Page 24 of So Dark

“I don’t know yet. I think he’s a strong suspect, but I’m not ready to close the investigation. I’m just trying to look at this thing from all angles.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just frustrating.”

“It always is.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, oh great sage, for your wisdom. I’m only saying that I don’t believe that Garrett’s the person Quint says he is. Maybe he does all of that charity workQuint talked about, but plenty of murderers did charity work. Hell, John Wayne Gacy was a clown at a children’s hospital.”

“Plenty of murderers do charity work and plenty of good people are assholes.” She raised an eyebrow, and he clarified. “More or less good people. Once again, I’m not saying we stop investigating him, “I’m just defending my earlier assertion that we shouldn’t put all of our investigative eggs in this one basket.”

Faith sighed. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“So what do you want to do?”

Faith sighed. “We should have PD watch them. You were right before. We need to be the brains and let them do the legwork.”

“In your defense, I agreed with your decision to do the legwork ourselves. So we both fucked up.”

She glared at him. “You are shit at comforting people, you know that?”

“And yet, you still come to me with your problems.”

That thought hit her powerfully. “Yeah. I do.”

They pulled onto the highway and regained cell signal. Faith called Wyatt. “I need you to put a tail on two people in Glennallen.”

“Who’s that?”

“Garrett Pines and his friend, Quint… damn it. I didn’t get a last name for Quint. He’s a heavyset man in his mid-fifties. Wears a cowboy hat. Both of them are armed and should be considered dangerous.”

“Everyone’s armed and dangerous out here,” Wyatt replied. He didn’t put any emotion behind that statement. It was just a statement. “All right. I’ll put tails on them. Won’t be too hard to figure out who Quint is in a town as small as Glennallen. Do you think they’re responsible for the murders?”

Faith looked at Michael. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of the two of them working together. “It’s possible.Garrett was involved in a legal dispute with the two victims that worked out not in his favor a few months ago. Quint was very vocal and earnest in his defense of Garrett, so it’s clear the two of them are close.”

“I see. Very well, I’ll get some officers up there. Good work, you two.”

It didn’t really mean anything in a practical sense to here an Anchorage cop tell them that, but Faith still glowed at the praise. Maybe the locals didn’t hate them after all.

“We don’t have enough to make an arrest at the moment,” Faith told him, “but Michael and I are going to brainstorm tonight and see if we can come up with anything else that’ll help us know where to go from here.”

“I’m sure you’ll have what you need soon enough. Stay safe, okay?”

“You too.”

She hung up, and Michael said, “Wow. He went from annoyed local cop to protective older gentleman in three seconds flat.”

She batted her eyelashes at him. “What can I say? Men want to protect me.”

“Men want to protect themselves from you,” he corrected. “If they know what’s good for them.”

She looked out the windshield at the cone of light the truck projected onto the highway. “Was it that bad being with me?”

“What? Where did that come from?”

“Nothing. Nevermind. I think I just need some more coffee.”

“I second that motion.”

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