Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [38]
“Has anyone notified the Fleming police?”
“I called them on my way here. God knows I had plenty of time. Honestly, could you have found a house farther out than this?”
“There was a time when you liked my little bungalow in the woods.” He turned his attention to pouring coffee into two mugs that had souvenir of nags head, n.c. in faded blue paint on the front and a pair of equally faded pelicans on the back.
“It has a lot of promise, I’ll give you that. But I’ll bet those narrow roads up the side of those hills are hell in the winter.”
“Guess I’ll find out over the next few months,” he said, handing her a mug.
“Guess you will.” She opened a cupboard and surveyed the contents. “No artificial sweeteners?”
“Sorry. Only the real thing. Sugar’s in the bowl on the counter.”
She opted for milk only, stirring it as she spoke. “Anyway, Fleming sent a patrol car to the Lowell trailer. If he’s there, we’re going to have to consider the possibility that it wasn’t him. I should be hearing from them soon.”
“It’s not impossible to drive from Telford, Ohio, to Fleming, Pennsylvania, between midnight and eight or nine in the morning.” He dumped a teaspoon of sugar into his mug and stirred it thoughtfully. “But would you really expect to find him there? You think he’d be dumb enough to go right back home?”
“Do I think he’s dumb enough to shoot someone we expected him to shoot, and then go right back home where we can find him? Two words, Fletcher. Archer Lowell.”
“So you think he’s home.”
“It’s a starting place. Where else would he go?”
“On to victim number two?” Will asked.
“I suppose that is a possibility,” she conceded. “It would sure help if we knew who that was going to be.”
“It would help, too, to know how Archer’s getting around. We know he doesn’t have a car, he can’t rent without a license, and I don’t think he’s smart enough to steal a car. So he’s either gotten a friend to drive him—unlikely, that would require some explanation—or he took public transportation.” Will paused, mentally picking through the possibilities. “My guess would be a bus. A train would be faster, but it’s also more expensive, and as far as we know, Archer has no source of income.”
“You might be on to something.” She set her coffee down on the counter and rummaged in her bag for her phone. “I’m going to call Veronica Carson back and ask her to check the nearest train and bus terminals in and around Fleming. But that’s a little crazy, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t that like taking a bus to your prom?”
She punched in the numbers, and, while she waited, Will opened the back door and stepped outside onto the small porch he’d rebuilt over the summer. It had rained overnight, and the birdbath the previous owner had left in the yard overflowed water onto the slate patio, the construction of which had followed the porch. There were two chairs and a small table. The patio was too narrow to accommodate anything else.
The air was thick with autumn, the sky dark with leftover storm clouds. Crows screamed at one another in the trees at the back of Will’s property. Will stood on the bottom step and felt a little like screaming himself.
Having Miranda in his house, sitting at the kitchen table in the morning once again, had unsettled him. He thought he’d done a damn fine job of hiding it, but now, out of her presence, he was having a tough time holding the memories at bay. He’d meant it when he’d told her she was the total package. Her physical beauty was only part of it. When he was with her, it was easy to forget he’d ever been with another woman. And God knew it had been a while since he had. Miranda just had that effect on him. She’d taken his breath away the first time he’d seen her standing in the door of John Mancini’s office on the day she’d reported for work. She still took his breath away. He thought he’d become accustomed to it—to that punch he felt in his gut when he looked at her, when he remembered their time together.
Apparently he was wrong.
The scent of wet earth took him