Another reason for still doubting Detry’s innocence was the e-mail she’d gotten a week after his acquittal that said, simply, “I will not forgive you.” She’d had it traced by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s computer division to a nearby library, but they’d never located the person who’d sent it.
And finally, there was Angie’s sister. Detry had gotten involved with a church’s Reach Out to Prisoners program while incarcerated to await trial and claimed to have found God. What he’d also found was her sister, Chloe, who was involved in the ministry. If that had been their only connection, it would have been a coincidence, sure. But not a month after Detry had been found not guilty, he’d tracked down and begun dating Chloe. Out of the blue, Chloe had called Angie up to forgive her for a past wrong and to try to reconcile—because Warren Detry had asked her to.
Angie shivered. She figured Detry was dating Chloe for revenge on her, since she’d refused to back down in court about having seen the presumed murder weapon. The man was evil, and she was not waiting around until he decided he would get his ultimate revenge on her—killing her sister. She was fighting him now with all she had in her.
Gut instinct, that’s how she knew the prints would point to Detry. But Boone didn’t trust instinct or feelings. He dealt in hard evidence. That was fine. She had a fact for him.
“I’ll give you one reason I’m sure about Detry’s guilt,” she told him finally, when they’d come to the outskirts of Copper City and were riding down a highway studded with ranch homes. “The insurance policy on his wife was for half a mil. That always screams husband.”
Boone shook his head. “Not this time.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The insurance broker said the wife was the one who took out the policy, not Detry. He even remembered her saying her husband wasn’t going to like it, but she wanted him to have money to keep up the house if she died.”
“A house he promptly sold after he was acquitted. You don’t think he influenced her at all?” she asked skeptically.
His look said “you know what I think already.”
How exasperating could one man get? “I can’t wait till we get a print match.”
“Me, neither.” He grinned like that would make him the happiest man on earth.
Since she was afraid she would say something that would get Boone talking about the relationship they didn’t have, she concentrated on watching the highway behind them for signs they were being followed. Boone also kept silent, for which she was grateful.
A few minutes later, they passed under the gateway arch at the cemetery and parked in front of a small building toward the front that resembled a homey cottage more than a place of business. Tiny flowers in various shades of pink and red growing in window boxes brightened the front, and a sign that read “Last Stop” in flowing script hung over the door.
Boone and Angie got out and scanned the area around them.
“No cars, no one lurking around the trees,” she observed. “No one followed us, either. We’ve been lucky.”
“It’s too quiet,” Boone said. “Dead quiet.”
“I am not walking down that pun trail,” she told him, swinging her shoulder bag from her side to her hands to dig for her badge and ID.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. Somebody threatened you with death if you don’t forget about the Detry murder, which remains unsolved, with a murderer still out there—”
She opened her mouth to protest, but Boone narrowed his eyes, and she gave up, preferring to pick her battles.
“But there’s not so much as a hint of anything out of place on the trip over, or here.” He shook his head. “Something’s not right.”
“We took your car so no one would spot us. Maybe we’re just doing everything right.”
“Or maybe the danger isn’t who or what you think it is.”
“Boone, please go back to doing funny. I like you better that way.” She found what she needed to prove she was a cop to the caretaker and zipped her bag closed.
“Right. We can joke. Just don’t discuss anything serious, right?”
“You’re not talking about Detry now, are you?” She met him eye to eye and knew she was correct. His grim look was back. That warning, knowing stare that convinced jurors he was right and won court cases—but wouldn’t win her.
Sighing, she started toward the door of the caretaker’s cottage office, not caring if Boone followed or not.
Her cell phone rang before she got halfway up the walk. She slipped her badge and ID inside one pocket of her beige, cropped jacket and grabbed the phone out of the other. Her sister’s number showed in the little window.
Angie’s heart thumped against her chest. This call was not to chat. Chloe didn’t “chat” with her. They were both still too bruised and cautious about their renewed relationship, which was another reason she wasn’t jumping into the middle of her sister’s romance with her gun drawn on Detry. She knew who Chloe would side with.
The phone kept chirping. She turned around to find Boone staring at her curiously. He was still by his Mercedes.
“I have to get this,” she more asked than said.
Boone shrugged his broad shoulders, and she tried to convince herself she didn’t want to hide her face against one now. She never hid from anything, but she did not want to take this call. What on earth was wrong with her?
She was afraid of what Chloe was going to say, that was what.
With a deep breath, she walked well away from Boone to the back of his car, hit a key on the phone and cupped her hand over her mouth to keep her voice from carrying. She hoped.
“Chloe?”
“Ange, yes, it’s me. I have the greatest news, and I just had to call you. I hope that’s okay. You said the other night you would get this week off, right?”
“Right.” She’d called Chloe the night she’d found Cliff dead, unnerved by shock, wanting to make sure her sister was still all right. Maybe she’d also called Chloe because she wanted to hear the voice of someone familiar. It hadn’t comforted her, not when she’d really wanted to be talking to…someone else. She glanced at Boone.
“Chief Gregg gave me over a week of compassionate leave time,” Angie added. To pull herself together, which she would have to do all over again when she attended the funeral tomorrow. Nine days to get over losing a friend. It wouldn’t be enough. She already knew that.
She needed to focus on her sister. Chloe was chatting and gushing. Chloe sounded extremely happy. And given the circumstances of her sister’s life at the moment, that could only mean one thing.
“Warren proposed!” Chloe chirped in her ear. “We’re getting married Saturday.”
Oh, please, Lord, no, was what she thought. “Wow,” was what she said. What else could she say?
“I’m so happy,” Chloe added. “I was going to let you get the invitation in the mail, but Warren said he’d imagine a call would surprise you more.”
Oh, yeah. Angie rested her hips against Boone’s car, her knees threatening mutiny. Detry was a snake coiling around her neck. Tightly.
She couldn’t tell Chloe her suspicions yet. She needed absolute proof to back her up, like that murder weapon, with only Detry’s fingerprints on it. She probably could use more than that—maybe an indicting tidbit from Detry’s past that Boone missed when he ran the man’s background check. And hard as it was for her to accept, she probably needed to ask Boone to let her read his copy of that report. Detry was already making his moves. There was no