Page 94 of Forever Dead

“Does that mean anything to you?”

Connor’s stomach tightened. “Yeah,” he said. “Unfortunately, it does.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Connor took the bends more carefully than Selena expected.

She sat angled slightly toward the passenger door, her injured wrist resting across her lap and her bad leg extended as far as the footwell allowed. The morning had started with stiffness in both injuries, and the drive from the motel had made the ache in her knee settle deeper.

“Thanks for driving me,” Selena said. “My wrist and knee are a bit sore now.”

Connor kept his attention on the road. “No worries. Blethan would probably chew my face off for letting you drive around town, though I know that won’t stop you.”

“He’d try,” Selena said.

“He’s really not that bad once you get to know him. His bark is worse than his bite.”

Selena smiled faintly and shifted the wrist. Fields opened beyond the trees on either side of the county road, the grass dull beneath a high gray sky. Halloween decorations had spread farther into the rural properties overnight. Plastic skeletons hung from porch railings. A scarecrow with a carved pumpkin head stood beside one mailbox, leaning toward the road as though waiting for a ride.

“Arnold and Chuck left yet?” she asked.

“About twenty minutes ago,” Connor said.

“For Patricia Vanes’s family?”

Connor nodded. “Her parents are in Cumberland. Divorced. Her mother remarried. Chuck’s talking to the mother, Arnold’s going to the father.”

“Anyone other relatives?” Selena asked.

“She has a younger brother in Lexington. We’ll get someone local to speak to him if we need to.”

Selena watched a line of black cattle move along a fence. “That’s going to be a hard knock on a door.”

“Yeah,” Connor said.

“Did Tanya get any further with Patricia’s work history?”

“She confirmed those agency shifts at the psychiatric facility Curtis was discharged from. Still nothing showing they actually met. Cheryl’s checking state licensing records and local hospitals to find her current employer.”

“So Halle stays in the frame.”

“For now,” Connor said. “A shared building isn’t a relationship.”

That was sensible. Selena resisted the urge to pull out her phone and start doing the same work herself. Connor had agreed to involve her. Testing that agreement before they reached their first interview would be childish.

A few minutes passed before Connor said, “How did your movie with Eric go?”

Selena turned toward him.

“What movie?”

“The one you were meant to watch.”

“I didn’t watch one,” Selena said.

Connor’s grip shifted slightly on the steering wheel. “Thought you had plans.”

“I canceled.”