AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Inside, the house smelled like lemon and pine and many years gone by. It was clean, and the original hardwoods shined through the generations of wear and tear. “Do you live here now?” John asked.
“No. I got a little place up in the holler. Help out Aunt Hossie once in a while and sneak a home-cooked meal a few times a week. Command post good enough for you?”
“Yeah,” Violet said absently, surveying the interior. Rustic pine, soft blues and antique furniture. Fiona wasn’t wrong. The inside was nicer than the outside.
“I’ll show you to your rooms. Aunt Hossie’s achin’ with the gout. I sent her on to bed early. She sure did want to welcome ya, though.” Regis traipsed up the steep wooden staircase, and John followed, leading the rest of the charge. Upstairs a hallway forked with two bedrooms on the left and three on the right, sandwiching a bathroom. “Any one you want.”
Violet chose a room with mauve wallpaper and a Queen Anne bed with a pastel quilt. Not her style, and she winced at the collection of porcelain dolls sitting in a Victorian lady’s chair with a faded velvety cushion. A bookshelf void of books was lined with more of them. Not all were porcelain, but each one looked well used. Great.
She’d picked the Chucky doll room.
Taking in her accommodations, she sighed. The wallpaper peeled in some of the corners, and the oval mirror hanging above the dresser was cloudy with black spots declaring its age. Regis wheeled in her bag and rolled it to the far corner of the room; his gaze was unsettling, same as at the SO earlier, and Violet cocked her head. “Anything you need?”
He cleared his throat. “Sorry, you...remind me of someone.”
“Well, they say everyone has a twin.” Violet might have dozens. Hundreds even. She had no idea how many young girls Adam had abducted over the years and fathered children with. Only a few names Mom had muttered when talking in her sleep.
Asa poked his head inside. “Seven a.m. Meet in the dining room. Breakfast and then go-time.”
“Okay.”
He let his gaze swing from her to Regis then back.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said and eyed Regis again, then patted the doorframe twice and disappeared.
Regis lingered, and she wanted to know why. “You want to ask me something. Ask it.”
He scratched his head. “How long you been an agent?”
“Long enough to know how to catch a criminal like the Blind Eye Killer.” Was he sexist or hunting for a reason to stay in her bedroom? Fat chance he was getting an invitation for the latter.
Leaning against the wall, he crossed one ankle over the other and folded his arms. “You think you’ll catch him?”
“You don’t?”
“Not if the holler don’t want him found.”
She stepped forward into his space, testing his reaction. He didn’t shy away. Didn’t mind her up close. Personal. “Why wouldn’t they want justice for their community? I thought hollers were family even if they weren’t related.”
“I didn’t say they didn’t want justice served. I said they might not want you to find him. We got ways of doing things up here.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Now, don’t go gettin’ me wrong. I’m a law dog. I’m here to help you, but you should know it’s not gonna be none too easy, hear.”
She heard him loud and clear. All the more reason they were to stay even though Sheriff Modine would love for them to leave.
“How did you know Atta?” She lived in the hollow, and he said he did too. No way they didn’t know one another. Might as well get on with the victimology. Test Regis. See how much truth she’d get. Read his body language. Try to discover tells.
“I know everybody who lives in the holler.”
That didn’t tell her how he knew her personally though. “How well did you know Atta?”
“Well enough.”
Evasive. “Do you think the killer’s a local? I mean he’d have to be, right? Everyone knows who’s comin’ into the hollow.”
“Holler. We say holler in these parts.”
“Holler,” she corrected herself. “It’s one way in, and he probably didn’t walk. Someone saw him or at the very least his vehicle. They’ll know if an unfamiliar vehicle passed through.” But would they tell her? “And who would actually be the ones to dish out that justice? Is there some kind of hierarchy?”
