Page 59 of Blood Moon

The cluttered room seemed to grow smaller. Every creature in the swamp seemed to have stopped its industry and was now suspended in motionless, breathless expectancy. From his blanket on the floor, Mutt whined as though sensing a sudden change in the atmosphere that had lifted the hairs of his coat.

John watched Beth’s eyes drift over his facial features as though she were taking stock and cataloguing them one by one. In a husky voice, she said, “Your name came up.”

He raised his eyebrows, letting them speak for him.

“Max said that he regrets missing his opportunity with you.”

“To do what?”

“Talk about your disgruntlement over the investigation. He believes he might have gotten you to open up.”

“He’s delusional.”

“Essentially, that’s what I told him.” She smiled, but it was a small one and so brief that it had barely been there before her lips went lax.

John didn’t smile at all. He was looking at her mouth and thinking about how warmly she had responded to his kiss this morning, wondering if she would be as receptive, or even more so, if he kissed her now.

Looking closely into his eyes, she said softly, “John?”

Optimistically, he leaned in. “Hmm?”

“We have work to do.”

He sat back and sighed, “Yeah.”

She motioned toward his computer. “Any progress so far?”

“While I was at my house this afternoon, I called the police departments in Galveston, Jackson, and Shreveport. I hoped to gain their confidence before Barker had a chance to alert them to my dismissal and tell them that I’m an ex-cop who’s making up fairy tales.

“I started with Detective Morris in Galveston, since I’d already talked to her, and she seemed to have formed a favorable opinion of me. Of course that will change if I wind up in jail.”

“Jail?”

“Barker might file charges, Beth. Avoiding arrest was one reason I wanted to hustle us out of Dodge this morning. Anyhow, unaware of all that, Morris didn’t hesitate to give me the names of the lead detectives for the cases in Jackson and Shreveport.

“The guy in Jackson, Roberts, seemed like a decent guy, devoted cop, said he hated that their young woman is still categorized as missing. No real leads, no remains, no closure. And, by the way, he disapproved of your show’s exploitation of Crissy Mellin’s case.”

“It’s not meant to be exploitative. Rather, empathetic.”

“I can’t debate that until after I’ve seen it.”

“I have the final version on my laptop.”

“Can I take a look?”

“Whenever you want.”

“Later. In the meantime, Roberts agreed to send me his case file. But he warned me not to get too excited. Boiled down, the young woman had no enemies with a reason to kill her, no lovers or ex-lovers.

“Their one person of interest was the short-order cook at the Waffle House where she worked. He had a crush on her, but she didn’t return his romantic interest, which seemed like a motive. But he’d been working an all-nighter and was still on his shift when she was reported missing by her roommate. Her bicycle was found on the side of the road roughly midway between the restaurant and her apartment.”

“What about regulars who would have known her? Or any customer who happened in and liked what he saw?”

“All checked out. Police had seven days’ worth of security camera video. Using car tag numbers and credit card receipts, they were able to track down and question all the people who went in and out of the restaurant that week. Nothing came of any of those interviews.”

“Her bicycle?”

“No sign of a struggle around it. Investigators theorize that she stopped when she was approached by whoever snatched her. If she had any sense of potential danger, it came too late.”