Chapter Three

Agent Mark Gallagher stood still, taking in the room as a whole, memorizing the layout, waiting for anything that immediately seemed out of place to catch his attention. Nothing did except the large dark stain on the carpet. But he'd expected that. The woman who'd died here had not experienced a peaceful death.

No, there had been fear and suffering and finally death, though a quiet one, as the arrow that had been driven through her throat had cut off her air and the scream he was sure had been trapped within. He'd seen the crime scene photos. The woman was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and white cotton underwear—presumably what she'd worn to sleep in—and her eyes were open in horror. Judging by the thrown-back covers, she'd been halfway between the bed and the window—she'd attempted to run but hadn't gotten very far.

Of course, she hadn't had much of a chance. Killing with a bow and arrow didn't require close proximity. That was kind of the point, wasn't it? The killer hadn't had to move much farther than the doorway, where he'd entered by picking the flimsy lock while the woman slept.

Mark opened a dresser drawer. Nothing. She had a duffel bag holding several items of clothing, and there was toothpaste on the sink, but it appeared she hadn't intended on a long trip. Or the woman didn't own much.

There was a stack of books on the nightstand, and Mark picked up the one on top. The Giver . He placed it aside and looked at the next three: Ender's Game, The Maze Runner , and The Lightning Thief. Mark's brows lowered. He didn't know anything about the victim, but the titles seemed like odd choices for an adult woman the ME had estimated to be in her mid- to late thirties. Mark recognized them as books geared toward young adults.

Mark spotted something on the spine of The Giver , and upon closer inspection, it appeared that a sticker had been there but had been peeled off recently. Some of the remaining glue was still sticky. A price tag? Although…the books on the nightstand were well used. Maybe they'd come from a used bookstore. He inspected the other books and found visible traces of glue and small pieces of yellow sticker on the spines of those ones as well. Huh. So they'd probably all come from the same place. Somewhere in town that might remember this woman? He opened the book covers one by one and saw that the first page of each one had been torn out. Weird. They could very well be books the woman had owned for years, old favorites she'd brought along to reread. Still…they felt out of place, and that nagged at him. He snapped a couple of quick pictures of the pile of books on the nightstand.

"Sir? Agent Gallagher?" The woman standing in the doorway wringing a dish towel in her hands was small and thin, in her late sixties he estimated, with a blond bob that ended at her jaw. She was wearing an apron, a smear of something bright red on the skirt. In the midst of a bloody crime scene, the vision was decidedly unsettling.

He smiled. "Mrs. Wilcox?"

The woman he knew to be the owner of the Larkspur Bed & Breakfast/Restaurant nodded, glancing nervously around the room and then taking a step back. He led her into the hallway and closed the door behind him. "Terrible what happened here."

She bobbed her head, swallowing, her hands still wringing the towel. "Oh, I can hardly sleep for thinking about it. Right under my own roof too." She grimaced. "Do they know anything about that poor woman yet?"

"Not yet, ma'am. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about her that might have stood out to you?"

She looked to the side and frowned in concentration. "Mostly the fact that she was staying here at all. We don't get many guests in the winter. We only have the three rooms. The restaurant is our main business through all the seasons, but especially the cold ones. We get the occasional person passing through town who needs a place to stay for the night or someone visiting relatives who wants a space of their own, but it's rare. So I was surprised when she rang the bell last Wednesday and said she wanted to rent a room for the week."

He jotted that down in the notebook he kept in his jacket pocket. A week.

"She didn't mention she was visiting anyone then?"

"No, and I asked. ‘What brings you to Helena Springs?' I'd said. She got this faraway look on her face and then told me she was here to try to right a wrong. Well, I didn't know exactly what to say to that, but she changed the subject anyway, asking about the restaurant hours."

Here to right a wrong. Mark wrote that down as well, tapping the pen on the pad for a second before he asked, "She paid in cash?"

"She did. I asked for ID, of course, per protocol, but she told me her wallet had been stolen recently, so she didn't have any. Well, not having ID made me hesitate to rent the room to her, but she was paying up front, and it was so very cold out. It wouldn't have been Christian of me to send her back out into that weather with nowhere else to stay in town."

"Of course. I understand." Mark gave Mrs. Wilcox a pleasant smile, which she returned, her shoulders dropping as if she was worried he'd disapprove of her lack of following protocol. "Did you happen to see if someone dropped her off?" There hadn't been a vehicle left in the parking lot, which meant the woman had either walked or been driven by someone else.

