Comes The Dark Part 19

Maris shook her head. "No." This was why Dan wanted to be here. To keep her from infuriating this man.

Jamie poised his finger above the record b.u.t.ton. "May I?"

"Sure."

"Interview of Maris Granger, commencing at"-he glanced at his watch-"one-nineteen on September twenty-eight. Detective Jamie Rogers conducting interview."

He spent the next half hour expounding on the questions Dan had asked her previously, using the notes Dan had scratched on the yellow legal pad for reference. She repeated the information she had given to Dan, but he dug for details. Maris took her time replying, making certain she didn't phrase responses as questions, and maintained her calm. Several times she reached to her ear to caress the feather in an attempt to maintain her equilibrium.

"Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Mess with that earring of yours?"

"It's a dove feather. I find it keeps me calm."

"And do you need to keep calm? What is it you actually want to be? Angry? Defensive?"

Maris shifted in her seat. "I want to stay calm, that's all. I don't want to be resentful of your questions. I want to remain understanding of your duty. I don't want to think about someone killing my aunt because that upsets me. I want to be able to answer your questions as concisely and completely as possible in order to a.s.sist your investigation. Okay?"

He grunted what she a.s.sumed was meant to be an affirmative. "Let's return to the stop you made on your way from your home to Alcina Cove. Are you familiar at all with the route you took?"

"Not really. I haven't come back this way in a very long time."

"But perhaps you've visited other towns off the main route and so might be familiar with certain areas."

Maris looked down at a folded map he was pulling from a folder and back up at him. "What, exactly, do you want to ask me?"

"You say you stopped for gas and paid cash, but you don't recall the name of the station and have not yet produced the receipt you told Dan-Detective Stauffer-you would. So let's open this map here and see if you can point out the approximate location of your stop. When you left your house, how much gas did you have in the tank?"

"Why is this so important?" There she went again, answering a question with another.

"To prove you arrived in town when you said you did. We know the approximate time of your aunt's death. Being able to prove definitively the impossibility of your being in town then would clear you of being the physical perpetrator. Understood?"

"Yes, I understand by your wording that it wouldn't clear me of being in possible cahoots with somebody, though. Am I right in a.s.suming that's what you're trying to skirt around?"

"Dan talks too much."

"No, he doesn't. But you, sir, most certainly do."

Jamie's hand shot out to cover the mic. "Don't you dare tell me you can hear what I'm thinking right now."

"I can't. But I can read your intent loud and clear."

He uncovered the microphone end of the machine and resumed spreading the map across the table. "Gas. How much did you have?"

"About a quarter tank."

"Myself, I like to start a trip with a full tank."

"So do I, but I was in a hurry."

"Yes, Detective Stauffer mentioned that. A dream, was it?"

"It was."

"Right." He spun the map around and planted his finger at a point on the far edge. "What kind of mileage do you get?"

"I don't know exactly. Thirty-four, thirty-five miles to the gallon on the open road?"

"And what size tank?"

"Twelve gallons."

"Was the tank on empty when you stopped?"

"I'm not an idiot. I wouldn't take a risk like that in the middle of the night."

He bit back an exclamation. She really was trying his patience. Dan had warned her not to. She took a deep breath. "I think it was on the last line. It's a digital meter."

"Okay, so you'd driven about seventy miles or so. And this was the road you were traveling?"

Maris leaned over the table, looking where he pointed. She nodded.

"Seventy miles puts you about here." He sat back, pulling out his phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Doing a search for gas stations in that vicinity. Most have security cameras these days if we need to check them out." He reached over and clicked off the recorder. "I'll compile a list, and you can let me know if any sound familiar. You might want to head home-well, not home, obviously. To Dan's. You look tired."

"What happened to bad cop-bad cop?"

He tore his gaze from his cell phone. "Don't you mean good cop-bad cop?"

"You're the only one in here, so..."

He jerked his chin toward the door. "I'll be in touch soon. It would be a h.e.l.l of lot easier if you could find the receipt for your gas that night."

"Got it. I'll look."

"You mean you haven't already?"

"I'll look again. You have any information on the intruder in Dan's house?"

"Not yet."

"Did you put the sketch of the guy in the hospital in the paper?"

He lowered his phone to the tabletop. "Not yet."

Maris rose and went to the door. She grasped the k.n.o.b. "Because you think it all comes down to a connection with me."

