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Still, she leans in and listens.
“Wade,” the deputy almost sighs into the call, exhausted. Kate assumes from all the deaths striking Dosserport in just a week. Cletus, Gigi, now Carmine.
“Trevor Vanderbelt,” he introduces himself.
And that’s all he has to say.
“It’s already taken care of,” Wade says after a pause. There’s tension in his tone, like his voice is pulled too tight, violin strings ready to snap. He doesn’t hide it well, how little he enjoys this part of the job, the part where the cops in town clean up after those from Rich Hill.
Trevor doesn’t need to elaborate for Wade’s sake, but he does for Kate’s. The frown that knits her plucked eyebrows together isn’t giving the impression of convinced.
“If anyone were to check the system for Sunday night,” Trevor starts, “for my arrest—”
Wade cuts him off with a simple but satisfying, “As always, there wouldn’t be anything to uncover.”
The corners of Kate’s mouth tuck into her cheeks.
Without a ‘bye’ or ‘thanks’, Trevor hangs up the line. “Happy?”
She sighs and slaps her hands to her weary face. Through her hands, her voice is muffled, but he hears it all the same, “It’s not you,” she groans. “Well… I thought it was, maybe, but—”
“Hey.” Trevor drops the cell onto the cushion crammed between them and, instead, reaches for her wrists. He peels her hands away from her face. “You need to talk to me about this stuff.”
“I saw him,” Kate’s voice weakens. “The killer. He… He looked just like…us.”
Trevor’s fleeting grin is wolfish but dismissive. Almost like he fights the urge to mock his recently traumatized girl. “I’m not one to point out our differences babe, but we don’t look anything alike.”
She frowns, hard. “That murderer,” she grits out through clenched teeth, “looked exactly how we did that night. He was wearing the whole thing. The same boots, the pants,the hood. Trevor, this guy… he knows what we did to Cletus. And whatwe worewhen we did it.”
Trevor nods, slow, thoughtful. His face takes a serious turn, an unusual look on him.
“Alight,” he starts after a long pause. He takes her slender hands in his. “I’ve been giving it some thought, before tonight. And if what you say, about the hood—”
“Abloodyhood. Just like ours. Old blood. Brown.”
“So… maybe Cletus wasn’t working alone.”
Kate and Trevor hold a pause, stares locked, silent. It’s Trevor who breaks it when he sighs and looks down at their hands, still connected.
“Maybe Cletus had someone… a sidekick, or backup, whatever. Someone who knew the whole story.”
“That me and the girl, killed Maxwell?”
“And,” Trevor adds, “that Cletus helped you get rid of the body. And that Cletus was blackmailing you to keep it secret.”
“Well,” Kate shrugs and looks at him, “blackmailingyouthroughme. To get intoyourpockets. The girls don’t know anything about the letters Cletus sent me.”
“I know.” Trevor pauses to think for only a moment before, “You got the blackmail letters from Cletus, and you came to me. But you didn’t tell any of the girls,” he thinks aloud. “So it can’t be any of them doing this. We took care of it, dramatized his murder to keep us out of the list of suspects,buthe had a partner in the blackmail. And whoever he was working with, not only knows what you girls did to Henry, but they also saw us take out Cletus.”
“Now they’re hunting us down. But why? There’s been no extortionate letters in the mail since. No ransom or anything. What do they want?”
“Blood.” Trevor decides on the answer fast. “Whoever this guy is, he wants revenge. Blood for blood.”
“Oh God.”
“We need to find out who this friend of Cletus is—and take him out before he can do any more damage. Talk to Billie. That girl knows more than you think.”
“Don’t you put this on her,” Kate’s face suddenly reddens, her upper lip curls. “Billie knows nothing about nothing—”