"No. I didn't even hear her come in. I was watching a show when I heard the bell ring at the front desk. Took me completely by surprise," Mrs. Wilcox said.

"What can you tell me about that night?"

Mrs. Wilcox had ceased wringing the towel, but at the reference to that night , she started up again. Mark wondered if it would tear in half. "I heard yelling," she whispered, glancing back down the hall over Mark's shoulder as if someone might suddenly appear and overhear her say something she shouldn't. "I couldn't hear everything, but I did hear him yell, ‘How could you? How could you? You ruined everything.'"

"And it was definitely a man's voice?"

"Oh yes. No mistaking that. I thought about coming up here. Guests aren't allowed to have other people stay in their room without paying for double occupancy, you know? And there was the fighting… That was concerning. But then the yelling stopped, and I decided to address it in the morning." She frowned, shaking her head. "I did the wrong thing, didn't I?"

"No, ma'am. It's understandable. There's no way you could have known it was anything more than a couple's spat."

"Nothing like this has ever happened in Helena Springs." Her hands stopped working the towel as she leaned forward. "There have been accidents where people lost their lives. The Ward family comes to mind, of course." She pursed her lips and shook her head. "That poor girl, Harper, losing both her parents that way. Well," she said, drawing her shoulders back and seeming to catch herself talking of things she hadn't been asked about. Mark was used to that, though. It was a thing people did—they looked to fill the silence, so he made sure to leave plenty of it available. Because often, that uninhibited chatter contained useful information. Having worked the job for almost thirty years, he'd learned to wait, listen, and store information away, just in case.

He handed Mrs. Wilcox his card. "If you think of anything else, anything at all—no detail is too small—give me a call."

She took his card, slipping it into the pocket of her apron and nodding. "I absolutely will." She began to turn. "I'd better get back to those pies. I bake when I'm nervous. It helps—" She waved her hand around. "Anyway, Agent Gallagher, I'll call if I think of anything."

He tipped his head. "Thank you, ma'am."

She gave him a nervous smile and then turned, heading back toward the stairs to the kitchen where he could smell the sweet and tart aroma of cherry pie baking.

Laurie used to make cherry pie—the crust woven together like a basket so the little spaces in between bubbled red and gooey when the pie was hot. That smell made him yearn, made the empty spots inside him throb with the reminder of what had been. He shook it off, concentrating on things he'd jotted in his notebook, turning his mind back to the two murdered people deserving of justice.

He needed to get to that second scene. He wanted to look at it as soon as possible after examining the first—see if something about them seemed familiar in a way he might not recognize if the timing was further apart. Tomorrow morning wouldn't be good enough. He'd told Laurie he'd be home for dinner, but she'd understand that with a new job, he had to give it his all. Not that he'd do less regardless. It wasn't in his nature to half-ass anything, never had been. Although he wondered distantly if he was doing everything he could where his marriage was concerned. He pushed those thoughts aside for the moment. That would take time. He hoped. God, he hoped.

It felt like he'd been hoping for a long time. Too long maybe.

As he walked to his truck, snow was falling again, the icy air burning his skin. The sky was gray and low, as though at any moment it might descend lower and crush everyone beneath it. It made him feel depressed and claustrophobic. Jesus, how did these people survive months and months of this? He guessed he'd know soon enough, but he already missed the endless blue California sky.

The sheriff had told him he had a local girl in mind who knew the terrain well. Good, because he'd need her. His knowledge about wilderness could fill a shot glass. And him trekking around alone in the snow sounded extremely unpleasant and mostly pointless.

After he'd slid inside his SUV, turned the ignition, and started blasting the heat, he checked the name he'd jotted in his notebook. Harper Ward. I thought so. It was the same girl Mrs. Wilcox had mentioned. That poor girl, Harper, losing both her parents that way. The sheriff had told him her father had been the previous sheriff in Helena Springs, and a guilty look had flashed in the man's eyes that Mark didn't have enough information to understand. He wondered what it meant and figured he could find out easily enough if he wanted to—there was always someone—or twenty someones—willing to talk about their neighbors in a small town. But he'd rather keep his focus on what was important to his case and solve this crime— crimes— before anyone else in this small town got hurt.

Or killed.