Page 88 of Last Girls Alive

“A long time.”

“Then why are you worrying about whether or not I should take care of you?”

Katie pulled up the blanket, suddenly feeling a chill. It was more of a reaction from anxious energy and not the temperature in the room. “Things seem heavy, burdensome in my life right now and I don’t want to bring you down or make you feel less appreciated… because…”

“You love me?” he finished, giving her that wide-eyed playful expression that she grew up with—she always found it difficult to resist.

“Of course. More than you know.”

“This is nice, right? And don’t you want every day to be like this—together?”

“Yes,” she began, and knew where he was going with his narrative. “It’s wonderful, but we both have fairly hectic schedules right now.” Katie knew that the next logical step would be more of a commitment, but there was no way she could make such a huge decision like that right now.

Thirty-Seven

Tuesday 0810 hours

The early morning rain caused Katie to run a little bit late. She hurried from the car to the sheriff’s building trying to stay as dry as possible. Her thoughts weren’t far from Chad. He didn’t ask her to marry him, but he was hinting at something. His restlessness about their relationship was showing and even though Katie had no doubt that he loved her, he wasn’t going to wait forever.

What do I say?

Once inside the building, she shook off the raindrops, wiped her feet, hurried down the corridor and was about to run her security pass card when the door burst open and McGaven charged out.

“What’s going on?” she said, taken aback that her partner almost knocked her off her feet.

“Saw you on the security cameras,” he said, almost breathless. “Just got a call from the sheriff and Detective Hamilton; patrol brought Bob Bramble in last night.”

“The contractor?” she said, accessing her memory for the day of the crime scene at Elm Hill.

“Yep. You’ll never guess what for?”

“Murder?”

“No, it was a routine traffic stop and they found something interesting in his car.”

“Just tell me,” she said, teetering on her last nerve.

“They found three things: a roll of twine, a large bag of old-fashioned ink pens, and… a lock of brown human hair with a pink ribbon attached. And a small amount of cocaine.”

Katie’s jaw hit the floor.

“When the deputy asked him what all this was, he said something casual about the twine and pens for his daughter’s art project, but he finally confessed that he took the lock of brown hair at the Harlan crime scene before we got here.”

Katie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What?”

“I know—you heard me.”

“Where is he now?”

“He was in jail last night but they are bringing him up to one of the interview rooms for us to talk to him.”

“Okay,” she said. “What about a search warrant at his house and office?”

“They’re already on that, but they left the interrogation up to your discretion.”

“Let me put my briefcase away and dry off a bit first.”

Katie and McGaven rushed into the detective division to find a commotion underway. Several detectives were speaking loudly to a civilian making the area feel busy and claustrophobic. Jennifer, the office assistant, intercepted them at the door and said, “Detective Hamilton told me to tell you that the suspect is in interview room 4. This is for you,” she said, giving Katie a file.