Victim by Gayle Wilson

Author:Gayle Wilson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-23T01:46:15+00:00

Sixteen

The last person Mac had wanted to see today was almost the first he saw as he helped Sarah out of the car at the Mt. Pilgrim Cemetery. He met Sonny's eyes, nodding slightly to acknowledge his partner's presence.

Police presence, he amended. There was no doubt in his mind that Sonny was here because the department had wondered, just as he had. if Tate would be bold enough to show up for Dan Patterson's funeral.

"You want to sit with the family?" He bent so that the words were for Sarah's ear alone.

She glanced up at him to shake her head before she looked again toward the tent that had been set up over the newly dug grave. He took her arm, guiding her across the uneven ground to the small group of mourners gathered around it.

He recognized Louise Patterson, who was already seated in the middle of the row of folding chairs lined up under the awning. She was conferring with someone

Mac assumed to be either the funeral director or the minister. As the man finished the conversation and moved to stand at one end of the raw hole in the ground, Louise's eyes came up, spotting his and Sarah's approach. Her face changed, grief replaced by fury.

Sarah hesitated, seeming to literally shrink from that unspoken rage. Instinctively, Mac put his hand on the small of her back as a gesture of support.

He wondered if, in her dementia, Dan's mother would actually make a scene at her son's funeral. Then he wondered how he could protect the woman beside him if she did.

Something about Sarah Patterson had evoked his every protective instinct from the moment he'd noticed her on the courthouse steps. Now that their relationship had evolved into something very different from what it had been that day, those feelings had also evolved, becoming stronger. Fiercer.

"This is close enough." Sarah stopped on the edge of the small crowd, as far away from the casket and her former mother-in-law as she could manage and still hear the service.

Mac stopped, too, but his eyes continued to scan the area around the gravesite. Century-old oaks, their branches swathed with Spanish moss, dotted the churchyard. There were perhaps a hundred tombstones, some old enough that their inscriptions had virtually been obliterated by the thick growth of algae and erosion.

There was literally no place to hide here. If Tate intended to witness Dan Patterson's interment, he would have to be among those gathered at the edge of the artificial grass that surrounded the grave.

With that realization, Mac turned his attention to the crowd, his gaze moving consideringly from one to the other. Even though with some he could see only the backs of their heads, he was confident that Tate wasn't here.

He looked for Sonny again, finding him on the other end of the back row of mourners. His partner met his eyes and shrugged.

Long shot. They had both known that, but they had also understood that the possibility Tate might show up was something they couldn't afford to ignore.

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