Page 63 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

EIGHT

“What’s happened?” I ask, my face growing hot.

“It’s Fogerty,” Dalton says. “He got attacked.”

“By who? He was with you.”

He whirls his hand around urgently, motioning for me to exit. “Let’s get you back to the front office and I’ll fill you in there. The walls have ears.”

I follow him out, sticking close to his side. The walk into the heart of the jail set me on edge, but this…this makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Part of me halfway expects a shank-wielding prisoner to jump out at us from every door we pass.

I quietly exhale a relieved breath once we reach the front without incident.

The room is abuzz, with the desk clerk on the phone and correctional officers scooting in and out.

An interior window along one wall provides a view into the jail administrator’s office.

Tommy is standing behind his desk, red-faced and flinging his arms in and out, giving the poor officer standing in front of his desk a dressing-down that looks physically painful.

Dalton directs me to a chair beside a desk in the bullpen. I sit and stare him down. “Okay, what happened?”

“We got rushed by a couple of guys who broke free from the ruckus in the common room,” he says, taking the desk chair. “Didn’t touch me, but had a good go at Fogerty. He’s pretty beat up. I’m betting broken ribs, concussion?—”

“Where is he now?”

“Ambulance. On the way to Huntsville General.”

I sigh and rub my face. “Is he talking?”

“Won’t shut up, though it was just cursing by the time the EMTs took him.”

“I wasn’t done interviewing him. It’s important.”

“Yeah, I figured. We all know about the body they found this morning.”

Tommy’s shouting reaches a new decibel level and I toss a glance in his direction. “You think he’ll let me come back and finish what I started?”

Dalton shrugs. “You can ask him, but Fogerty might not come back today. Could be an overnight stay.”

I don’t like the idea of Fogerty having so long to think about things before we talk again. I want to catch him off guard, play him against his own bravado. Now he can plan. And I’ll have to come back a second time to do something I didn’t want to do in the first place.

Of course, the upside is that, by then, we might have an ID on the victim.

A jolt of realization bolts through me. “Could I have my phone back?”

Dalton calls to the clerk and when she glances over, he points at me, then makes a cell phone gesture. She shoves a hand into the box where they store the phones, pulls mine out—I guess it was the only one because she didn’t ask what it looks like—and walks it over.

“Thanks,” I say. Over my screensaver photo of James and Bilbo playing in the snow on a rare winter-weather day, is a notification that I’ve received a message from Goat. When I open it, a balloon expands in my chest.

GOT HER. CHECK YOUR EMAIL.