Page 72 of Forever Dead

Selena headed for the door before her knee could betray her again.

The corridor felt longer on the way back.

Cheryl glanced up as Selena passed the front desk but said nothing.

Outside, the last light had almost gone from the sky. Selena crossed the parking lot slowly. Her spirits seemed to sink with every step. At the car, she turned back toward the sheriff's department. Light filled the windows of the briefing room.

She wanted to be inside.

Not sneaking through the door. Not passing information through Arnold. Not pretending she was only saying hello.

Working.

The case had already gotten under her skin. Eleanor's broken door. The cut phone line. The chair smashed over her body. Curtis Halle might fit pieces of it, but Selena could not make herself believe the whole thing ended with one disgruntled former student.

There was more here.

She could feel it.

Selena opened the driver's door and lowered herself into the seat. Her knee protested as she pulled it inside.

The motel was where she should go.

She started the engine.

Then she sat with both hands on the wheel.

One more stop. One place she knew she had to go but dreaded.

After that, she would go back.

Selena put the car into gear and pulled out of the sheriff's department lot.

CHAPTER TEN

Night had settled properly by the time Selena left the last houses of Elmsview behind.

The road narrowed between fields silvered by moonlight. October had thinned the trees along the verges, leaving dark branches exposed above drifts of leaves. Beyond them, pasture rolled toward low hills, broken by fences and the occasional barn. The moon sat high enough to throw a pale wash across the open ground, and every few miles Selena passed a farmhouse with one or two windows glowing against the dark.

Her knee had stiffened since leaving the sheriff’s office.

Driving again had seemed like progress when she first started that evening. The joint ached whenever she moved between accelerator and brake, but the leg still responded cleanly when she needed it. Pain was manageable. Losing control of the pedals would not have been.

The radio murmured beneath the engine.

A familiar voice made Selena turn it up.

"You're saying this happened three nights in a row?"

Art Corbell sounded older than she remembered, but the smoky voice was still unmistakable.

Hidden Mysteries.

Selena smiled despite herself.

Her parents had listened to the program when she was growing up. Friday nights, usually. Her father would sit at the kitchen table with a mug of tea while her mother pretended she wasn't interested, then become the first person to argue with whichever caller was describing lights in the sky, strange creatures in the woods or voices coming through an unplugged radio.

Selena and Diane had been allowed to stay up late when there was no school the next morning.