Custody Battles by Gregory Ashe

Author:Gregory Ashe [Ashe, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gregory Ashe
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

NOVEMBER 29

FRIDAY

9:21 AM

AT THE OFFICE THE next day, Hazard tried to push the strange Thanksgiving out of his mind and work. Easier said than done. His mind kept playing back Colt’s increasing antagonism to Somers, the screaming, the reactions that seemed disproportionate every time, and what Hazard was beginning to suspect was genuine hatred. And then there was the strangeness of Somers’s split lip. Had Colt done that? Hazard would have believed it, and he would have believed Somers lying about it. Somers had certainly been upset about something. But when Hazard had pressed, Somers had refused to admit anything except that he’d tripped and split his lip.

No matter how hard Hazard tried, he couldn’t make sense of Colt’s hostility or Somers’s lie, and eventually his anger over a separate problem allowed him to focus his energy elsewhere. Sheriff Engels had made it clear that he wanted Hazard to stop investigating. And Somers had been right that, up to this point, their only evidence that Dunkie Newcomer was not the killer came from Naomi and, even weaker, character testimony from people who hadn’t known Dunkie all that well. Both the sheriff and Somers were right that the investigation had placed Hazard—and, by extension, his family—in danger.

But the old, highwire tension in Hazard’s gut told him that there was something going on here, something that went beyond Dunkie Newcomer, and the proof was that the killer had tried to stop Hazard’s investigation. This—finding the truth, trying to see justice done—was why he’d become a cop and, later, why he’d left the force. This was the thing he was best at. And, besides, he had bills to pay, not to mention the fuckery of college tuition.

He picked up the phone.

“Hello, Emery,” Naomi answered on the second ring. “What’s going on?”

“Are you lying to me?”

She laughed softly. “I suppose if I am lying, I won’t answer that question honestly, will I?”

“I’m calling to give you an opportunity, Naomi. Things are getting serious, and I’m not going to back down. If you’re playing some kind of game, I’m going to figure it out, and you won’t like how that goes.”

“Always with the threats. Always barking like a junkyard dog. Emery, I told you the truth: Dunkie Newcomer has a rock-solid alibi.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you.”

“Bullshit. You don’t want to tell me because you’ve got something else going on and because, for the moment, it benefits you to keep it secret.”

“Of course,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m lying. Dunkie did not kill Tony Urman. I heard about the shooting. It means you’re making someone nervous.”

“Or it means that Dunkie decided to loop back and tie off Celeste as a loose end.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t know what the fuck is going on with anything in this case; I was standing with my key suspect when someone tried to blow my head off with an assault rifle.”

Naomi made an amused noise. “That would have been a tragedy.

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