Page 29 of Shadowed Witness (The Secrets of Kincaid #2)

Eric strode into the morgue early the next morning. Starting his day with witnessing a set of autopsies wasn’t at the top of his list of favorite things. But maybe it would shake something loose regarding John Doe’s and Ashley Harrison’s cases.

Maybe. Maybe not. If they were correct about their John Doe being one and the same with the victim behind Allye’s studio, then the examination might not reveal much new information. But the confirmation would be helpful, even if it only established that the estimated time of death matched.

He expected the same would be the case with Ashley’s—providing confirmation of his current theory rather than new information to run with.

Unfortunately, the most helpful information on Ms. Harrison’s cause of death would likely be found in the toxicology report, which could take weeks to get through the state labs and back to him.

It would probably be in a race for last place with the other results he was waiting for.

Sometimes he hated how the system worked.

Several hours later, he was on his way back to the police station.

As he’d thought, the autopsies had revealed little new information.

He’d get the official report, minus the toxicology results, within a few days.

But the ME had verbally confirmed that the physical examinations did indicate that John Doe had been beaten to death and Ashley Harrison had overdosed.

Now he just needed to find the responsible parties. And Dion. He still hadn’t been able to find a trace of him. Yesterday he’d made another round of calls to the boy’s friends. As before, they claimed not to have any idea where he might be.

He was tempted to go back to Kincaid Lake and comb the park for him.

He’d do it in a heartbeat if there was any indication that’s where the teen had gone, but there was none.

Still, he had put the park service on alert.

They now had Dion’s photo and would detain him if he was spotted.

For the moment, he’d have to rely on them doing their jobs while he did his.

As he neared the station, his thoughts turned to his last conversation with Allye.

He didn’t like the thought of the mayor being wrapped up in something shady, but he had a responsibility to investigate.

He’d left a message for Moore after leaving her house last night.

He was half hoping the man would admit to having run his mouth to someone.

That might be enough to explain things and put their minds at ease, but he had no idea if Moore would ignore his calls while on his California vacation.

They might have to wait for that answer until he returned next week.

Eric could just outright ask the mayor how he knew.

If he had somehow come across the information innocently, he could set their minds at ease with a simple explanation.

But if he was guilty of something, he’d just lie.

And Mayor Jennings was cool under pressure.

That quality had served him well during his political career, but it could make it a lot more difficult for Eric to detect deceit.

Plus, if he was somehow involved with whatever this was, a confrontation would tip him off that they suspected him.

An incoming call disrupted his thoughts as he pulled into a parking space. The display showed Moore’s number. He quickly punched the button to answer. “Thornton.”

“It’s Moore. Sorry I’m just getting back to you. Forgot my phone in the hotel last night, and it was dead when I got back. Didn’t turn it back on until this morning.”

“No need to apologize. I’m the one interrupting your vacation, and I’m sorry about that. I’ll try to keep this quick. Did you tell anyone about the incident at Allye Jessup’s home the other night?”

Moore snorted. “Is that what we’re calling it? No, I didn’t. I put it in my report—which I sent to you like you asked—but that’s it.”

“No one at the station? Even Darla?” he clarified.

“Nope. I had to pack and get to the airport. Didn’t have time to talk.”

“Okay. That’s what I needed to know. Thanks for returning my call.”

“Sure thing. What’s this about?”

No way he was going into that with Moore. If the mayor was innocent, then he didn’t want to malign him to another officer—especially one who liked to gab. If he wasn’t, then he certainly didn’t want to take a chance on something being said that might tip him off.

“It may tie in with something I’m investigating,” he hedged.

“You think something actually happened there?” Moore sounded incredulous.

“I do. But I’m not sure what.” Time to end this conversation. “Thanks again for calling me back. I’ll let you get back to your vacation.”

“Glad to help.”

Eric ended the call and stared at the brick building he worked out of.

So Moore wasn’t responsible for spilling the beans. That left Eric and Allye, and neither of them had told anyone. Yes, Eric and Moore had included Allye’s statement about the green glow when they filed their reports, but he doubted anyone had read them yet. Sure, the chief could have, but—

The chief. He was the mayor’s uncle—although with the large age gap between Chief McHenry and the mayor’s mother, the two men were pretty close in age. They had grown up more like cousins than uncle and nephew.

That could explain things. Or severely complicate them.

Mayor Jennings could have asked the chief for the details about Allye’s situation.

As mayor, he technically was Chief McHenry’s boss, and he had a right to be apprised of what was going on in their investigations.

Chief could have pulled all the reports, not just the one from the first night, and then mentioned that detail to him. No harm, no foul.

But if Jennings didn’t believe a crime had been committed as he claimed, why would he have asked for the information?

Perhaps he’d only been curious if Eric had uncovered anything new since his interview.

Or, considering his relationship with Allye’s mom, he could have followed up out of concern.

