Carolina Moon

years ago when you led us to that little girl. I’m a simple man with simple ways, but I was there. And I was there today, looking down at that young woman and what had been done to her. It took me back. I was at both those places, saw both those things. And so did you.”
    “I didn’t go in.”
    “But you saw.”
    “No!” She surged to her feet. “I didn’t. I felt. I didn’t see, and I didn’t look. There was nothing I could do. She was dead, and there was nothing I could do for her. Or for Hope. Or any of them. I don’t want that inside me again. I’ve told you everything I know, exactly as it happened. Why isn’t that enough?”
    “All right. Now, all right, Miss Tory. Why don’t you sit down there, try to relax, while I go down and talk to Faith.”
    “I’d like to go home now.”
    “You just sit down and catch your breath a little. We’ll see you get home soon enough.”
    He chewed over his thoughts on her and her reaction to his questions as he walked downstairs. The girl, he decided, was a basket of troubles. He could be sorry for it. But that wouldn’t stop him from using her if it suited his purposes. He had a murder in his town. It wasn’t the first, but it was damn near the ugliest in a good many years.
    And he was a man who had hunches. His gut told him Tory Bodeen was the key.
    He found Cade pacing at the bottom of the stairs. “You can go on up to her. I expect she could use a shoulder. Your sister around?”
    “She’s in the back, with Wade. He’s checking on the dog.”
    “Too bad that dog can’t talk. Was Piney clipped him, wasn’t it?”
    “So I’m told.”
    “Yeah, too bad that dog can’t talk.” He patted his notebook pocket and wandered into the back.
    Cade found Tory still sitting on the sofa.
    “I should have just walked away. Or better, smarter, I should have let Faith go in the way she wanted to. Faith would have found her, we’d have called the police, and there’d have been no questions.”
    He moved over to sit beside her. “Why didn’t you?”
    “I didn’t want her to see what was in there. I didn’t want to see it, either. And now Chief Russ expects me to go into a trance and give him the name of the killer. It was Professor Plum in the conservatory with the candlestick. I’m not a goddamn board game.”
    He took her hand. “You’ve every right to be angry. With him, with the situation. Why are you angry with yourself?”
    “I’m not. Why would I be?” She looked down at their joined hands. “You bruised your knuckles.”
    “Hurts like a son of a bitch.”
    “Really? It didn’t seem like it when you hit him. It didn’t seem like you felt anything but mild annoyance. I really must swat this pesky fly, then get back to my book.”
    He grinned at that, brought her hand to his lips. “As a Lavelle, one must maintain one’s dignity.”
    “Bull. I said that’s what it seemed like, but that wasn’t the reality of it. Rage and disgust were the reality, and you enjoyed flattening him. I know,” she said with a sigh. “Because that’s what I was feeling. He’s an ugly man, and he’ll try to find another way to hurt you now. But he’ll come at your back, because he’s afraid of you. And no, that’s just good sense and a reasonable understanding of human nature, not my fabulous psychic powers.”
    “Clampett doesn’t worry me.” He rubbed his bruised knuckles over her cheek. “Don’t let him worry you.”
    “I wish I could.” She got to her feet. “I wish I could worry about him so it would occupy my mind. Why should I feel guilty?”
    “I don’t know, Tory. Why should you?”
    “I barely knew Sherry Bellows. I spent less than an hour with her, no more than a brush on my life. I’m sorry for what happened to her, but does that mean I have to get involved?”
    “No.”
    “It won’t change what happened to her. Nothing I do will change what happened. So what’s the point? Even if Chief Russ pretends he’s open to whatever I could do, in the end he’ll be just like the others. Why should I put myself in the middle of it only to be laughed at and dismissed?”
    She rounded on him. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
    “I’m waiting for you to come around to it.”
    “You think you’re smart, don’t you? You think you know me so well. You don’t know me at all. I didn’t come back here to right wrongs or avenge a dead friend. I came back here to live my life and run my business.”
    “All right.”
    “Don’t