Page 46 of Vanishing Point
Vi opened the door, greeted the inspector and managed a smile as she invited her in. But as Inspector Kay passed, Vi couldn’t help but stare.
The inspector had a black eye. Oh, it was covered up with makeup, but Vi knew the telltale signs.
Inspector Kay smiled ruefully, gestured at her eye. “Occupational hazard.”
Which means it had happened at work, and shehadsaid she was questioning Eric. To Vi, the only logical leap was: “Did Eric do that?”
For a moment, the inspector stood totally still, looking at her with wide eyes. “What?” she said, sounding strange…guilty.
Well, the inspectorhadsaid that thing aboutlettingEric hit her. Maybe this was her first time suffering from a physical assault. Maybe she had the same shame coursing through her that Vi had once had.
“When you questioned him?” Vi offered, trying to sound soft and kind and understanding. All the things she wished she’d been brave enough to ask for. “Did he hit you?”
“Oh.” Dianne lifted a hand to her eye, let out a weird, breathy laugh. “No. He tried to, though. In the scuffle, I got an accidental elbow to the eye from someone trying to restrain him.” She shrugged it away. “It happens. But you’ll be happy to know, Mr. Carter is under arrest.”
“Arrest.” The breath simply whooshed out of her and she thought her knees might buckle.
The inspector nodded, heading for the table where they’d had their first meeting. Vi trailed after her, trying to absorb those words.
Arrested.Arrested.“In Virginia?”
The inspector put a bag on the table. “I just have a few questions for you, Ms. Reynolds, and then you maybe never have to see me again.” She smiled brightly at Vi, but Vi couldn’t quite take her gaze off the puffiness around the woman’s eye.
“But what did you arrest him for?” Vi asked, walking over to the table, but unable to get herself to sit. “How long will he be in jail? Will there be a trial? I have so many questions.”
“Of course you do.” The inspector gestured at the chair across from her.
Finally, Vi forced herself to sit. Breathe. Even if she didn’t have all the details, it was good. It was… “Are you certain? That he’s been arrested? That he’s in jail?”
Inspector Kay studied her intently. “Let’s focus on the questionsIneed answered first. Does the name Elgie Doyle mean anything to you?”
Vi didn’t know how she was supposed to focus when the inspector wouldn’t answer a very basic question, but she searched the recesses of her brain for any way that name sounded familiar. She came up empty. “No. Should it?”
The inspector tapped something on her watch, then her gaze turned to Vi. Something about it made Vi…want to run.
Don’t be ridiculous and paranoid.
“Not necessarily,” Inspector Kay said. “What about the name Burton Slade?”
Nowthatone… It rang some vague bells. “A friend of Eric’s, right? But he moved to…” Vi trailed off. Texas. She remembered going to the little farewell party the precinct had thrown him.
For a moment, Vi couldn’t catch her breath.
“It’s very good of you to want to be so cooperative. It’s a shame you recognize the name,” the inspector said. Kind tone and smile still in place.
“A shame?”
“Yes, because now we’ll have to do this the hard way.” Still with that kind smile in place, Inspector Kay pulled a gun out of her bag.
And pointed it right at Vi.
Chapter Thirteen
Thomas hated defense attorneys on agoodday, and the day Allen Scott tried to weasel out of a clear-cut domestic battery case wasnota good day. “I hate that guy,” Thomas muttered as he walked out of the courthouse for a lunch break.
“He’s just doing his job,” Laurel offered. The prosecutor wanted her on the stand over a previous case she’d been involved with that tied Scott to the victim.
“You won’t be saying that this afternoon when you’re up there and he’s trying to trip you up on what can beprovenon body cam footage.”
