Page 28 of The Witch's Orchard
I hate to break up this fifth-grade staring contest with Jacobs but someone’s got to do it. I blink, shift a step back, lean against Honey’s front fender, cross my arms over my chest.
I take a deep breath and say, “I told Max Andrews that by now, all this time later, it’s unlikely I’ll turn up any new leads, that the only thing I might find is a lot of frustrated, angry people with hurt feelings and old suspicions about those kidnappings.”
Sheriff Jacobs opens his mouth to say something else, but I keep on going. “I told him all that but he didn’t care. People can get pretty emotional when it comes to family, can’t they?”
Jacobs lets out a breath. He says, “Kathleen told you all she’s gonna say. You got no right to talk to Olivia without her say-so and she says no. That girl’s been through enough.”
“Sure,” I say.
He narrows his eyes at me and then turns to Hard Fat and says, “Keep an eye on her, AJ.”
Then he stalks off, swings open the door to Shiloh’s, goes inside. It’s hard to make waltzing into a bakery look edgy and badass, but Jacobs just about manages it. Hard Fat, actually apparently AJ, shrugs his great big shoulders and says, “Where you staying, ma’am?”
His voice is smooth, gentle, very country. I suppress a sneaky grin.
I’ve always had a soft spot for corn-fed country boys who call every woman over the age of twenty “ma’am.”
“Max Andrews’s cabin.”
He nods.
“I live right down the lane from there. I’ve known Max since he was little.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Back before everything happened, I was his scout troop mentor,” AJ says.
I bark out a laugh, “That tracks. You look like you’ve been in uniform your whole life.”
“Can’t deny it,” he says with a chuckle. He has a soft smile and a gentle laugh and I feel like being the Sheriff’s Deputy of Quartz Creek, North Carolina, is both the best and the worst possible job for him.
“I’ve tried to keep an eye on him through the years. He mentioned a few months back he was finally going to hire a PI. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Even though I’m already stepping on your toes?”
“Sheriff Jacobs can be protective of Kathleen and her daughters. You understand.”
“Yep.”
“Look, Max may only be eighteen, and eighteen-year-olds can be pretty difficult, but he’s a good kid. And I consider him a friend.”
He pulls out a genuine cop notebook, just like in the movies, and writes down his number, rips out the page, hands it to me. I slip it into my pocket.
“If you need anything,” he says, “let me know. I want to help if I can.”
“Sure.”
“And try to steer clear of Sheriff Jacobs.”
NINE
MY NEXT STOP ISthe church Jessica Hoyle was taken from. Quartz Creek First Baptist is a mostly brick building with a white roof and steeple. The wet, gravel parking lot looks like it would fit more than fifty cars but there’s only one sitting there when I pull in, a late-model gray Buick Regal.
“All right, Honey,” I say. “Let’s see what the local holy rollers have to say about these girls.”
I turn the key, get out, and walk toward the church, passing a tasteful cream and burgundy sign advertising the annual First Baptist Fall Festival in a couple of days.
I head up the front steps, through the huge front door, and into the hunter green–carpeted foyer. Padding into the sanctuary, I look past the pews toward the empty pulpit. The ceilings are high but not beamed and the windows are plain glass that look out to the parking lot and empty playground on one side and a tree-dotted meadow—mostly apples, oaks, and elms—on the other. Nothing to distract from the Lord’s word, I guess. Certainly not interesting architecture.
