Killer Amnesia: Faith In The Face 0f Crime
Page 21
“Trooper Cooper is an outstanding officer and has worked too hard on every case she’s ever had. She takes her job seriously and I won’t listen to you saying otherwise. Are you ready to leave now? Because I can show you out the door.”
A sideways glance told him Erynn didn’t look relieved. If anything, she’d paled even more. She shook her head. “You can’t let her leave.”
He knew that already. Didn’t have to like it, but he knew it. If Janie had been hiding and her disappearance from society had something to do with the Ice Maiden’s body...then it likely wasn’t a typical case of someone disappearing in the backcountry. The troopers and police forces would need to reopen the case, see if it could have been a homicide. Which meant that Janie was an important witness in a case that had gone cold years ago. However, what he didn’t know was why she showed so much familiarity with Erynn.
Noah had known Erynn for five years. Trusted her more than he did anyone else, except maybe his brother and Clay, his second-in-command at the PD. Between them, though, it was a tie. And Noah didn’t give his trust easily. It just wasn’t in his nature.
He looked at Erynn. Waited. But she didn’t meet his eyes. Wouldn’t.
He’d have to handle this himself. Talk to Erynn later.
“Let’s start with right now and work backward. You aren’t dead.”
“That’s correct.”
“Are you aware that you’ve been declared so?”
The body they’d found in the crevasse had matched Janie Davis’s description. The woman had gone missing at the same time. They’d interviewed witnesses, tracked her movements up until she’d come to Seward, a town near Moose Haven, and disappeared.
It hadn’t been shoddy police work that had made the case go cold. Or that had led them to believe the death could have been accidental. Someone had known what they were doing, had intended for them to think Janie Davis was dead.
But she wasn’t.
So who was she?
“I was aware,” Janie was saying, her facial expression still so cocky that it made Noah immediately suspicious. He wasn’t willing to discount the possibility that she was involved in a way that did make her a criminal.
“So you’ve come to turn yourself in.”
“It’s not like that.”
“No?” Noah asked.
“I’ve been hiding to protect myself.”
Yeah, because he’d never heard that before. “For three years.” It was a statement, not a question.
“You wouldn’t understand.” Janie looked at Erynn.
Erynn met her gaze.
And not his? How well did she know this person? They didn’t strike him as friends. Someone from far back in her past?
“Why did you come here?” Noah asked.
“Because I’m tired of knowing that he’s still out there, that he could get away with more crimes. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder, of wondering if I’m going to cost anyone else their life.”
“Are you saying the woman in the glacier is dead because of you?” Noah spoke up again, glanced at Erynn, who had stayed quiet. She’d turned into an observer.
Janie shook her head. “No. But I may end up dead because of her. And I’m worried that if I do...Erynn will end up dead because of me. I needed to come here, needed to make sure she had all the information so she could find him, make him stop.”
“No one’s going to let you be killed,” Noah said.
“It’s not a promise you can make, I’m afraid.”
“Why don’t you tell us what you came to say and then let us do our best?”
He watched the woman consider. Waited.
And wondered why someone would be after Erynn.
Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Varland
ISBN-13: 9781488040733
Killer Amnesia
Copyright © 2019 by Sherri Shackelford
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