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Sitting across from him, she leaned in, tented her hands. “I heard a rumor,” she said in a low, sultry tone.
He leaned in too, his hands folded and nearly touching hers. “What kind of rumor?”
“The kind involving you.”
His eyes dilated again. “Sounds scandalous.”
“Enough it put me on the hunt for you.” And she might very well be hunting him. He could be the Blind Eye Killer. She wasn’t persuaded either way.
“You like to hunt?”
“The hunt’s part of the thrill,” she murmured, making her voice like butter, “knowing prey is out there but not completely sure where. Nerves are heightened, pulse picks up from steady to staccato as you close in.” Had he been hunting her earlier by the creek? “Like a lion with a gazelle on the Serengeti. It’s a rush.”
All true. That was what it felt like catching killers who believed they were invincible. Who toyed with them, miscalculating their—her—prowess. It was a powerful high. Nothing like it.
And it terrified her all the same. Because what if she wasn’t a federal agent? Would that desire to hunt manifest in other ways?
She shook out of her own chilling thoughts, though she couldn’t shake out of her skin, her DNA. If there were a way, she’d pay every dime to do it.
“You’re a scary woman, Agent.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” She sat back. “Enough with games. I heard you used to be related to Atta Atwater. Bobby Lloyd is your cousin.”
He leaned back too, folded his arms over his chest. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Bobby’s my daddy’s sister’s boy. He and Atta had a thing in high school. Wanted to get married, and I told him they were too young. Too dumb. And he already drank too much. But Wendell signed away.” He frowned. Was he irritated that Atta’s brother, the preacher, had given permission or something else? “We had some words over it. But he’d already done did it so...”
“Why would he do that? Was she pregnant?”
“No. He quoted Paul in First Corinthians. ‘But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.’” He gave them a knowing look. “They’d been burnin’.”
“Arson?”
“No. Burnin’ with passion. Some translations state it a little clearer than the good old KJV.”
Violet would ask Ty about the Scripture. Also, Regis appeared knowledgeable of the Bible. “You felt they should continue in, what I’m assuming you mean, sin?”
“Far be it from me to throw a stone, Agent.”
“A stone?”
“Judge.” John strolled up to the table. “He’s saying he can’t judge what Atta and Bobby were doing because he has his own sins.”
“Amen.” Regis leaned back.
What were those sins? Violet would like to know.
“Bobby’s drinking got worse. I threw him behind bars to dry him out a few times. And then...he left. And she quit the hotel and started cleanin’ houses.”
“Left Atta?”
“Atta. The holler. Ain’t heard from him in about four years now.”
“You don’t find that odd?” John asked. “Kin keeps in touch. I know.”
“He was no good for her. I didn’t try to find him. Better off, she was if you ask me. The kid was a menace from the start.”
