AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The ‘vic’ being Jessie Brentwood? You’re saying you identified her body?” Hudson asked, turning to Mac.
“Still unconfirmed,” Mac said. “We’re waiting for DNA.”
Hudson swivelled his gaze to Gretchen. “I dated Jessie, yeah.”
Walker was weightier since high school, more in demeanor than actual pounds. And Mac understood before the man said a word that Hudson Walker had no intention of helping him any more now than he had when he was younger.
“You wanted to see me,” he said in a tone that let Mac know just how he felt about that.
Mac opened his mouth, but Gretchen jumped in again. “Everybody said Jessie Brentwood ran away, but then those bones showed up.”
“But you’re still not certain they belong to Jessie, so maybe this is a little premature.”
Mac said, “I think it’s just an exercise-confirmation. We’ve gone through all the missing persons files. We’ll find those remains belong to Jezebel Brentwood.”
Becca drew in a quick breath. Her skin was pale. In fact, she looked out-and-out sick.
“You all right?” Mac asked.
Hudson turned to her. “Becca?”
“I’m fine.”
“Was it something I said?” Gretchen asked wryly.
Mac cringed. His partner had no class. “Are you sure you’re-”
“Excuse me.” Becca suddenly scraped back her chair and headed toward the women’s room, which was clearly marked at the end of the row of booths.
Hudson half rose from his chair but let her go.
“She always scare so easily?” Gretchen asked in mild surprise.
Hudson’s gaze shifted to Mac’s partner, and Mac had to fight to keep his lips from twitching with amusement. Gretchen was pissing Hudson off but good. One of her favorite tactics, though what good it would do in this case, he had no idea. Before Hudson and Gretchen could go to the next level, Mac said, “I’d like to just run over the sequence of events before Jessie Brentwood disappeared.”
“You just said you don’t know if the remains are even Jessie.”
“Slow days at the department,” Gretchen said. “We’re up to our asses in cold cases instead of current events.” She took a sip from her cup, scowled, and added cream. “Crime’s on a downswing. What can I say?”
“It’s no secret I thought something happened to her twenty years ago,” Mac cut in. “You were one of the last people to see her.”
Hudson hesitated a moment. Mac could almost see when he made the decision to tamp down his annoyance and just get on with it. “We had a fight,” he stated rotely. “She didn’t think I was being honest with her. I didn’t think she was being honest with me. We were both right.”
“And what were you lying about?” Gretchen asked.
“More like omissions of the truth. We were in a high school romance that had run its course.”
“You liked someone else,” Mac said, his eyes following the path Becca had taken.
“It was over. That’s all.”
“You didn’t follow her into that maze and stab her to death?” Gretchen asked conversationally.
“She was stabbed?” Hudson asked. He turned to Mac for corroboration.
Mac nodded curtly. “That’s the ME’s opinion.”
Walker seemed to think that over while Mac, with a warning look at Gretchen to keep her big trap shut, asked more questions about the timeline of the last night Hudson saw Jessie. It was more of the same from his notes from twenty years ago, less really, as Hudson’s memory wasn’t as clear as it had been then.
