Page 103 of Forever Dark
Selena stood beside the building and stared at the old concrete by her shoes.
She had been wrong before in her career.Every investigator had.But wrong in the early stages was one thing.Wrong after the arrest, after the chase, after all that certainty she had worn like armor, was something else.
But something else was going on inside of her.She could feel it.Harlan County had been making its way back into her mind and bones with each passing hour.She was carrying regret.Carrying unresolved memories.She knew she needed to step back for a few hours, put it all into perspective.A proper sleep sure would help.Only then could she serve the case as it needed.
The door opened behind her.
Connor stepped out, letting it shut quietly at his back.
He took one look at her and lost the remark he had probably been about to make.
“You okay?”
Selena almost laughed at the uselessness of the question.
Instead, she folded her arms and looked out across the lot.“I had him.”
Connor did not answer right away.
“I was sure,” she said.“Every road led back to him.”
“Every road led back to the revival.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he said.“It isn’t, and we should be mindful of that.”Connor stood next to her, the wind ruffling his green sheriff’s coat.
She turned then, finally looking at him.“No.It’s him.It’s got to be.He used you.”
Connor’s brow furrowed.“What?”
“He saw you out there.At the fairgrounds.He saw your vehicle.He kept it in reserve until I pressed on Tara.”The words came faster now, harsher.“He sat in there and waited until the exact second it would do the most damage.”
Connor absorbed that without flinching.“I’m sorry if he saw me.But that doesn’t clear him or someone under him.”
“It clears him for one murder because we became inadvertent witnesses.The others then don’t follow.”
“I’ve got that warrant to get hold of the revival’s employee data,” Connor said.“They’re handing the data over to us, but they’re dragging their heels.That lawyer is slowing it down as much as possible.They say it’ll take a day or two because they’re having problems with their cloud storage.Bullshit.”
“It’s something at least,” she said.“But if it’s Elias who’s behind this, then it won’t tell us much.”
“You don’t know it’s Croft; we can’t prejudice ourselves.”
Selena gave him a sour look.“Since when did you become the voice of reason?”
“Maybe you should get some sleep.You can’t have gotten much last night during the stakeout.”
Selena rubbed at the bridge of her nose with two fingers.Sleep deprivation had sharpened everything ugly and dulled everything useful.She hated that he could see it.Hated more that there was no hiding it.
“How were the people in that car on the road?”she asked.
“No major injuries,” he said.“Thankfully.I just took their statements, and the bus driver’s.The bus driver is being kept in custody.Croft won’t be though.”
“I don’t know where we go with this at the moment,” Selena said, annoyed that she’d voiced it out loud.She felt that made her weak.And weakness was something Selena had tried to fight ever since leaving Harlan County fifteen years ago.
Connor took a step closer, but not too close.“Then we pivot to something else.”
Her head came up.“To what?”
