“If we’re in the same bed, I’d want to fool around. I’m great at sleeping in chairs.”
“That’s ridiculous, and you’re going to make me feel bad.”
This time he smiled. “So, you’re saying you can keep your hands off me?”
“With ghosts in the room, I can.”
“Get in there. I’ll be fine.”
Sloan was determined. He pulled the chair up, stretched his legs out on the bed and settled in. Jane crawled into the bed and tossed him a pillow. “You know, I’m going to worry about you all night.”
“Don’t. I’ll be sleeping.”
He was stubborn and Jane could tell she wasn’t going to change his mind, she crawled into bed. Sloan’s head was thrown back; his eyes were closed. For a moment, she thought he’d already drifted off.
“Ironic,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Our relationship is going to be all over town tomorrow—because of the one evening we slept apart.”
She curled her arms around the remaining pillow. He was in the room with her and she let herself fall into a deep and peaceful sleep.
If Trey Hardy came again that night, she didn’t know it. When she woke, Sloan was in the bathroom. The door was open; he’d showered and he was frowning at the mirror.
He turned to her. “He’s here. Trey Hardy is here. And there is something in that wall.”
*
“I’ve been looking up the history of mannequins,” Kelsey told Jane as they drove to the station. “Great stuff. They found a torso carved out of wood in King Tut’s tomb, which shows that the use of mannequins goes back thousands of years. Kings and queens gave them as gifts to fellow royals and to inform other countries of the latest fashion trends. In the 1700s they were often wicker, and a lot of them had no heads, but by 1870—right around the time all the trauma was going on here—the fashion-conscious French started making them elaborate again and you know how it goes with the world imitating French fashion.”
“Whenever I’ve finished this drawing,” Jane said, “we’ll get down into that basement.”
“Didn’t a whole crime-scene unit go through it?” Kelsey asked.
“Yes, but I think we’re looking for something a crime-scene unit isn’t going to find.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know—but that’s what we do, right? Find what we don’t know we’re looking for,” Jane said, adding, “in a way.”
“Yeah, in a way. We could really use physical evidence against someone, too.”
They reached the office. Chet Morgan and Lamont Atkins were still working in town; Betty greeted them at the desk. Kelsey followed along behind Jane and helped her set the skull on the Franklin plane, take the photographs and do the scanning. Betty came in now and then to see how they were doing. “Wow!” she said, watching Jane work first with the computer and then do her sketch from the overlays. “I’m impressed.”
In fact, Betty was in the room when she’d almost finished. “It’s him, all right. It’s him!” Betty said excitedly.
“Him?” Kelsey asked. “You mean—”
“Red Marston. The man who supposedly helped Sage disappear—and who supposedly ran away to Mexico with her. That was the rumor. So poor Sage was murdered at the theater. And Red was found out in the desert...so sad!”
“Well, it proves our theory,” Jane murmured. “Or part of it.”
Why had he suddenly shown up in the desert to point the way to a newly murdered man?
“It’s brilliant. Your work is really brilliant.” Betty sighed. “If only you were working with the dead people from today—but then we know who they are, don’t we?”
“Unfortunately,” Kelsey said wryly. “That’s not as much of an advantage as you’d hope.”
“I still don’t get why someone would kill a tourist no one knew in Lily,” Betty said. “But Caleb Hough...well, you must be tired of hearing this, but the man didn’t get along with anyone.”
“And, of course, they might have been killed by different people,” Kelsey pointed out.
A phone buzzed in the outer office, and Betty went running out to answer it. She reappeared as Kelsey was helping Jane pack up her personal art supplies and printing copies of Jane’s sketch. “That was Sheriff Sloan. He wants you to know that he and Agent Raintree are still at the Old Jail.”
“Thanks, Betty. Did he ask us to join him there?”
“No, he said to finish whatever you’re doing. He also needs to meet Detective Newsome out at the old mine shaft. But you two just stick with your program,” Betty said. “You’re still busy here?”
“Not really. I have the two-dimensional likeness—enough to know what we wanted to know,” Jane said.
“Lunch,” Kelsey said. “We’re going to go find some food.”
“Well, if you need me at any time, just call,” Betty said.