Dark Deception (Jack Dahlish Book 3) by Tim Rangnow

Author:Tim Rangnow [Rangnow, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vagabond Publishing
Published: 2021-02-04T22:00:00+00:00

16

O llie took down the name of the restaurant in his notebook, while Annie looked up the number on her phone. I wanted to call them right then, to ask about when the waiter had left the night before and if anyone saw another person with him or following him. But Ollie said the detectives would handle that. He didn’t want me giving them a reason to refuse to work with me.

They left soon after, draining the cups of coffee and then walking through my front door. Annie stopped a few steps away, turning to look at me with her eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. “Be careful, Dahlish. Whatever is going on out there, it seems to be getting awful close to you.”

I watched her walk to the patrol car, thinking about how she hadn’t questioned it when Ollie and I were talking about the victims as if they were killed by some unknown thing instead of another person. I’d been afraid that after Ollie got saddled with a rookie, we might have to stop collaborating, but now I wondered if the young woman might not have already started figuring out what was really going on in the world around her.

I locked the door behind me after the patrol car pulled away from the curb, hurrying to my car parked in the drive. My next-door neighbor, an older retired woman who loved gardening so much that she had cultivated my own front yard and turned it into a masterpiece, waved at me. She was bent over a bed of plants that I knew produced beautiful pink and white blossoms around late March.

The first thing I did was plug my phone into the charger. Then I pressed the speed dial button I had set up and backed out of my driveway onto the street. After only two rings, Karen answered. “Jack, thank God. I was starting to worry about you when you didn’t call me back.”

“Sorry, Karen. I was exhausted for some reason last night. Dropped off as soon as I got home and didn’t wake up until late this morning.”

“Did you see Barbara last night?” she asked, her voice hesitant. I wondered if she was hoping I’d say no.

“Yeah, I showed up expecting to meet you and found her instead. I probably should have just left, but I didn’t want to be rude to your sister. We had a short dinner.”

“What did she say, Jack? What did she do?” She sounded almost despairing as she asked the questions. Suddenly, I had a hunch.

“Karen, did you have to move around a lot as kids because your sister kept sleeping with your boyfriends?”

“Oh my God, did she seduce you?”

Whoops. “No! Well, maybe a little, but I think it was more like she was trying to make sure I was really serious about you. She even asked me what my intentions were toward you.”

“What did you say to that?”

“I said I loved you, that I wanted to have you in my life for years to come, and that I would never hurt you.

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