Page 23 of Forever Gone

Selena adjusted the strap of her bag. “Any more murders you need my help with and I’ll have to move in.”

Cheryl’s attention dropped to the legal pad. “We charge rent.”

Arnold led Selena through the security door and into the main corridor. The building carried the low activity of an office moving toward evening. A phone rang behind one closed door. Someone typed in the records room. The scent of overheated copier paper drifted from an alcove near the break room.

“How’s Connor been?” Selena asked.

Arnold kept walking. “Keeping himself busy.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“He’s had plenty to do.”

There was something held back in the answer. Arnold drank again, though the cup had to be nearly empty.

“Is everything okay with him?”

“Yeah.”

The response came after a fraction too long.

Selena waited, but Arnold did not add anything. Pushing him would only make him retreat behind loyalty to his sheriff.

“All right,” she said.

They reached the room the department used for case coordination. Arnold opened the door.

Connor stood beside a counter, fighting with the coffee machine.

A red warning light blinked while he pulled at the plastic tray beneath it. The machine made a grinding sound. Connor released the tray and reached toward the power cord.

Selena laughed. “For a second, I thought you were going to shoot it.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“You’d have to explain the report.”

“I’d make Arnold write it.”

Arnold stepped back into the corridor. “I didn’t see anything.”

Connor abandoned the machine and pointed toward a whiteboard on the wall. “We’ve got a murder board started for Karen Sloane.”

The board held Karen’s driver’s license photograph, a printed map of the Montgomery property, and a timeline beginning with her move from Loyall. Beneath those were the names HANNAH MONTGOMERY and GERRY TOMES. Photographs from the cabin had been placed inside paper sleeves and clipped along one side, with the most graphic images turned inward.

Selena crossed to the board.

“Mail carrier arrived at ten twenty-three this morning,” Connor said. “Karen’s last confirmed contact was a phone call two days ago. We’re working through her cell records and the rental paperwork.”

“Any sign of forced entry yet?”

“Nothing obvious. Matt’s still processing.”

Connor leaned against the edge of the table. Fatigue showed in the set of his shoulders.

“Do you think this is the start of something bigger?”

Selena considered the question. The county had not forgotten the Pruitt murders or Renee Beaumont. Connor would be thinking about both.