Come Dark by Steven F Havill

Author:Steven F Havill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2015-12-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-two

On the one hand, Estelle had a hard time imagining Stacie Stewart holding a large handgun steady enough to pump four bullets into a former boyfriend, especially with the last round a careful coup de grace at point-blank range. Certainly, jilted—or jilting—lovers had murdered before, with guns, kitchen knives, baseball bats, poisons, toasters, or automobiles.

But balancing that doubt was Stacie Stewart’s curious behavior. It was hard to imagine a mother simply leaving an adoring family, from all reports taking nothing along but a conservative purse. No suitcase of clothes thrown hastily together the way distraught women did in movies. Who was Stacie Stewart meeting at the Posadas Inn? And from there, bound for where? Mexico? Texas? Montana?

If she had caught the one bus that stopped in Posadas each day, she could have ridden to El Paso, Albuquerque, Denver, or a dozen other destinations. She could have made a connection at any of the airports. She had had all afternoon to do so while authorities flogged around in the shower, photographing bullet holes.

Dana was right. As long as Stacie wasn’t involved in the murder, any other law violated would go down as a slap on the wrist, if that. Expending all-too-scarce department resources to satisfy a charge of endangerment of a child—especially since the child was essentially uninjured—was chasing a misdemeanor. That could be stretched to include felony abuse, in a case where the abandonment actually resulted in harm to the child.

Stacie, no matter how her unstable mental condition had been shaken up, had made arrangements with Dana to pick up the child and puppy. Dana was on her way back to The Spree parking lot when she was spooked. The undersheriff could easily imagine the district attorney stifling a broad yawn and dismissing the whole episode…unless the young woman could be tied to Clint Scott’s horrific murder.

Estelle tried to relax in the driver’s seat, letting the cruise control keep a smooth eighty-five in the passing lane of the interstate. If one of the deputies hadn’t done so already, she would get a recent photo of Stacie Stewart from Todd, and see if anyone at the Posadas Inn could shed light. After all, Stacie might not have even gone inside that motel—Dana had been too flustered to notice or remember. But the closer she drove to Posadas, the more difficult it was to concentrate on the case.

From brand new black asphalt so smooth that it lulled, her car flashed through a section where the tar strips, temporary stop-gap measures to hold the road together, beat a steady rhythm under the tires. As the Posadas, 12 miles sign approached, she thought of the hours and hours the two teenagers had spent in their high-powered sports car, flogging it toward this tiny village.

However the mileage was sliced, roughly a thousand miles separated Edgarton, Missouri, from Posadas, New Mexico. Edgarton, the quiet, picturesque town that was home to Leister Academy, was truly in the middle of nowhere, a good description for Posadas as well.

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