She didn’t have to wonder if Cyrus Cooper knew she was here. He would know. And he wouldn’t be pleased.
That was tough.
It wasn’t like she’d come back because she wanted to.
She’d gotten a personal invitation. One she couldn’t decline, much less ignore.
The ground-floor door on the west side of the building that led directly into the sheriff’s department was unlocked. Usually by this hour it was locked, and all but the folks on night duty would have gone home. A buzzer allowed anyone with an emergency to make their presence known.
Hehad left it unlocked.
For her.
The department’s cramped lobby was empty. A small Christmas tree in the corner twinkled with colored lights. A few gifts lined the green skirt beneath it, giving the impression that the department operated like one happy little family. And maybe it did ... now. But that hadn’t been the case a decade ago.
The once-gray walls had been painted a pale blue that reminded her of the sky on a clear day. That was one thing she missed about living on the Gulf. The sky was a canvas that the weather spilled nature’s most vivid colors onto—far more vivid than any back in Huntsville. The clouds seemed closer to the ground here. As if God had purposely lowered heaven toward the earthly inhabitants along the Gulf. Too bad the influence had done little to keep those inhabitants safe from the scum that flocked here, much less from tragedies like Hurricane Katrina.
Nothing like being back in paradise.
In the corridor beyond the small lobby, the first door to the right opened into the office of the sheriff’s secretary. Adeline walked straight through the empty office and into the boss’s inner sanctum. The large padded envelope she carried bumped the wreath on his door, and she stalled, reached out to right it.
Wyatt looked up from a pile of folders on his desk.
She’d made it to his desk and placed the package there by the time he stood. “Took me a half hour longer than I expected,” she said by way of greeting. “Traffic on 1-10 through Mobile was hell.”
“Addy.” He nodded, sized her up a moment. “You ... look good.”
The pained expression on his face told her that wasn’t exactly what he’d intended to say. “You, too,SheriffHenderson.” And he did. His coal-black hair was a little shorter. He’d gained a couple more laugh lines around those hazel eyes. Looked a few pounds heavier, not quite as wiry as he had been as a kid. The official uniform was crisp, but then he’d always managed to keep thatfreshly dressedlook all day. She never could.
He gestured to the package. “Let’s get this to the conference room—that’s where we’ve set up our command center—and have a look.”
“First you gotta sign.” She tugged the chain-of-evidence form from the top of the package and placed it on his desk. “I’m officially turning the evidence over to you. Something happens to it, it’s on you.”
He signed the form, the pen strokes bold and efficient. Then he passed a copy of the form back to her. “Now we’reofficial.”
“Thank you.” She folded her copy and stuffed it into her coat pocket.
“I’ll show you the timeline we’ve set up. Believe it or not, we know how to play by the rules down here, too.”
She didn’t rise to the bait. Her insistence that he sign the form wasn’t a personal jab. It was business. She had a chain of command. One internal affairs investigation this year was more than enough.
He reached for the envelope at the same time she did. Their fingers brushed, eliciting a series of warm pulses along her limbs. The traitorous reaction jacked up the tension already interfering with her ability to focus.
Ultimately she let him take the damned package. He’d signed for it, after all. Mainly she hoped like hell he hadn’t heard her breath catch or seen the widening of her eyes when they touched. Stupid and immature. Giving herself grace, she acknowledged that those letters—or coming back here; maybe both—had her more than a little off balance.
She followed him from the room. “You were going to bring me up to speed on where your investigation is,” she prompted. That was part of the deal. He’d assured her chief that he would give her a full-on briefing as soon as she arrived. No details withheld.
“We’ve established a timeline through our interviews. We don’t have much,” he confessed, then confidently added, “Yet. At this point we have the usual. Interviews with friends and family. I’ve got three volunteers taking calls around the clock. We’ve had a couple of hits from folks who saw her in town the day she disappeared. Several hundred volunteers have been combing a five-mile radius around the scene where her vehicle was discovered. About half an hour ago we called off the search for the night.”
“Any marital problems?” Adeline had the presence of mind to ask as they moved along the corridor. It felt surreal being here ... withhim... listening to his voice. She was having far more trouble maintaining a professional bearing than she’d anticipated. “Spouse been cleared of suspicion?”
“No marital or family problems. Nothing out of the ordinary at work. Her husband is, of course, still a person of interest, but I don’t think he had anything to do with her abduction.” Wyatt paused at the conference room door to let her enter before him. “According to her friends, Cherry Prescott has the perfect life.”
“Nobody has a perfect life,” Adeline muttered. She’d been a cop far too long to believe that was even remotely possible for any human. “You just haven’t pushed the right friend hard enough yet.”
“I’m interviewing a couple of her closest friends for the third time tomorrow,” Wyatt said, his tone on the defensive side. “I’m familiar with the drill.”
“Girlfriends?” she guessed. Those were the ones who usually knew the most and held back any secrets the longest. A good, solid female bond was hard to crack.