AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The county set her up in a hotel for the next few days, at least until Vance could be taken into custody and they were sure that he wouldn’t be released on bail. After Carolina was firmly ensconced in her hotel room, Cyrus started the arrest warrant. Even though the Jana Melburn case wasn’t theirs, Josie and Mettner decided to stay to see things through, especially with Anya in Bradysport. Cyrus had wanted to deliver the news to her personally. With Garrick still on a ventilator and unresponsive, they’d all gathered in the cafeteria.
Josie watched Anya’s face go through a carousel of expressions as she listened to Cyrus. Shock. Sadness. Anger. Deep hurt. Guilt. Shame.
“I had no idea,” she said. “I mean, I often suspected he cheated on me, especially near the end, but I could never prove it, and by that time I wanted out so it didn’t matter. It seemed like maybe it would be in my favor. If he’d met someone else, he wouldn’t care so much about me. I didn’t know he’d been seeing Carolina Eddy all that time. I definitely didn’t know about Jana.” She ran a hand through her hair and paced in a tight little circle.
Cyrus looked like his heart might break, watching her. “I’m sorry, Anya. I truly am.”
She gave a dry laugh. “Sorry that my ex-husband was an even worse monster than we initially thought? It just reinforces the validity of my decisions. I just can’t believe I never caught him in anything. I thought your office looked at Jana’s phone. You really didn’t find anything?”
“We really didn’t,” Cyrus said. “Believe me, if we had, I would have been all over that.”
Anya stopped moving and pinned him with a penetrating stare. “How can you be sure? What if there was something on her phone and somehow Vance—or even Dermot, if he knew that Vance had killed her—made it disappear?”
Cyrus said, “The Hadlees have influence, I’ll grant you that, but I’ve never seen it in our office. Dermot goes higher up than us, from what I understand. Not that anyone’s ever been able to prove it.”
“But if Vance and Jana were seeing one another, how did they communicate?”
“They weren’t seeing each other,” Josie said. “I think they met at the doctor’s office. She was a receptionist. They likely talked there. Maybe more than once. We’ll never know, but I think that’s where they set up the meeting. Jana wanted to talk to him about something. It couldn’t be about her birth family. Anya, do you have any idea what it could be?”
“No. I wish I did.”
Josie kept mulling it over as the conversation turned toward arresting Vance, which Cyrus intended to do once they left the hospital. Anya wanted to come.
“Absolutely not,” Cyrus and Mettner said in unison.
“I’ll stay in one of the cars,” she insisted. “You can park it down the road from the farm.”
As they argued over it, Josie retreated into her own mind, the unanswered questions surrounding the cluster of cases that all seemed somehow related, however tenuously, to Jana Melburn like a splinter under one of her nails. There was, after all, still the matter of the Sharon Eddy and Kerri Cryer murders. Vance had no real alibis for either murder, and a cadaver dog had alerted to the scent of human remains in one of the Hadlee family vehicles. In spite of that, they still couldn’t prove that he’d committed the murders. Again, Josie couldn’t see the advantage to Vance in killing either woman. Unless Sharon Eddy’s murder had somehow been a warning to Carolina that she should continue to keep all of his secrets. Was the murder of Keri Cryer a stab at Mathias somehow, even though he’d exonerated him? Had he left the bodies in Anya’s jurisdiction with the same brand as her to scare her? Antagonize her? Vance was certainly arrogant enough to commit the murders so brazenly and believe he could get away with them.
But then what was the catalyst? Why, after ten years, had he decided to start killing?
Was it Dermot’s stroke? That had happened the year before but the murders had only started days ago. Was it Piper’s death? That was certainly more recent. For all they knew, Vance could have killed Piper as well. But wouldn’t Vance have told Carolina that? He’d told her everything else. Was that why Vance had gone to bat for Mathias and gotten him out of prison? But why would Vance bother? With Mathias in prison for her murder, Vance would never fall under suspicion.
And who had stabbed Garrick Wolfe? What was his role in all of this?
Josie felt Mettner nudge her. “You okay, boss?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Anya and Cyrus were still arguing about whether or not she could be present when they arrested Vance.
Mettner said, “Walk with me.”
She followed him over to the food area, a collection of counters that had a wide selection of dishes to choose from, some pre-made and others made to order. “What’s wrong?” she asked as they perused several pre-made sandwiches.
“The pieces aren’t fitting. It’s gotta be bothering you, too.”
“It is. We’re no closer to solving our own murders.”
“I don’t think the evidence is going to get us there,” Mettner said. “We’ve got a lot of circumstantial stuff, but nothing solid. I was hoping if we untangled this mess in Bly, something would bubble to the surface.”
“Yeah,” Josie said. They walked over to the pizza counter. A woman and a young boy stood hand in hand, studying the menu. Mother and son, judging by the resemblance. “I think the problem is that we’re coming at this entire thing from the wrong direction.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re focusing too hard on Vance, and maybe even Mathias.”
Mettner laughed. “That’s all we’ve got.”