Either possibility was reasonable. But like Allye said, knowledge of the green glow couldn’t easily be divorced from knowledge of the break-in.

So why had Jennings acted as if the break-in was news to him?

Eric could only think of one plausible answer. The man knew more than he was telling. Which meant that he was probably up to his eyebrows in whatever was going on.

A heaviness settled on Eric’s chest. He’d wanted to believe Mayor Jennings was innocent. Everyone who knew the man respected him, even his political enemies. The man was practically a shoo-in for state senate, and he could do a lot of good there. But if he had criminal ties...

And what about Chief McHenry? Eric sure didn’t want to believe his boss was anything but the epitome of integrity, but he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t consider the possibility.

The chief and the mayor had been close growing up and were still good friends on top of their familial ties.

Even if he didn’t know what Jennings was possibly involved in, would he allow Eric free rein to investigate?

He would need to tread even more carefully now.

Until he was sure that the chief hadn’t been compromised, he’d have to be extremely cautious about what he told him and what he included in his reports.

ALLYE SHIFTED in the semi-comfortable seat at her follow-up appointment to discuss the MRI results.

She’d spent the morning and early afternoon organizing her items for her festival booth—making sure everything that was finished had been safely boxed for transport and that she had the necessary pricing labels printed and sorted into the correct boxes for easy setup.

She’d hoped focusing her energy on that needed task would alleviate her nerves as she anticipated this appointment. It had helped. A little.

But now that she was here, they’d returned full force. Her hands trembled, and she considered sitting on them as the pause between pleasantries and getting down to business stretched a little too long. God, I meant it when I said I trust you no matter what.

Finally, the doctor turned from her computer screen and back to Allye. “Well, there’s no sign of demyelination,” she announced.

The term sounded vaguely familiar from her aunt’s experience or maybe from her previous visit, but she couldn’t place its significance. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember what that means,” she admitted.

“Essentially it’s damage to the myelin layer protecting your nerve fibers. A definitive MS diagnosis generally requires evidence of that damage.”

“So the results mean . . . ?”

“While there’s still the slightest chance you could have MS, it’s very unlikely.”

Allye blinked. She’d wanted to believe it wasn’t MS, but she hadn’t allowed herself to hope too much. She studied the doctor’s face. She wasn’t smiling. “What’s wrong? This is a good thing, right?”

“Of course. But you still have unexplained symptoms—serious symptoms. With the MRI, we also checked for tumors.”

Allye caught her breath.

“We didn’t find any,” the doctor hurried to assure her. “But sometimes, they aren’t easy to spot.”

Allye took a moment to digest that. The possibility of a tumor hadn’t occurred to her. Was that any worse than MS? Maybe. At least she might have some chance against a tumor.

“So what’s next?”

The doctor slipped off her glasses. “Although these results indicate it is very unlikely you have MS, I think it would still be wise to do a spinal tap to further rule it out. But in the meantime, we’ll run other tests as well.”

Great. “Looking for what exactly?”

“I won’t lie to you. There are many things that could be causing your symptoms. With your family history, we focused on that when normally we would have eliminated some of the other possibilities first. Now we’ll be backtracking.

” She tapped on her keyboard. “I’ve put in the referral order for the spinal tap.

When you leave, we’ll give you the phone number to schedule that.

I also want to go ahead and do more blood work. ”

“If the spinal tap doesn’t show anything, what other kinds of things will we be testing for? I’d like to know what I could be up against.”

The doctor sighed. “We’ll be checking for Lyme disease regardless because it can also cause the spinal tap to come back with a positive result.

If the test is negative, we’ll still do further tests for Lyme, but with this other blood work, we’ll also look into the possibility of certain vitamin and mineral deficiencies, as well as test for a handful of autoimmune and other inflammatory conditions. ”

Allye struggled to focus. She’d never dreamed there were so many other things that could be causing her symptoms. Of course, she’d simply assumed the diagnosis would be MS.

When the doctor asked if she had any other questions, she shook her head.

Later, she would likely have a whole list of them, but she needed to let everything sink in first. For now, she had enough info to go on—hopefully, she’d remember the important things or be able to find them in her doctor’s notes online.

Once she was back in her car, she rested her head on the steering wheel.

She needed a few minutes to think and pray before beginning the long drive home.

Without lifting her head, she murmured, “Well, God, it looks like this isn’t finished yet.

I still don’t know what the future holds or what’s going on, but I’m grateful it probably isn’t MS. Thank you for that. ”

She knew—more from the doctor’s tone than her words—that there could still be something just as bad or worse going on, but she couldn’t deny her relief. A bit of her burden had lifted.

This deserved a celebration. And she knew exactly what she’d like to do. She started her car and backed out of her parking space. First order of business would be getting back to Kincaid before rush-hour traffic hit.