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Then as Aubree pulls away from the curb, I set my hands in my lap and wait.
Wait.
Wait.
“I am not your fucking lapdog.” Finally, she growls as though she is, in fact, a canine. “What the hell was that?”
“I’m sorry I did that to you.” Glancing into the back seat of the car, I spy a sealed bottle of water, so while Aubree brings us around a corner and away from Chant’s street, I reach out and catch the bottle as it rolls across the seat.
Sitting straight, I crack the lid open and offer the bottle to my friend. My colleague. My equal. “Here.”
Her eyes shoot across to my hand. “What? What are you doing?”
“I’m serving you water.” I grab her hand from the steering wheel and wrap it around the bottle, then I sit back and play with the cap. “I’m not that person, Aubs. I don’t do that shit. But Chant was either gonna consider herself better than us and treat us as such, or she would respect us and want to please us.”
“You chose the second by making me your inferior.”
“I did.” Licking my dry lips when Aubree doesn’t sip her gift, I take it again and set the cap on. “I’m sorry. I did what I needed to do to get answers. Next time, you can play chief, and I’ll get the water.”
“Really?” Fractionally appeased, she peeks across at me. “You’ll let me tell the next person I’m the chief?”
“Well… no.” I snicker. “That could get us in trouble with the authorities. But I’ll get the water. Truce?” I extend my hand between us, fist closed, and wait.
And wait some more.
“I’m your friend, remember?” I remind her. “I actually recall something about being the bestest of all best friends in the whole wide world. And as such, I’m certain you can understand why I had to do what I did.”
“I’m still cranky about it.” But she closes her fist and bumps the side against mine. “And just so we’re clear, your Snooty McSnoot act got us nothing we didn’t already know.”
“Wrong.” Lowering my hand, I smirk and sit back to lean against the door. “She told us Holly’s head and face were completely destroyed.Disfigured, she said. We don’t have that evidence anywhere else.”
“Well, she ran into a truck. Of course her head and face were messed up.” Scoffing like I’m stupid, Aubree turns the next corner and reenters denser Copeland City traffic. “What did you expect to be left?”
“She was lying down, remember?” Smug with myself, I open the file and take out the only photograph we have of her body. “If she was sitting up at collision, I would expect her head to be crushed between the vehicles—or, if not, then cleanly decapitated. Instead, she’s lying down. Seatbelt on. She was strapped in, Aubree. So what exactly did her head and face collide with?”
“Well…” She thinks about that for a moment. But no words come. “Uh…”
“If she didn’t have the seatbelt, I’d say she smacked the steering wheel, the dash, the window. Something.Anything. That could explain a messed-up head. But her position says she hit nothing with her face. Nothing at all. And if you take another look at the photo,” I turn it so she can see, “the airbag, for whatever reason, didn’t deploy. Whether it was faulty, or someone tinkered with it, we don’t know. Regardless, we can’t blame Holly’s disfigurement on the bag.”
“But that means…” She takes another moment, then startles when my phone trills. “Shit, that might mean she was placed in the car, already bleeding, possibly already dead.”
“Maybe.” Finding Archer’s name on my screen, I swipe to answer and bring the device to my ear. “Detective.”
A slow, satisfied grin comes from the other end of the call. I just know it. “Doctor. How’s it going?”
“Forward,” I answer. “I have reason to wonder if Holly was already dead long before she met with that truck.”
“You do?” Stunned, his voice grows thicker. “Why do you think that?”
“Right now, it’s a gut feeling type of situation. What have you found on your end?”
“We just stepped out of Neil Thomas’ house. He and Kavanagh ran the case in ‘86.”
“And?” I prod. “What did he have to say about Holly?”
“Nothing.” Silence hangs for a beat, so all I hear is my own pulse in my ear. “He’s dead.”
ARCHER
