Jacob's Ladder by Jackie Lynn Read Free Book Online

that she would not have to see him, since she got to his office much later than she had planned. She walked into the building and was greeted by a receptionist, who was sitting at a large desk just by the door.
    The older woman called a deputy to the front and Rose was then instructed by the young man—Roy, she thought his name was—to go to the conference room and write a statement of what she had witnessed. He told her to jot down everything she had seen and done regarding the discovery of the dead man, beginning with her earliest memories that morning. She was given a pad of paper and a glass of water and then was shown to the large table in the center of the room and left alone.
    The conference room was in the rear of the facility and had large windows on three sides. From a seated position at the table, Rose could view the entire office. She could see the front door and the back of the receptionist, the people coming in and leaving through the main entrance. She could observe the desks where the deputies sat, only a couple of them present, and she could view the side entrance, which was next to a small kitchen where the staff went in and out to grab a bite to eat or to get a drink from the vending machine.
    Rose sat and watched the activity around her for a few minutes, procrastinating about what she’d been asked to do. With a sigh, she finally began writing all that had occurred from the moment she left the campground office to search for the late-night arrival until the sheriff had been called. She recorded every detail, as best as she could remember.
    She wrote down how she drove around all the sites in the main area of the campground, how she ran into a few of the campers, and how she then followed the dog to the camper in the unused section of the grounds. She recorded the approximate times of each event.
    She listed the model of the camper, the make of the truck, and how she had seen the small opening in the curtain, which led her to discover the destruction inside and the man lying on the floor. She wrote of how she used a rock to break the window and how the camper looked once she got inside.
    She recorded that it appeared to her, based upon her professional opinion as a health-care provider, that the man was deceased. She noted that there were large bruises around his neck and that she’d found him beneath the table, lying under a sheet, and that it appeared as if he had been dead for more than a few hours.
    She wrote for about fifteen minutes, as clearly and with as many details as she could remember, and then she stopped, put down the pen, and leaned back against the soft padded chair. Having worked in a hospital for more than twenty years, she knew how to deliver a thorough report, but since it had been almost a year since she had been required to write one, she found the task exhausting.
    She decided to take a break and she stretched her arms above her head and yawned. Then she glanced up and around the office again. She saw the deputy who had brought her into the conference room sitting at his desk, eating a bag of chips. He was reading from a folder of papers.
    She saw two women standing near the water fountain next to the kitchen. She thought they must be administrative workers, since they weren’t wearing uniforms. They were chatting and drinking sodas. She had never seen them before. She looked around the office until she turned back to the front entrance and noticed a large man talking to the woman at the front reception area.
    He was dark-skinned, standing very tall and dignified, and his hair, long and silk black, was tied in a ponytail that trailed down past his shoulders. He was wearing a dark suit, navy or black—Rose couldn’t tell which—and he carried a briefcase, which he continued to hold while he talked, his long, thick fingers curled around the handle.
    He stood at an angle in front of the desk, so that Rose saw only his profile, a long side view of a