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She took a steadying breath, regained control, and looked at the display screen. Caller ID was blocked. Again, it could be Trent; it wasn’t like she’d had any time to add his number to her contacts yet.
She accepted the call. “Hello.”
Silence and deep breathing.
“Who are you?” The skin pricked on the back of her neck and she had this feeling she was being watched, even though she was barreling down the highway.
Silence.
Could it be Freddy or one of his crew harassing her, trying to scare her or intimidate her? The thought came and went. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be him. She’d had one of these calls before he’d been brought in and what would he have to gain from harassing her? Amusement? It could land his ass in jail.
“I’m a police detective,” she ground out. All her patience was gone, and with the latest revelation, she wasn’t in the mood to waste any time playing games. “Talk or stop call—”
Headlights were getting bigger in her rearview mirror as a vehicle quickly closed in on her bumper. Her heart hammered. Maybe someone had been watching her, the thought raising hairs all over her body.
The caller clicked off and her music came back on, but her focus was on the aggressive driver behind her. Was it her caller?
“Who are you, you son of a bitch?” she hissed, more bravado than true courage. She tapped the brake pedal—a potentially stupid and risky move.
In response, the vehicle swerved out and around her. The driver honked their horn as they passed.
“Jerk!” she yelled and looked at her speedometer. No wonder the drive was taking so long; she was barely putting along.
She pulled to the side of the road and collected her breath. What the hell was up with this person calling and doing nothing but breathing? Were they trying to freak her out? If so, it was working. Maybe it had nothing to do with Freddy, but maybe the owner of the bracelet somehow knew that she had it. Shivers ran through her. She really needed rest before her paranoia ran her off the road.
Twenty-Six
The next day Amanda was up before her alarm. She flung her legs over the side of the mattress with more purpose than she’d had in a long time. Just thinking how those poor girls needed her was enough to spur her forward, and she had the day’s itinerary all mapped out in her head. Jacob would likely have the information from the bracelet’s data chip ready for her this morning; she’d always found him to be a man of his word. She and Trent would bring in Freddy and Courtney and drill them about the bracelet, see if they could get any further there. With any luck, they’d make some headway toward bringing down the sex-trafficking ring.
“Time for Mommy to keep her word, baby girl,” she said to the walls, to the spirit of her dead daughter. Who truly knew what happened to us when we died? What she couldn’t deny though were the nights she could have sworn she’d felt Kevin moving on his side of the bed. Whenever she’d reached out or looked—nothing, no one. It was likely just her carrying his ghost around in her mind.
She headed down the hall and went through her morning routine. On her way out of the house, she grabbed her keys from the bowl by the front door and shoved them into her jacket pocket. Her fingers brushed against the baggie of pills and she pulled it out. She’d be able to concentrate much better without worrying about them being discovered on her person.
She looked down at them in her palm. There were still six pills. Despite her intention, she hadn’t taken a Xanax last night. She’d just had a sleeping pill, crawled into bed, and left the day behind. She had more willpower than she realized, but she’d keep them for a moment of weakness. She took the pills and Freddy’s card to her bedroom and put them in the top drawer of her nightstand, then exited her house to hit the road.
First stop would be Hannah’s Diner for a coffee.
The door chimed when she entered the shop. May Byrd, who owned the diner and had named it after her first daughter, was behind the counter and offered her a gigawatt smile. May was easily in her early sixties and always lit up when she saw Amanda. May had told her once that she reminded her of Hannah, even though she was several years older than Amanda. She was a big-shot defense attorney in Washington.
“Good morning, May.”
“How are you, sweetheart?”
“I’m fine.” Amanda’s gaze drifted to the pots on the counter behind May. “I’d love a coffee.”
“Of course ya would.” May grabbed an extra-large to-go cup and filled it to the brim, then snapped on a lid.
“You know just the way I like it.” Her dad had always said don’t trust a cop who doesn’t drink their coffee black.
“Hey, hold up a minute.” May hustled along the counter to where there was a confection display cabinet, slid the doors open at the back, and pulled out a blueberry muffin. She put it into a bag and extended it to Amanda. “Here, take this. Baked fresh this morning.”
In all the years Amanda had been coming here, May had given her only two freebies. The first was when her paternal grandmother had died, back when she was in the police academy; the second was after the accident. The pattern wasn’t one that was encouraging, but nothing bad had happened— Oh, unless word had already got around about Palmer’s death. But was that bad news per se?
“What’s this for?” Amanda indicated the muffin.
“You certainly haven’t had it easy, dear, but at least your luck is changing. That horrible man is dead.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding, almost as if she’d expected that May was going to say something else. But it made sense that Palmer’s death would get back to May. She was the heartbeat of the small community and every morsel of gossip passed through the walls of the diner. And anything May might miss there, she would hear from her book club, which convened once a month to discuss their latest paperback but weekly to shoot scuttlebutt.
