Page 75 of Obsession

“Sam brought the brownies.” She turned to him. “Coffee?”

“I’ll get it.”

As they enjoyed dessert, the conversation veered to Jack’s job as chief nursing officer at Merit Hospital. Once the coffee was gone and talk had dwindled, Emma picked up Sam’s plate.

“I’ll do this,” he said. “And you can let your dad look at your hand.”

He cleared the table and stacked the dishes beside the dishwasher while Jack and Emma moved to the sofa, where Jack unwrapped the bandage around her hand.

“Is there anything I can wear besides this clunky wrap?” she asked, flexing her fingers.

“Maybe. I talked to Gordon, and he approved this,” Jack said, taking a box from the supplies he’d brought in. “But only if you promise not to pick up anything. Or drive.”

She narrowed her eyes. “When can I drive?”

“Didn’t Gordon tell you ten days?” Sam said from the kitchen.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Emma said.

“It depends on what the X-rays show when you go back to see Gordon,” her dad said. He removed a brace from the box and put it on her hand.

“That’s much better,” Emma said. “At least I can wiggle my fingers.”

“Just remember what I said about lifting,” her dad said, then he turned to Sam. “Emma said you received the private investigator’s report. Mind if I look at it?”

Sam handed him the envelope. “Let’s move to the table where we can spread out.”

Once they were seated around the table again, Sam removed the two reports. For the next few minutes, the only sound in the room was that of pages turning. While they read the reports, he scanned the newspaper clippings. Mary Jo’s body had been found at the bottom of a cliff at Loess Bluff by coon hunters, and the articles left no question that everyone suspected Ryan of the murder. Sam took out his phone and googled the distance from Loess Bluff to Mount Locust. Three miles. Interesting.

The next article was an interview with Sheriff Carter where he was quoted saying that it appeared the Selby girl was running from someone and they struggled and she fell, hitting her head. Then he went on to point out that Ryan Winters, a person of interest, had gone missing. Carter might as well have put out a Be On the Look Out alert. Sam looked up as Jack laid the report on the table.

“I didn’t remember Bell’s report being this thorough,” Jack said. “Do you have Sheriff Carter’s file on Ryan’s disappearance?”

Sam handed him the sheriff’s report. Jack grew very quiet as he read the report and then handed it to Emma. “Looks like he didn’t go to much trouble looking for Ryan,” he said. “There’s no mention that he even put his information into NamUS.”

Emma’s dad must have been conducting his own research to know about the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. “I’m not certain NamUS was that well known when Ryan went missing,” Sam said. “And from what I’ve learned since I’ve returned to Natchez, Carter was lazy.”

“It always looked to me like hewantedto pin Mary Jo Selby’s murder on Ryan. My question is why?” The older man stared at the reports spread out on the table. Sam could almost see his thoughts churning, then Jack raised his head. “But before we get into that, I’m getting the feeling you’re not telling me something. So, let’s hear it.”

41

This was the very thing Emma had feared. She glanced at Sam. He looked as though he wanted to be anywhere other than her living room.

“We all knew Ryan,” Sam said. “He wasn’t capable of killing anyone, and especially not Mary Jo.”

“You’re not answering my question.” Her dad tilted his head. “But maybe you did. You said ‘knew’ Ryan, as in past tense.” He looked from Sam to his daughter. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

She should have known her dad would figure it out. “We don’t know for sure,” Emma said. “The dig at Mount Locust. We believe a body was buried there.”

Her dad crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve been digging there for three days. Either a body was there or it wasn’t.”

“Originally we weren’t sure,” Sam said, “and then someone stole whatever had been in the ground.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish,” Emma said. “We continued the excavation and found one bone. The thief must have dropped it when he carted off the rest of the body.”

“Was that all you found?”

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