Page 60 of Playing With Temptation

“Then hurry up and get me up to speed so when she comes in, I can plead my case. I’m willing to ride the pine and do the leg work.”

“You must be bored out of your mind. You’ve never offered to do paperwork or sit a desk.”

He was correct on all accounts. I hated sitting at my desk. But anything was better than sitting on my couch doing literally nothing.

“You have no idea,” I mumbled.

Ethan reached for a stack of folders sitting on his desk and offered them to me.

I opened the top folder to a glossy eight-by-ten picture of a smiling Ashley Monroe. And that was how I remembered the woman. Not the sheet-white dead woman with matted hair.

“I spent last week talking to her parents, co-workers, the principal of Deer Park, her friends, and her ex-boyfriend.”

“What’s the ex have to say?” I asked.

It was an unfortunate truth that fifty-five percent of murdered women were killed by an intimate partner.

“Josh Holman. He was devastated, and if he was lying, he should be an actor and not a roofer. The guy lost it. He also has an alibi. GBI puts time of death, same as Anna’s initial assessment—one to three days. Cause of death, strangulation. Josh Holman was out of town visiting his brother’s family in Ohio. He left two days before the timeframe Ashley was killed and didn’t return home until the day after we found her. GBI confirmed if she’d been in that pond two extra days, decomp would’ve been severe and the fish in the pond would’ve started feeding.”

The horrors of death never ended.

“Her co-workers loved her, said she was a great teacher, great with the kids, and as far as they knew she didn’t have any issues with any parents.”

Fuck. I hadn’t thought of the parents.

Ethan went on, “The principal confirmed he’d never received any complaints or criticism from any of the parents. The opposite actually—everyone loved her. Kids. Parents. Other teachers. Her friends the same, devastated, confused, they had no idea who would want to hurt her. And not one of them even hinted that Josh could or would hurt her. All of them said that she broke up with Josh. She loved him, but he had no ambition, and she wanted more out of life. None of them had anything bad to say about him, beyond Ashley and Josh weren’t a good fit, but he was a nice guy who liked to go to a local dive bar near his house after work with his buds, tied one on occasionally but not a drunk. Ashley wasn’t a dive bar kinda woman. She liked going out to nice places and if she went to a bar it would be upscale.

“Her parents still live in Charleston. That’s where she grew up. They came down and…fuck, Jase, it hurt just looking at them, their pain was so absolute. They hadn’t seen her since school let out the last term. She went up for a quick visit. They said she was happy, healthy, and looking forward to closing on the house she bought, then moving in. It was her first big purchase. They planned on coming down next month to help Ashley with some repairs on the house. They also said Ashley was a little sad about her breakup but not torn up and they’d met and liked Josh, but weren’t surprised they didn’t go the distance.”

The phone on Ethan’s desk rang. He held up a finger and answered it, “Lenox.”

I went back to the file, flipping through Ethan’s typed up notes.

Twenty-six. Happy. Healthy. Well-liked. Excited about owning a home. Now she was dead, fished out of a pond with leaves and debris in her hair.

Christ.

“Yeah. Thanks, Whitty, we’ll meet you there.”

I looked at Ethan, took in his clenched jaw and braced.

He didn’t delay explaining what had him tweaked.

“Samantha Williams was just pulled out of a runoff pond behind the sand mill.”

Fucking hell.

I followed Ethan through the bullpen out the back door.

When we were approaching our unmarked sedan when Ethan said, “You’re not cleared for duty. I’m driving and just so you know, if the Captain asks you, you strong-armed your way into the car and I couldn’t stop you.”

He was so full of shit. If the Captain asked questions Ethan would have my back.

“Right,” I mumbled and went to the passenger side.

I waited until we were out of the parking lot before I asked, “Anything from Dylan?”

“No. Which means he’s like a dog with a bone and is on a mission.”