AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She heard him let out a long sigh. It was the same thing he had done after every argument he had lost with her, which was damn near all of them.
“So what are you going to do with what you found out?”
“I’m betting Julia Frazier is Francine Langhorne. I need to find her.”
“How will you do that?”
“By digging. Isn’t that what cop work is?”
“Just be careful. Some folks really need you to stick around.”
“I know, the kids—”
Her father interrupted. “I was talking aboutme.”
The silence hung heavy for a few seconds before he added, “I gotta get back to my basketball game. You take care, honey.” He clicked off.
Gibson stared at the phone and realized for the first time just how worried her father really was about her.
CHAPTER47
C?LARISSE SAT IN FRONT OFher computer screens writing something down in a new notebook. It was labeledWAR ON THE PAST.
Things were happening quite rapidly now.
Her surveillance camera had shown that Wilson Sullivan had picked up Gibson and they had driven off together. She had an overnight bag, so wherever they were going it was some distance away.
Where would you go with the cop on an overnight, Mick? Where would you need official muscle to get to what you want to get to?
Something occurred to her.
She went online and did a search. There were a number of results, but the very first one would do.
The front-page story in theFauquier Times: “Murder in The Plains. Daryl Oxblood Slain. No Suspects.” And there it was. On the wall in a room of the house the phrase,DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO.
The Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office had not been as tight-lipped as their colleagues to the south, who had kept that piece of information zealously guarded. They had actually let someone take a picture and run with it.
So Gibson did the search I just did, found this item, and she and Sullivan went there to see about possible connections.
They would have talked to the neighbor, seen the crime scene, talked to the cops. A search on Daryl Oxblood would have turned up nothing after twenty years back.
She will know what that means. They’ll run his prints.
Clarisse thought back to what she had done and not done while there.
I tried to erase the phrase but I was stopped. Gibson will surely see that. I wore gloves, so no prints…the comic book! Did I put it back exactly…
She closed her eyes and let that recent memory flow back into her hippocampus where she analyzed it thoroughly, although the result was not to her liking.
No, I didn’t. I should have taken it with me. Stupid.
“BD and RE.” Gibson will know about that now.
Something else occurred to Clarisse. She ran and got the gloves she had worn that day. On one fingertip the fabric was soiled. With blood.
BD’s blood. Not mine. With the gloves I left no prints or DNA behind, but it still was a blunder. You are truly getting sloppy, girl.
Clarisse took several deep calming breaths as she composed a reply to the last email.
