Page 14 of The Wolves Come at Night

The other thing was more of a hunch than anything concrete. Based on her extensive experience with entry and exit wounds, it seemed the gun had been fired at least an arm’s length away from his face. Something about that felt…wrong. Taylor had handled her share of suicides, and usually, the gun was held close to the body. It was entirely possible the gun had kicked his arm back—the 40 packed one hell of a punch—but to start that way? Like Justin was taking a selfie, but with a pistol?

But…if he had, it would have taken two hands to hold the gun steady and pull the trigger. He’d have to use his thumb, and the recoil would make the nose of the weapon tip up, possibly missing his face. Perhaps he was trying to shoot himself in the chest and that’s exactly what happened, the gun jerked up and the bullet caught him square in the nose instead of the heart.

Possible. But still, weird.

Don’t borrow trouble, girl. Cut and dried. They were having serious troubles. He killed her, came back home, killed himself. Everything points to murder-suicide, even the witness who saw him after the gunshot. A shame, but logic matters. You just want things to be complicated so you don’t have to go back to that damn desk.

It was Samantha’s voice interrupting her thought process, so ingrained into Taylor’s psyche that she appeared without Taylor summoning her. She argued back as if Sam were standing five feet away.

Why come back home? Why not just shoot himself there?

He freaked out and ran. He knew there were people up there with him.

Logical. Still. Something feels all wrong here.

You’re bored and looking for fun. Wrap it up, sister. Presser’s waiting on you. Family, too.

Marcus joined her under the tent. “Talking to yourself again?”

“What?”

“You stare off into space and your lips move. Like you’re talking with a ghost. You’ve done it for years.”

She laughed. “I was arguing with Sam.”

“Ah. Gotcha. I miss her. You talked to her recently?”

He reached down and snagged a rolling ball of something being pushed into the scene by the breeze, neatly deposited it into a trash bag helpfully provided to ensure they didn’t contaminate the scene with their crap.

“I have. She’s doing well. She and Xander are up in the forest at their cabin, hanging out with Thor. Can you imagine our Sam, camping? Well, glamping—his cabin has a baby grand.”

“Nope. She must really love that guy. And the dog. I never thought she was a dog person.”

“She wasn’t. And she does love Xander, and Thor. They worship her, not surprisingly. They’re a good match. Anyway, I was having a mental fight with her because of two things: the unregistered gun, and the selfie gunshot.”

“Yeah, that’s weird. I mean, we’ve seen that kind of distance when they use their toes to pull the trigger on a shotgun, but yeah, with a handgun? Weird, but I doubt it’s enough to sway a jury one way or another.”

“And what about the fact that he came all the way back home?”

“Guilt got to him.”

“I’m overthinking this?”

“Totally. But I get it. It’s a quick and easy, albeit sad as hell, wrap. You were hoping for more.”

“Not hoping for more. Just…expecting things to spiral out of control, as they are wont to do.”

“You wanna take one more pass through the house before we shut it all down?”

She shook her head. “No. There’s not much else to see, and the journals really do spell it out. Do we have a lead on Osborne’s family? Want to get them notified, and talk about things. Their lives just got complicated.”

“I’ll handle it.”

She nodded, squaring her shoulders. “Okay. Let’s have a quick run at a few of the neighbors, see if we can find the kid’s family, then go give our summary to the cameras.”

It was only later, when she was driving home, that the third discrepancy jumped out at her.

None of the journals in the house were spiral bound. They were all Moleskines, with lay-flat bindings.