Wilson walked straight over to him. He seemed to be glancing around to see if Frank Vine was anywhere near them and satisfied himself that he wasn’t.
“Horrible business, this,” he said. He lowered his voice. “I have results for you. That dart you brought me. There was a concoction of drugs—some had seeped into the bark. It was a cocktail of stuff, the kind that wouldn’t be found in an autopsy unless specific tests were ordered. The kind that would do a swift number—a real doozy on someone—and then fade quickly away.” He stopped speaking. Dustin turned to see that Frank had come out of the bathroom.
“It’s all right, Robbie,” he told Dr. Wilson. “You’re not conspiring against me. Agent Blake is working this case with my permission and he’s called in a few coworkers, I believe?”
Wilson—apparently “Robbie” to Frank Vine—let out a sigh of relief. “Frank, I haven’t seen anything like this in all my years out here. Best to accept any and all help, I’d say.”
“You might want to remove your corpse,” Frank suggested.
“I’m going to get the body now,” Wilson said. “At least we know the time of death,” Frank pointed out. “The deputy made a note of it. Not to mention that all the clocks stopped at 10:23 a.m.”
“I’ll get Aaron down to the morgue and get right on this.” Wilson shook his head wearily. “Hell, twice. Men I liked, men I admired. This is a sad day for all of us.”
As he returned to the bathroom. Dustin looked at Frank Vine. “I still say you bring Sandra in.”
“There were witnesses who saw her when this happened,” Frank argued. “She was nowhere near the house.”
“She still might know something. See if Aaron was talking about having anyone over, or if he said anything to her about what he planned to do,” Dustin said. “We’ve got to shake this up, Frank. There could be other victims.”
“You coming down to the station?” Frank asked him.
Dustin nodded.
“What about Olivia?”
“I’m not letting her out of my sight,” Dustin replied.
Vine didn’t protest; he just nodded. “All right. I’ll have her brought in.”
“Have your men checked whether there’s any sign of forced entry?” Dustin asked. “Windows?”
“None.”
“Is there a back door?”
“Yes.”
Dustin walked toward it. He used a paper towel he grabbed from the kitchen to check it. There was no bolt, only a push lock, the kind you could depress as you were leaving and the door would lock behind you.
“Someone could have left this way,” Dustin told Frank, who’d come with him.
“Yeah, they could have left this way, but how would they have gotten in?”
“With a key.”
“Not Sandra. An officer followed them from the hospital. She let him off, waved to the deputy watching the house and drove away before Aaron even went inside.”
“That doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t already in the house,” Dustin said.
Disposing of the paper towel, Dustin walked outside. Olivia was leaning against the car; Deputy Jimmy Callahan stood next to her, arms crossed over his chest, looking vigilant. When he saw Dustin, he nodded and walked into the house to talk to Frank.
Olivia gazed mutely at Dustin, her eyes beseeching him to tell her it wasn’t true.
She knew it was.
She didn’t cry. Her face, though, was pinched and tight. She was in shock, he thought. Two men she’d worked closely with, two men she saw almost every day, were dead. He wanted to tell her to cry, that it was all right.
But she spoke before he could.
“Have they informed the others yet?” she asked.
“I think someone from the sheriff’s department was calling—trying to reach the Horse Farm to let Sydney and Drew know what happened. I’m sure they’ll try to contact Mason and Mariah, too. They’re going to pick up Sandra now.” He indicated a news van down the street, held back by an officer in uniform. “The media have picked up on it. The police always try to make the first notification.”
“Of course. It’s dreadful to hear that something horrible has happened to someone you know via the TV or radio or— They’re going to pick up Sandra? Why? Sandra wasn’t even with Aaron when he...died....”
“They have to rattle some cages. They’ll start interviewing everyone now, wanting to know where they were every second.”
She nodded. “I’d like to go to the Horse Farm. I just want... I want to tell Sydney and Drew that we’ll do everything in our power.... That we’ll hang in there.” She looked at him. “Dustin, if someone wanted the Horse Farm—I’m the next person in line.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“So people can’t be dying for the Horse Farm—I mean, there is no Horse Farm if we don’t have any clients. Any guests.”
“I know.” Dustin looked straight ahead as he drove, hardly able to bear her stoicism, her emotional restraint. He knew she had to be suffering and understood that she wasn’t ready to express her grief.