“Devin, I’m not going to see Brent to arrest him, but I need to talk to him. He was one of the last people to see Barbara Benton alive.”
“What about people at the bar where she was drinking before she disappeared? It would make more sense to ask the bartender if she really did come back or if he saw anyone paying special attention to her.”
“Brent was at the bar, too.”
“What?”
“Her friend Juliet saw him there drinking a beer at the bar before they left. And no one remembers seeing her come back,” Rocky said quietly.
“So she told them she was going back—and then she just disappeared?” Devin demanded.
“Yes.”
They’d reached Brent’s shop—Which Witch Is Which.
Brent was behind the counter, selling tickets for his eight o’clock tour.
“Hey!” he said, looking up. He was smiling, but his smile quickly disappeared when he saw their faces.
“Oh, God, sorry. I heard you found another victim. I’m so sorry,” Brent said earnestly. “It’s weird, though. It hasn’t affected business. Don’t see many young women walking around alone, but the streets are still busy enough. I just filled my tour—I’m going to have to send people over to my competition tonight.”
“That’s why we’re here, Brent,” Devin told him.
“You want to take another tour?” he asked her, frowning.
“No, we’re here because of your tour last night,” she said.
“Why?” Brent asked, his confusion apparently genuine.
“Haven’t you heard? They have an ID,” Rocky said, watching Brent’s face.
Brent still looked baffled. “I’ve been working all day.”
“Barbara Benton, the victim, was on your tour last night,” Rocky said, his eyes narrowed on Brent.
Brent gasped. His surprise seemed real. “Oh, no,” he murmured. He looked at Rocky. “Who...which...?”
“She was one of three women who came together—they were from Ohio,” Rocky said.
Brent’s hands, still holding money from his last transaction, began to shake. “Which one?”
“Dark-haired,” Rocky began.
“Two of them had dark hair.”
“She was about five-six. Medium build,” Rocky told him.
“In a sweater and jeans,” Devin said.
Brent paled. “I remember her,” he said. “She was having a great time. It was her first trip here. When we weren’t stopped somewhere, she was keeping up with me and talking. She told me she’d had family in the area. She was going to look them up and find out where they’d lived—see if she had any distant relatives still here. My God. She was so...alive,” he finished lamely.
“She was alive—until one or two this morning,” Rocky said.
“I feel sick,” Brent murmured. The money fell from his grasp and slipped to the floor behind the counter. He didn’t even seem to notice.
“Brent, her friends saw you at the same bar they were at after the tour,” Rocky said.
“What?” Brent said, blinking as he looked at Rocky. He didn’t look away—he didn’t look guilty.
He looked perplexed.
“Yeah, I had a beer at that place on the corner before heading home.”
“Did you see Barbara and her friends there?” Rocky asked.
Brent shook his head.
“She couldn’t stop talking to you, and you remember her clearly now. But you didn’t even see them?” Rocky persisted.
“No. I told you, I didn’t see them,” Brent said, flashing a glance at Devin. Anger was overtaking his shock. “I was thirsty after talking for a couple of hours, so I went and had a beer. I suggested the bar to people on the tour, but I came back here at the end of the tour. I sold a few things and hung out to answer some questions for a family that was still wandering around the shop after everyone else left. Then I went to the bar and had my beer, and then I went home. Period. I didn’t see them. You can’t honestly think I killed someone, can you?”
“Right now I don’t think anything except that I need more information,” Rocky said.
“We’re just trying to catch a killer, Brent,” Devin added.
“We?” he asked, staring at her with a hard smile. “We? When did you join the feds, Devin?”
“‘We’ as in the whole community,” she said.
Brent stared at her and shook his head. “So you found a body right by your house, and then today you found another one. You look a lot guiltier than I do, Devin.”
“Did anyone say you looked guilty?” she asked him. “Come on, Brent, please just help us. Someone had to have seen her.”
“Someone, maybe, but not me,” Brent said.
As he spoke, they heard a cell phone ringing. Brent’s lay on the counter, so he picked it up and then frowned. “Not mine,” he said.
“It’s definitely not mine,” Devin said. “Different ringtone.”
“And it’s not mine, either,” Rocky said.
Rocky pointed to Brent’s jacket, which was hanging off the back of the chair behind the counter. “May I?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your jacket is ringing,” Rocky said.