“If you can’t be decent, you need to go,” Amarok said.
“Decent?” Sam cried. “I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking.”
“Stop it! Evelyn is well liked here. Don’t try to make her feel that isn’t the case.”
“How would you know? You can’t even see the real her!”
“That’s it. Good-bye.” He was closing the door when she screamed, “I can’t wait until he finally kills her!” and stomped off.
Evelyn found a chair and sank into it. “He being Jasper, I assume.”
Amarok brought her a glass of water. “I’m sorry. That was rough, but don’t listen to her. She’s just…”
“Jealous?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, I guess.”
Makita came over and rested his muzzle on her lap as if he was sorry about how Samantha had acted, too.
“Tell me something…,” Evelyn said while scratching behind the dog’s ears.
“What’s that?”
“Would you go back to Samantha if I wasn’t here?”
“No, and I’ve never led her to believe I would. She may see you as her rival, but I wouldn’t be interested, regardless.” He sat in his own chair and nudged Makita out of the way so he could roll it close to her. “Forget Sam, okay? She doesn’t mean anything to me.” He took both her hands. “Tell me what Ashton Cooper said.”
Evelyn was still a little rattled, but she’d known all along that Amarok’s ex-girlfriend had no love for her. She attempted to shake off her distress as she regained her excitement over the DNA evidence and explained her conversation with Ashton. Thank goodness they’d been able to cull a profile from the material under the fingernails of that victim in Peoria and confirm that it was Jasper’s by matching it to his parents. Had they not done that, they couldn’t have linked Charlotte’s murder to Jasper and couldn’t push the investigation forward from there.
“So we don’t know if it was Jasper who shot at me?” he said when she was done.
“Not yet.”
“Still, this is almost too good to be true. I’ll get moving on those manifests.”
“How long do you think that’ll take?”
He rolled back to his desk. “I might be able to get them by Monday. I’ll start with Southwest. Phoenix is their hub, so it makes sense that they’d have a lot of flights going out of there.”
As she considered the logistics, Evelyn felt a little overwhelmed. “Sifting through all those records … We’re looking at a lot of work.”
“Not necessarily. If I can get the manifests in Excel—or convert whatever kind of file they send me to an Excel file—I can add a field for the airline and flight number on each document. Then I can merge all of the records and alphabetize them to find the duplicates, so it might not take as many hours as we initially thought.”
Makita nudged her hand with his cold, wet nose. “That’s hopeful,” she said as she scratched the dog.
“Provided Jasper behaved the way we think he did, we might have what we need to arrest the son of a bitch by next Wednesday or Thursday.”
Too overcome to speak, Evelyn got up and slid her arms around Amarok from behind.
His hands came up to grip her arms. “If I can catch him, you’ll stay, right?”
Even if they were finally able to apprehend Jasper, her family would have plenty of difficulties ahead of them. Especially Brianne with a new baby. But if Evelyn went back for a shorter time—a month or two—after the baby was born, that might be enough if only her family could put the past behind them. With Jasper in jail, looking at a life sentence, they’d have justice, resolution, a brighter hope for the future.
Those were no small improvements.…
“Yeah,” she said. “That might relieve my worry for them just enough to make it possible for me to stay.”
26
All the lights were off when Evelyn pulled into the driveway. Brianne must’ve gone to bed. Evelyn was tired, too. Fortunately, Andy was gone. Evelyn had stayed with Amarok and Makita at his trooper post for nearly two hours to give her sister plenty of privacy. She couldn’t understand why Brianne would have any interest in Andy Smith, but her sister was in a stressful situation. Maybe she saw something in Andy that Evelyn didn’t.
Grateful that she wouldn’t have to face him again, Evelyn braced against the wind as she got out of her SUV and fought her way to the front door. When the wind blew this strong, it could bite through almost anything. Her coat felt more like a mesh screen as she fumbled with her keys so she could let herself in.
The scent of the fire, which still burned in the hearth, couldn’t entirely overcome that of the salmon they’d had for dinner. She considered doing the dishes, knew that would help get rid of the residual odor, but she didn’t want to wake Brianne by clanging about in the kitchen. They could finish cleaning up in the morning, as she’d initially suggested. Brianne’s flight was a red-eye, so she didn’t have to be at the airport until evening. They’d have plenty of time.
Evelyn would’ve gone straight to bed without turning on the lights, but she was worried that Sigmund might not have enough water. Although Amarok had said he’d be home soon, she doubted he’d remember to check. She didn’t want him to worry about it, anyway.
After retracing her steps to the light switch near the front door, she set her purse and keys on the counter and was crossing the kitchen to Sigmund’s bowls when she saw several drops of red on the floor.
“What’s that?” she murmured, but as soon as she bent down she knew it was blood.
“Brianne?” Evelyn dashed down the hallway to the spare bedroom where her sister had been staying. Was she not asleep as Evelyn had originally thought?
Sheer terror gripped her as she turned on the light.
Brianne shoved herself up on one elbow and squinted at her. “What’s going on?”
Weak with relief, Evelyn sagged against the doorframe.
“Evelyn? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” She came into the room and sat on the foot of the bed. “I thought…”
“What? You scared the hell out of me rushing in here and flipping on the light like that!”
“I thought something might’ve happened to you.”
Brianne blinked at her. “Why?”
“Do I really need to explain? You’re aware of what’s happened here. We have a killer on the loose. Amarok and I are both afraid it’s Jasper, and he’d love nothing more than to hurt me in any way he can.”
“You mean by killing me.” She dropped back on her pillow. “Stop spooking us both. I’m fine. I had Andy with me for most of the night, so I wasn’t even alone.”
“Well, Andy isn’t here now.”
“No, he’s probably halfway home.”
Evelyn gestured toward the rest of the house. “What’s all the blood in the kitchen?”
“The blood?” Brianne scowled in confusion. Then her face cleared. “Oh! I cut myself on a knife while I was unloading the dishwasher.” She lifted her hand to reveal a finger with a bandage on it. “I thought I’d cleaned up all the blood. Where’d you see it?”
“On the floor.”
“Was it a lot?”
“Only a few drops, but—”
“I must’ve missed them, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
“No problem.” Evelyn pressed a hand to her chest to slow the beating of her heart. “So how’d it go with Andy?”
“He wants me to stay another week.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“No.”
“Why not? Amarok and I would love to have you here a little longer.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t imagine Amarok would love that.”
Evelyn remembered the promise she’d given Amarok at the trooper post but didn’t mention it. Hoping to catch Jasper and finally doing it were two entirely different things. Nothing had changed quite yet. “He wouldn’t mind.”
“It would cost too much to change my plane ticket on such late notice. And I’m not that into Andy. I mean … it’s flattering that he’s so interested in me. It was a nice distraction from what I’m going through, but—”
Evelyn gave her a wry smile. “He talks too much about himself?”
Brianne smiled reluctantly in return. “That, and he doesn’t like taking no for an answer.”