Find Me by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

possible would be essential to staying on track with this case.
    The bell over the door jingled, drawing Sarah's attention to the lobby entrance.
    "Sorry to keep you folks waiting," Deputy Karen Brighton announced as she scrubbed her boots on the welcome mat. Nose and cheeks red from the cold, she tugged off her gloves and stuffed them into her coat pockets.
    "Hey, Karen." Conner smiled one of those broad, pearl-white smiles that could have easily been an advertisement for the next season of
American Idol
.
    The gleam that instantly brightened the deputy's eyes told Sarah that he effortlessly elicited that response from all the ladies in town. And probably anywhere else he passed through.
    If Sarah had needed any more evidence, there it was.
    He had to go.
    "Sarah Newton," Conner said, "this is Deputy Karen Brighton."
    "Good to meet you, Sarah," Karen enthused as she pumped Sarah's outstretched hand.
    "Same here." Sarah reminded her lips to tilt into a requisite smile. People were nut off when you didn't smile at the expected times.
    "Come on back to my office." The deputy glanced from Sarah and Conner to the receptionist. "If the chief calls, let him know Ms. Newton is here."
    "Will do." The telephone buzzed, dragging the curious receptionist, who since Brighton's arrival had been transparently sizing up Sarah, back to the business of receiving.
    Didn't bother Sarah. She was used to being analyzed.
    Down the hall, Karen cleared a couple of chairs in her office. "Have a seat." She shed her coat and hat then settled into the chair behind her desk. "Where would you like to start, Sarah?"
    That was certainly original. A cooperative cop?
    Yeah, right.
    More like a cordial cop who had been given a strict script.
    "I'd like to be brought up to speed on whatever your investigation has uncovered. Particularly the parts not released to the press."
    Surprise flared in the deputy's eyes.
    Well, she'd asked.
    If Sarah got even a fraction of that she'd be overjoyed. But, she knew from experience, what she would get was what they wanted her to know. No matter how cooperative the deputy appeared, she wouldn't be any different than all the rest.
    "Good deal." Karen leaned over her desk and shuffled through the files there. "Here we go." She opened a folder and spread it on the desktop between her and Sarah. "We got copies of the reports made by the chief and the other folks involved in the investigation. Interviews with family members and friends, Valerie Gerard's as well as Alicia Apple-ton's." She shuffled through a couple more pages. "Forensic reports from the scene and possible related cases from the surrounding area. Though, so far, none seem even remotely similar." She leaned back in her chair and gestured to the pile. "That's what we've got."
    Sarah shuffled through the reports, skimmed the neatly typed accounts of what each investigating officer had seen and/or discovered that day and since. Just as Sarah had suspected. Whitewashed just for her. "Where are the crime-scene photos?" She watched the deputy's eyes and expression for signs of the lie she was very likely about to pass off as the God's honest truth.
    The deputy made one of those faces that said she didn't understand why the question had been posed. "I haven't been authorized to show those to you just yet." She gestured to the file again. "This is, as I'm sure you know, a good deal more than we're required to share in the middle of an ongoing investigation."
    Not an outright lie, but nothing Sarah hadn't expected. "That's a shame. I was really hoping to get a feel for the scene as it was when the victim was discovered."
    "If the chief gets here before you leave," Karen offered, "we can ask him for authorization. I got no problem with it. The sooner we get this ugly mess solved, the happier I'll be. But I will warn you, that level of cooperation isn't likely to happen."
    Deputy Karen Brighton gave every appearance of being sincere about wanting to share more were she not