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“My art. And now my students.”
Devine thought about what Pat Kingman had said, that Alex had changed years ago, going from outgoing and fun to introverted and...scared, diving back into her hidey-hole at Jocelyn Point after venturing out for short intervals. But she was teaching at the local school, so maybe she was getting over whatever had caused her to change.
“I’m having dinner with Dak tonight. Would you like to join us? My treat?”
She frowned and looked away. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”
As they walked back to the Tahoe, Devine said, “Did your sister have any enemies here?”
“Not that I know of. She was adored in Putnam.”
“But, again, you intimated that you didn’t share the general opinion that Jenny was a wonderful person, regardless of whether you remember saying it or not. You did.”
She wheeled around on him, seemingly itching for a fight. “Look, I meant nothing more than the people with those general opinions never had tolivewith her. She was a tough act to follow. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love her or make me any less sorry that she’s dead. So don’t try to put words in my mouth.”
“I can understand the hard-act-to-follow piece.”
“Can you really?” she said skeptically.
“My two older siblings are roaring successes in their chosen and highly compensated fields. Me, not so much.”
She gazed at him with a sudden look of empathy. “Oh, well... being a federal agent isn’t a small accomplishment...” Her voice trailed off as they walked.
He drove her back to Jocelyn Point. She got out and then peered back into the Tahoe. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more help.”
“You might have been more help than you think,” he replied.
“Your meeting with my brother?”
“What about it? Changed your mind and want to join?”
“No. But, piece of advice? Don’t believe everything you’re told.”
She slowly walked to her art studio.
CHAPTER
19
HOPING TO BEAT THE INCOMINGstorm, Devine drove straight back to where Jenny’s body had been found and walked the area with a soldier’s eye for detail.
He stood at the spot where the shell casing had been found. The .300 Norma magnum round was mostly, but not exclusively, used by the military and its snipers. The casing had been next to a stand of bare trees, providing some good cover. He had noted all of that before. He drew a sight line between the ejected casing and the spot where Jenny had been standing before toppling over the edge after being shot.
Or so the story goes.
He lay prone on the ground and pantomimed taking aim at Jenny Silkwell.
He pulled the invisible trigger and counted three beats. The bullet would have hit her in the blink of an eye from this distance, but it would have taken a few beats for her to fall over the edge and hit the rocks below.
He stood and pulled out his phone. He’d had the medical examiner, Françoise Guillaume, email him the preliminary autopsy report. As he read it, the weather system coming in off the coast had raised the temperature enough to where the precipitation that started to fall was rain, and not sleet or snow.
He caught himself smiling. Alex Silkwell would get to teach her art class today.
He hustled back to the Tahoe and reached it before it really started to pour. He sat there staring at a crime scene that had definite shakiness to its outlines, and thus its substance.
He texted Campbell with his theories and waited for a reply.
He got it five minutes later, a testament to how such a busy man, with a dozen missions like Devine’s to oversee, was laser-focused on this one. But it was no doubt the only mission under his command that had to do with a man who had saved his life. As a former soldier Devine got that one really well. It forged a bond stronger than just about everything else in life.
