Page 80 of Pretty Broken Dolls

What else had been kept from them?

Dark clouds moved in from the north and were in typical rain-cloud clusters, ready to spring a leak at any moment. It was common this time of year, before spring laid out its beautiful colors and warmer weather across the landscape. Even the rolling valleys and mountain wooded areas changed and brightened with spring.

Was it all just a game?

Every day she woke up and didn’t feel doom looming over her was a great day. But these investigations were increasingly taxing and the anxious fear wormed its way into Katie’s psyche, stirring the deep-seated trauma she had suffered and triggering the sneaky symptoms of PTSD.

Katie gripped the steering wheel and concentrated on the strength of the engine performing every time she pushed the accelerator. It gave her comfort and focus on the here and now, instead of what might be. In her mind she challenged herself:Go ahead, weak arms, shaky fingers, and weird dizziness; I’m not afraid of you.

“How do you want to approach Campbell?” asked McGaven. His voice was calm but there was a hint of concern to it.

“I want the truth.”

“Okay.”

“That’s all I ever want when I’m working a case—the truth.”

“There’s some diplomacy needed here, Katie. I know you’re upset, but we need to be smart about this. Maybe confronting him like a stampede isn’t the best way to get what you want.”

“You realize that it’s likely he might have sent us into a trap initially at Jeanine’s house? I suspect that the missing page on Mrs. Caldwell about her mental illness was deliberately left out of our files.”

“You can’t say that for sure,” he said.

“It’s possible, right?”

“Maybe, but the smart way to handle this is to maneuver, not lash out.”

Katie thought about what he’d said. “You’re saying that we need be smarter to weed out the lies and get to the truth.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Katie breathed slowly, feeling the oxygen fill her lungs and then leave her body. She felt a layer of relaxation calm her nerves and begin to soothe her anger.

“Let me know your plan,” said McGaven.

“We’re going to Agent Campbell’s room at the Hobson Inn & Suites.”

“And?”

“And…I know you’re right, but I’m still mad. How are we supposed to solve a case when information is conveniently left out? Who does that? This is the third time we’ve found something missing.”

They were a few minutes away from the motel.

“It’s like we have a mystery within a mystery,” she said. “I don’t know why Uncle Wayne approved this arrangement.”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“I know he has his reasons. He wouldn’t give his okay if he thought there was anything hinky about it. If there’s one thing I know about our sheriff is that he is by the book—he told me so on the weekend. No exceptions.”

“Would that include having his niece head up the crime scene unit with little experience?”

“Do you always have to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make sense all the time and call me out.”

“That’s what partners are for.”