Jamie cleared his throat. "I didn't say that."

Maris returned his look of false innocence with one of challenge. "You didn't need to."

Chapter 19.

Maris sat on Felicia's back deck, eyes closed, face lifted to the sun. Dan had dropped her off there and returned to work.

"How are you feeling?"

Maris cracked a peek at Felicia approaching across the weathered boards. "Like a criminal."

"I meant physically." She handed Maris a gla.s.s of tea.

"Tired. Still a bit disoriented. I tend to blank on the ability to tell time more than anything else. Isn't that odd, that your brain would pick out one thing to cast away?"

"I'm sure it'll come back. The doctor didn't say any of the damage was permanent, did he?"

"He said as long as I gave the old noggin plenty of rest, it would heal. You know what's odd? The day I was. .h.i.t is like a shattered mosaic of memories. That, he said, might never fall back into place."

Felicia made a small noise of commiseration. "Which might not be such a bad thing, right?"

Except it was. With all that Jamie believed and Dan's certainty that the man in the hospital might be the one who had been driving the car, if she could remember, she would at least be able to put that mystery to rest. And the gas receipt. She needed to find the blasted receipt for the tank of gas, or at least remember the name of the place where she'd filled the car up.

"You're frowning, Maris. Are you in pain?"

"I'm good. Thinking about things, that's all."

"Well stop. You're not supposed to be doing that, are you?"

"It's pretty darned hard to stop thought altogether. Impossible, really, short of...well, you know. And I'm not there. I survived being struck and count myself d.a.m.ned lucky."

Maris heard the ice clinking in Felicia's gla.s.s as she drank, then the b.u.mp of the base on the arm of the chair. "I'm aware we don't know each other very well, but I'd like to ask you something personal."

Maris grinned. "Fire away. I've become the queen of premature intimacy."

"Ah, well, I guess I don't need to ask the question then. I was going to ask about you and Dan..."

"Dan and me is one of the scariest things in my life. And one of the best. And I don't know what the h.e.l.l I'm supposed to do about it."

"Right, then. Want a shot of something in that tea? It'll be dinner time soon."

"Can't. Doctor's orders."

She thought of what else she'd been doing against doctor's orders, none of which involved the brain. Good thing, because she didn't possess the fort.i.tude to turn Dan down.

"Working late?"

Dan looked up from the circle of light illuminating papers on his desk to find Sally at his door, peering in at him with a too bright smile.

"What are you doing here at this hour?" he asked, perhaps a little brusquely.

Her smile faded. "Overtime. Could use the money, so I'm not complaining. I thought, um, maybe you'd like to get a drink with me?"

"A drink." She had to be the only person in the entire station who didn't know about him and Maris at this point. Or maybe she did and didn't care. "I have a lot of work to catch up on, but thanks."

She started to back away but returned. "She's trouble. She's no good for you. Everyone knows that. She's got your head turned around backward."

"Sally, you need to leave my office now."

She stepped right inside and took the chair Maris had the night that had begun the transformation of his life. Sally leaned forward, hands together between her knees in a way that caused her arms to push her b.r.e.a.s.t.s together and out, the cloth of her blouse stretched tight across them. A couple of weeks ago, he would have viewed the invitation as his due. What an a.s.s he had been.

"You told one of the guys I was pretty."

Dan dropped his pen to his desk and lowered the monitor on his laptop. No need for her to view what he was working on. "I did. I also said you were young. Too young for me."

"I'm twenty-two. Almost twenty-three."

"And I'm thirty-six. In an unfortunate set of circ.u.mstances, I could be your father."

"Unfortunate? What they h.e.l.l do you mean by that?"

"Nothing against you. I meant fathering a child at thirteen-or however that works out age-wise-though not impossible, would have been an unfortunate event. You're too young for me, Sally. Period. And I'm involved."

"Involved. Is that what you call it? That's not what the guys are saying."

Dan swiveled his chair. "I don't care what they're saying."

"You should." She stood. "You really should if you care about your job at all."

Dan turned back to his desk. "Have a good night, Sally. Please shut the door on your way out."

She did, with a slam that made his right ear ring. He picked up his cell and called Maris. He pressed the phone to his left ear, listening for her voice.

"Dan." A sultry simple greeting that rushed blood into places not requiring it at the moment.