Page 91 of Forever Gone

Selena rose.

“Let us know as soon as you have anything on Linda.”

“I will.”

She offered her hand. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Blethan regarded it as if Selena had presented him with an unfamiliar instrument. Then he stood and shook it.

Behind her, Kelly closed the notebook.

Blethan released Selena’s hand and winked at Kelly.

“Will you look at that? The small-town kindnesses seem to be coming back.”

Selena withdrew her hand. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Aye. There she is.”

Selena left the office with Kelly at her back.

The corridor seemed narrower on the way out. The receptionist said goodbye from behind the glass partition, but Selena answered without slowing.

Outside, morning sunlight reflected from the roofs of parked cars. Kelly followed her toward the sedan without speaking.

Selena unlocked the doors.

The interview had given them a weapon profile, a pattern, and a clearer sequence of violence. It should have felt like progress.

Instead, Selena found herself unusually irked by all of it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

By late afternoon, the briefing room at the Harlan County Sheriff’s Department had become too small for the dead.

Karen Sloane’s photograph occupied the upper left corner of the murder board. Ruth Keller’s sat beneath it. Linda Mercer’s image, printed from the missing-person file, had been added that morning beside a photograph of her Corolla inside the barn.

Three women. Three tongues removed. Three lives reduced to notes, dates, maps, and arrows.

Selena sat at the computer nearest the board, working through another set of Elmsview High records. Across the room, Kelly typed at the second terminal. Neither woman had spoken for almost twenty minutes.

The silence carried more weight than the work required.

Selena had replayed the conversation at Blethan’s office several times since leaving. Kelly had challenged the high-school theory without raising her voice or dismissing the evidence. Selena had responded as if disagreement were disloyalty.

That knowledge did not make an apology easier.

“Kelly.”

Kelly looked over.

“I was out of line at Blethan’s. You were right that we shouldn’t make the school connection the only one.”

Kelly studied her for a moment. “Thank you.”

Selena nodded once.

A printer worked near the back wall. Kelly crossed to collect the pages, returned to her desk, and placed them beside a legal pad. Her movements were careful and efficient. No signs remained of the previous night beyond the water bottle at her elbow.