned in slightly.
“And how many of those times did you call the sheriff’s office?”
Silence.
Katie’s hand tightened around the edge of her chair.
“I get it,” Eleanor said more gently. “You’re angry. You have every right to be. But anger and truth are not the same thing.The state is about to send heavy equipment into projects that feed half this county based on a year-old argument in a bad relationship.”
Katie looked up sharply.
“So you think I’m lying.”
“I think,” Eleanor said, “you’re hurt. And that hurt is real. I also think you waited until the cameras showed up to decide this mattered.”
“I was scared,” Katie snapped.
“Of him?”
“Yes.”
