He moved beside her, holding his tongue on his thoughts about Agnes, and instead pleaded, “I know you couldn’t care less about me, but what you said about Quinten is true. He isn’t guilty and we really need answers to try and get him a retrial, at the very least, before it’s too late. Please help us.” You old bat. He grinned.
Agnes flushed and gazed around the pharmacy. No one else was present, but he did catch her son lurking in the drug dispensing area. Alex had a vague recollection of Paul and remembered him being away at school around the same time that Saige had been. Paul always used to be in the pharmacy whenever he would go in, messing with one thing or another. As a boy, Paul could never be still, but that seemed to have changed as he watched Alex and Saige with his mother.
“I’m not sure how you think I can help. I told the sheriff back then that I hadn’t seen anyone with Saige, or Quinten lurking around. I mean, of course I’d see Quinten in town.” She waved her hands around and became flustered. “I’d see him grocery shopping or, on occasion, going inside the bar. I didn’t see him all that often with Jocelyn. She tended to go off on her own, if you know what I mean.”
Alex glanced at Saige and knew that she held the answers they sought, but, for now, her memories were locked away. He could see that Saige was trying to remember. Her hand went to her forehead and rubbed.
“What about strangers? Did you see any around town before I disappeared?” Saige asked Agnes.
He didn’t think it was a stranger. It was someone who knew her, and he had a feeling that it was someone who knew Quinten as well. But the big question was who?
“You know we get a lot of tourists through here, so yes, there would have been a lot of strangers. Perhaps”—she looked at Alex and then quickly back to Saige—“the, um, person who took you hadn’t even been into town.” Agnes shrugged. “I honestly didn’t see anyone looking suspicious. I liked Quinten. He was a good man who was trying to build something for himself. If I’d known something, I’d have told the sheriff or that handsome detective, but I didn’t know anything.”
Agnes caught sight of her son in the background and appeared as startled as he did. Paul tried to disappear and in the process of trying to escape their attention, he knocked a tub of pills to the floor. They fell and scattered like Skittles.
Both Alex and Saige jumped slightly at the noise and watched as Paul quickly tried to get them back inside the tub while his mother fussed around him. “We’ll need to order more. We can’t use them now.” Paul gathered them all up and dropped them into the tub he righted. “What a waste. Be more careful,” Agnes berated, and if Alex had blinked, he would have missed the look of hate that crossed Paul’s features.
Paul had always been a bit strange but they always considered him harmless. Now, though, Alex wondered about him and his interest in their discussion and wondered about the look he’d thrown toward his mother.
Alex caught the tail end of the conversation as Saige wrapped up with Agnes, which wasn’t much.
“I promise,” Agnes smiled, disappearing into the back of the store.
Saige slid her arm into his and tugged him outside where she let out a deep sigh. “God, I get the creeps just being in the same room with him.”
“I’m presuming you mean Paul?”
“Yeah.” She shook her head, and said, “Forget that for now. What do you think? Does she really not know anything?”
“I missed the last bit, but she was always the best liar in town.” He wiped the sweat from his brow and frowned. “He looks familiar.” Alex pointed toward a man who was just climbing out of a black Lincoln Navigator.
“Detective Coulter Robinson,” Saige supplied. “He said he might show up around here.”
News to him.
Alex followed Saige as she moved toward the rumpled looking detective.
It had been years since he’d seen the man but now that he drew closer, Alex would recognize him anywhere. Whenever they used to talk, the detective would have a pissed off expression, which he more or less had when he climbed out of the Navigator, until he caught sight of Saige that was.
* * *
3:00pm
* * *
“Detective,” Saige greeted.
Coulter Robinson smiled and took her offered hand, but found he couldn’t hold back the frown when he saw Alex Peterson over her shoulder.
He never truly had a problem with the man, and knew that Alex’s anger had stemmed from all the evidence piling up against Quinten. Alex had never once doubted his brother’s innocence, and now, Coulter started to realize that perhaps he should have listened. Coulter still felt annoyed that no one had bothered to tell him about Saige’s relationship with Quinten. Whether or not it would have made any difference, he didn’t know. He’d been kicking himself in the ass since Saige had told him.
While he was in town, he planned on talking to the sheriff about Quinten. He couldn’t help wonder if Sheriff Hodges knew and had decided to keep it quiet as well. After all, it had been Hodges who had taken Saige’s statement while she’d been in the hospital.