Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"Yeah. Maybe. Look, Casey, I have a new murder on my plate and a desk piled with work. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"All right. And I'll do my best to keep the town council from doing anything rash."

"Like firing me? I appreciate that."

"They're scared, Ethan."

"Yeah, I know. We'll talk tomorrow, Casey. Bye."

"Good night, Ethan."

He hung up the phone and for several minutes stared broodingly at the far wall of his office. Nate McCurry. Jesus Christ. Nobody else knew yet — or at least he didn't think anyone did — but Nate was yet another of Hailey's onetime lovers.

Ethan wouldn't have known about it except that Nate had seen him and Hailey leaving a motel out on the highway and had later warned Ethan that Hailey was "nothing but trouble."

Ethan hadn't taken too kindly to the warning.

Still, he'd managed to convince Nate to mind his own business and keep his mouth shut about the business of others, and he hadn't thought much about the other man since.

Until today.

He hadn't yet seen the crime-scene photos, but Justin had reported what he and the photographer uncovered — so to speak. That scarf tied in a way that seemed an obvious intent to mock and humiliate the dead man.

It sounded like something a woman would do.

It sounded like something Hailey would do.

He hadn't intended to fall in love with her. Hadn't wanted to. When it started between them, he had believed what she obviously believed, that it was just sex, just a good time between a couple of people who had known each other for most of their lives and were comfortable together.

His marriage had broken up by then, and Hailey had seemed just what he needed — an undemanding bed partner uninterested in anything else. A bed partner, moreover, who was so skilled and uninhibited that she gave him quite a few heated, mind-blowing memories he knew he'd have for the rest of his life.

Then, somehow, as the weeks passed, he realized he was bothered by her insistence on secrecy. Bothered by the faded scars on her otherwise beautiful body. Bothered by her refusal to talk about her life outside the bed they shared for a few hours every week. Bothered by the look in her eyes whenever he had tried, awkwardly, to ask for more from her than sex.

What bothered him now was the certainty that it had been Hailey who had precipitated that final argument. He had been pushing, trying to get closer to her, and even though the sex had continued to be explosive and she had seemed to at least need that, she had chosen to walk away rather than allow him to deepen the relationship.

It wasn't her style to end a relationship quietly; she preferred or needed drama, needed to be able to control the breakup, as she controlled everything else in her life. Needed to be able to pretend it didn't matter to her.

Ethan wondered if he wasn't pretending himself when he believed it had mattered to her. That he had mattered to her. But he'd been angry and baffled, and it had seemed best then not to protest when she said it was over. Time, he'd thought, they just needed time, she needed time. Time to herself, time without him pushing and prodding. So he'd waited a few weeks.

The scene Nell had "seen" had actually taken place in early February; Ethan hadn't tried to approach Hailey again until nearly the end of March. He had found her chilly and elusive and had told himself he had to be patient.

But only a few weeks later, with nothing settled between them, Hailey had shocked the town by running off with Glen Sabella, a married father of two.

As far as Ethan knew, no one in Silence had seen her since. Except, possibly, five murdered men.

"Is it you, Hailey?" he murmured. "Are you doing this? And if you are… why haven't you come after me?"

Nell poured what must have been her third cup of coffee from the pot on the dining room table, then leaned back and thought absently that the formal dining room of this old house had certainly never before hosted a gathering like this one.

Two FBI agents, a cop-turned-private investigator-turned-cop-again, a rancher with a political science degree, and a photographer who looked more like afashion model.

None of them quite what they appeared to be.

And all of them wary — except for Shelby, of course.

"Anybody else want the last of the sesame chicken?" Shelby waited for the others to shake their heads, then drew the paper carton toward her and dug in happily. "Now I wish we'd brought some of those sugary pastries as well," she told Justin.

"Where do you put it all?" he asked, mildly fascinated.

"I burn, I don't store. Calories, I mean." She waved her chopsticks in Nell's general direction. "Hey, I meant to ask earlier how you knew Justin was one of the good guys. Psychic stuff?"

Nell smiled faintly. "We ran background checks on everybody in the sheriff's department, of course. Justin stood out initially because he hadn't been here very long, because he'd moved here from Atlanta, and because he had no family here. Plus, shifting from cop to private investigator and back to cop again definitely seemed… interesting."

"I thought I'd covered that base," Justin murmured.

"You nearly did," Nell assured him. "But we dig deeper than prospective employers — which is why we found the private investigator's license when Ethan Cole didn't."

"So how'd you know he was working for Max?" Shelby asked.

"When we checked more closely, we found that he and Max had been roommates in college. Also that Max had called him several times just before Justin moved to Silence, yet the two of them were never seen together publicly once Justin lived here. So it just made sense."

"In our world, anyway," Galen murmured, sipping his coffee.

"I think it's all fascinating," Shelby said unnecessarily. "I mean, I know it's a murder investigation and that men are dead, but finding out about all this stuff that's been going on behind the scenes is definitely fascinating."

"But is it helpful?" Nell reached out and tapped a file folder lying on the table. "You and Justin didn't find anything suspicious in these birth records at all?"

"Nothing that looked suspicious to us. Maybe Ethan will find something."

Justin said, "I didn't tell him I made copies of the copies or that I was bringing a set here tonight. Matter of fact, I didn't tell him I was coming here at all. He thinks I'm at home."

Since he sounded slightly guilty, Nell said, "It's more important for Ethan to go over those birth records than to be here listening to a rehash of information. So far, we have nothing new to tell him, at least not in the way of solid evidence or a new lead. Besides which, finding out how the birth records come into it would just put him off. He's had about all he can take of psychic abilities, at least for now."

Max stirred slightly and said to Nell, "I know you went to the courthouse a few days ago. Was that when you found a reason to believe the records might be important?"

She nodded. "Being here to settle my family's estate gave me a good reason to go there at least once, but I wasn't really looking for anything to help investigate the murders. Then, while I was there, I got a quick image of George Caldwell, and I knew he'd found something he hadn't expected to find while he was looking through old parish birth records. I couldn't tell what it was, but I felt sure it was what got him killed."

Justin was watching her steadily. "And you still believe Hailey could be the killer?"

Nell answered carefully, just as she always did when faced with that question. "I believe Hailey is a common denominator in the first three murders. So far, I haven't heard of any connection with George Caldwell, but since I believe he was killed for a different reason, I don't expect to find one."