Page 15 of Fatal Deception
She looked up, exhaustion written into every down-turned line on her face. “I suppose you didn’t have to come all this way.” She dumped a pile of glass in the dustpan into a paper bag.
“I’ll be investigating the case,” he replied. “I’ll need access to your doorbell cam.”
“I already looked. You can’t see anything.”
“I’ll still need it.”
She shrugged, then swept another pile of glass into the dustpan. She wasn’t crying or shaking or reacting in any of the ways he might have expected. She was just methodically cleaning up the mess.
It left him…unsettled. Unsure how to proceed. If he didn’t have to comfort or bully, what the hell was he supposed to do?
Your job. “I’m going to look into it, obviously, in connection with everything else that’s been going on.”
She nodded. Another dustpan full of glass going into the bag.
“I’ll read over the deputies’ report and the statement you gave to them, but if you think of anything else besides what you told them or me, you let me know.”
She nodded again. Swept methodically.
He didn’t know what to say. What to do. And that pissed him off. He jammed his hands in his pockets, trying not to let his irritation leak out.
“I’ll talk to neighbors tomorrow. Anyone who might have noticed something off. An out-of-state vehicle. Someone lurking around.”
“That’s a waste of your time.”
“Nothing is a waste of time in an investigation.”
She shrugged, as if she didn’t agree with him. Whenhewas the expert. Temper licked against old, softer instincts he’d thought had long since withered away and died. Which didn’t help with his increasing frustration.
“You won’t want to stay here tonight.”
“I’m afraid I have to. By the time I get this mess cleaned up, the windows boarded, it’ll be time for me to get my morning chores done. Don’t worry, I’ll carry my gun and keep an eye out.”
“Audra, you can’t stay here.”
“I can’tnotstay here,” she returned with a snap in her tone. “I don’t have that luxury.” She dumped another dustpan full of glass, and he realized just how slow going her cleaning process was going to be.
But she was being unreasonable. She couldn’tstayin a house that had just been shot up when they didn’t even have one lead on a suspect. Telling her what to do wasn’t going to get through to her. He should have known that even before he started.
Audra Young required a softer approach because she was a softer kind of woman. So Copeland tried to find that kind of approach inside him.
“You have every right to be scared,” he said, pleased with how calm and comforting he sounded. “Every right to be upset, but you have to think about this rationally.”
“Scared?Upset?I’m furious!” As if to prove it, she tossed the broom onto the floor with a loud clatter. “Do you know how much this is going to cost me? Do you know how much time and effort andmoneyit’s going to take to replace these windows and—”
“Someone shot at you and you’re worried about thecost?” It was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
“They shot my windows out, Copeland. If they wanted to shootme, I’d be dead.”
He saw it then. The first flicker of it fully hitting her what had happened, what kind of danger she’d been in. She’d used anger to deflect it, but now her hand shook before she balled it into a fist.
And she looked so damn desolate again he just…couldn’t stand there. He crossed to her, took her by the elbow. The urge to soothe was painful, and reminded him of his much younger self, so he shoved it away and nudged her not exactly gently onto her couch.
“Do you know how much a new window costs?” she demanded, but her eyes were starting to get suspiciously shiny. “Hell, the lumber to even nail it up against the cold. I might have enough in the barn, but that’s a might. And my truck…” She shook her head, then dropped it to her hands. “What the hell is happening?”
He knew how to respond to this, even if knowing her meant he felt more sympathy than he should. “We’re going to figure it out. They were bound to have left some evidence behind.” He said it because he believed it. Had to. “We’ll find it. Tie it all together. We’ll figure it out.”
“How much more am I going to lose before you do?”