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“Stay in here,” I whisper.
He gives me a thumbs-up, and Dalton and I continue on. Pierre and Nanette continue to argue, variations on what I’ve already heard. Nanette is accusing him of something, and he has no idea what she means.
The next open room is empty, but there’s a drill on the floor, with scattered screws around it, as if someone dropped it fast and ran.
As we approach the last door, Dalton falls back in behind me. Neither of us has our gun on us—that’s not the message we want to send in town. If this sounded dangerous, I’d send Dalton to grab it, but from what I hear, it’s only an argument.
I angle myself where I can peek in without being spotted… and I see my mistake. Pierre is in the corner, holding what looks like a level, his hands raised. There’s another woman—one I haven’t had much contact with—backed against another wall. And Nanette stands in front of Pierre, wielding a scalpel from the clinic.
There’s no time to retreat and grab a weapon, and I wouldn’tanyway. That would only make things worse. I lift my own hands and step into the room.
“Nanette?” I say calmly. “Can you please tell me what’s going on here?”
She doesn’t look my way. Her attention is on Pierre.
“He knows what happened to Penny,” she says. “He did something to her.”
“I don’t know what—” Pierre begins.
“Pierre?” I say. “I’ll speak to you in a moment. First, I’m asking Nanette what’s going on.”
“She’s holding a knife on me,” he says. “That’s what’s going on. This crazy—”
“That’s not helping,” I say. “Nanette?”
Pierre cuts in before she can answer. “Aren’t you going to tell her to put down the weapon? She’s holding me atknifepoint.”
This is not exactly true. She’s three feet from him, and I recognize that stance. I’d been in her shoes fourteen years ago, holding a weapon on someone to show him I was serious. To confront him with what he’d done and scare the shit out of him and make him admit it.
I’d had no intention of hurting him. The weapon was just a prop. It was a mistake, a horrible mistake that I will never forgive myself for, but that is not what’s happening here. A scalpel isn’t a gun. She’s not going to pull the trigger in a moment of blind rage, and I’ve eased forward enough to grab her if she lunges.
“Nanette?” I prompt again. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She lifts her free hand. A necklace dangles from it.
“I found this in a clinic drawer while I was helping your sister. It’s Penny’s.”
When Pierre tries to protest, she waves the necklace at the other woman. “Is this Penny’s?”
“It is,” says the other woman. “She always wore it.”
“And now she’s gone, and it was stuffed at the back of a drawer. A locked drawer. One that only Pierre had the key for.”
“Then how didyouget it open?” Pierre says. “I gave the keys to the new doctor. She had access to that drawer. So did you, obviously.”
“If I put it there, would I be here confronting you with it? And it sure as hell wasn’t Dr. Butler, who arrived two days after Penny disappeared.”
“All right,” I say. “We can resolve this easily enough. I’ll fingerprint the necklace. If Pierre didn’t take it, his fingerprints won’t be on it.”
I’m bullshitting, of course. It’s a chain with a pendant the size of a dime. The chance of getting a usable fingerprint is laughable, but panic crosses Pierre’s face.
“Fine,” he says. “Yes, I put it in there.”
“And then lied?” Nanette says.
“Nanette?” I say. “Can I ask you to lower that scalpel and let me handle this, please? He’s admitted to it.”
“To taking the necklace. Not to hurting her.”
