Page 68 of Buried Too Deep

“Hey, Minnie. How are you this morning?”

“I’m fine,” Minnie said. “But I thought you were working from home.”

“I needed my laptop.”

“And the woman?” Minnie pointed to Val.

“She’s an old friend, here for a visit.” Cora hated to lie, but Minnie already knew too much of her business. She’d been in the library the day the detectives from Terrebonne Parish had shown up with news about her father.

Minnie was not discreet. Now everyone in the library knew that Cora’s father’s body was the John Doe dug up in the Damper Building down in Houma. Some of them might have realized it by seeing Jack Elliot’s face on the news, but most wouldn’t have as their last names were different.

Minnie frowned. “I’m glad you’re working from home. You had another reporter here this morning. He was waiting in the parking lot this morning. Said you’d made a breakfast date with him. I told him that you’d taken a day off, and he left. I wrote down his license plate, just in case.” She pulled a yellow Post-it note from her pocket. “He was driving a black Camry. Brand-new.”

Cora sighed. Reporters had been a problem over the past two weeks. If it was a reporter. What if it was one of them? Whoever had been after her? That Patrick had seen a van in her driveway had rattled her soundly. “What did he look like?”

“Young. Handsome. Familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I’ve been shooing reporters away since those detectives showed up here two weeks ago. Anyway, you be careful. I didn’t like the look of him.”

Val took the Post-it note. “I’ll make sure Cora gets this after I’ve taken her home. Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome.” Minnie frowned at Val. “And your name?”

“Ingrid,” Val said.

Cora wasn’t sure whether to be appalled or impressed with Val’s ability to lie.

Val grabbed Cora’s handbag and cell phone. “Let’s roll, Cora Jane.”

Val ushered them to the car, her steps quick, her gaze everywhere. Cora looked around, relieved that no black Camry lurked. Nor a white panel van. Or a van that might have been white or cream or gray or just dirty. The parking lot held the same two cars as when they’d arrived.

Val seemed tense, so maybe she was also worried that the Camry driver wasn’t a reporter. “If I say duck, you get your head down,” she said as she drove them onto the main road.

“I will.” That it could even be necessary was surreal. “Why did you tell Minnie you were Ingrid?” she asked to take her mind off the potential threat.

Val chuckled. “That’s my given name. Val’s a nickname, more or less.”

“I like Val better.”

“So do I. Only my family calls me Ingrid.”

Cora’s mind was still spinning, still worrying about the Camry. She hated this. Hated being afraid. Hated not being in control.

Then do something productive. It was how she’d coped when John Robert was so sick. Searching for a marrow donor had helped her stay sane.

But what could she do? She was a librarian, dammit. Not a bodyguard or a PI.

But you do find out things. Do your job, Cora.

This mess had started when her father’s body had been discovered. Jack Elliot was the key. And he’d bought .30-30 ammo in Twin Falls, Idaho, just weeks before he’d disappeared. Rifle bullets.

Why? What had he been doing?

She opened a browser page on her phone and typed Twin Falls Idaho Oct 1 .30-30 along with the year he’d died. She hit enter, paged through the results, then froze, staring at her screen.

“What the hell?” she whispered. She clicked on the link and gasped.

Val glanced over at her. “What?”

“I googled those bullets my father bought and got an article. ‘Local Man Found Dead, Victim of Hunting Accident.’ ”

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