Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [66]
Rachel looked over at Caleb, who simply looked back at her, unperturbed. “Caleb’s tomcatting ways have absolutely nothing to do with me,” she said, not certain who was pissing her off the most.
“There’s no need for anyone to get edgy,” David said with his usual easy charm. “I’m sure we’re just one of many families she’ll be talking to. That’s how police work is done, isn’t it? Patient footwork, talking to dozens and dozens of innocent people until you find the clue that puts it all together.”
“That’s the way it usually works,” Maggie said evenly.
“So tell me, Sheriff,” Caleb said suddenly. “Why don’t you think the murder over in Idaho was committed by the Northwest Strangler?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then why don’t you think our two little murders were committed by the same man?” David asked.
“We haven’t established that the second body found was actually a murder victim. And I wouldn’t exactly call our crimes little. No death is ever small.”
Rachel noticed she didn’t answer that question, but went on as if it had never been asked. “It’s turning out that our Northwest Strangler might not be that localized. There have been similar cases as far away as Portugal and West Africa.”
“Then that leaves our family out,” Stephen Henry said triumphantly. “Except, for perhaps…” His glance strayed toward Caleb, who was listening to all this with no more interest than if he were watching a trial on television.
“Except for me, Maggie,” he said. “I’ve been in Portugal, West Africa, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Russia…you name it, I’ve been there in the last fifteen years or so. Now all you have to do is find similar murders in each country, check my whereabouts at the time and you’ve got your man.”
“That’s not funny,” Rachel snapped.
His smile was oddly sweet. “I don’t know, I can find a certain black humor in it. What is it, Maggie? You want to take me in? I won’t put up a fight.”
“Well, I certainly will,” his father said. “Neither of my sons have a violent bone in their bodies, and—”
“Now that’s definitely not true, S.H.,” Caleb said. “I can hold my own in a bar fight, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. I fight dirty, I’m ruthless, and I can do what I have to to get the job done. Seems to me I’m the perfect candidate for murder.”
“And then there were the dead animals,” Maggie said, her voice even. “I’m not sure that torturing animals is something you just outgrow.”
It hit her so fast she was shocked. Rachel had been sitting there, an unwilling witness to all this, when her stomach suddenly lurched. “Excuse me,” she said, bolting from the room, barely making the bathroom before she was sick.
It seemed to last forever, which, considering how little she’d been eating, didn’t make sense. When she’d finally gotten rid of everything in her stomach she leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes as her breathing slowly returned to normal. No one had ever said a word about tortured animals—the very thought almost had her hurling again. She took calm, shallow breaths as a cold sweat covered her. What the…fuck…had she gotten herself into?
She heard the sound of voices in the hallway outside the powder-room door—Stephen Henry’s sculptured tones, David’s measured ones. She pushed herself up, splashed water on her face and rinsed her mouth out before opening the door.
Her bright smile must have been a little wavery. “You okay?” Maggie asked, and Rachel realized with shock that she was the only one in the room who actually cared. There was too much going on in the tangled mess of the Middleton clan to pay much notice of a married-in stranger.
“Just a touch of the stomach flu,” she said, forcing her voice to sound stronger.
“Yeah, that’s been going around,” Maggie said, covering for her. “Caleb’s taking Stephen Henry home and then coming down to the station. I’m finished with David. He’s been real helpful.”
She couldn’t look at him. Not without thinking about it, not without having to turn around and head straight back into the bathroom. No wonder David had been so adamant