Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 08 - Vows & Victims by Laina Turner Read Free Book Online

charges.”
    “What did he have to say this time?”
    “Congratulations and he would be seeing us soon. That’s why I called the police and they asked me to come in.”
    I was having a hard time taking all this in. Hearing it made me want to call Cooper. A thought I needed to put out of my mind. Dirt had been a friend of ours. We had grown up together, he and Cooper had enlisted together, and Dirt had eventually made his way back to Alkon and become a sheriff.
    He had also become involved with the wrong people, and through a bad series of events, murdered a senator. The same Senator I had been sent to interview a while back.
    Dirt had been sentenced with twenty–five years to life in a prison in the southern part of the state. After his conviction, I quit following what he was doing and tried to forget and move on. To find out he had tried to contact Katy before and then again today gave me a horrible pit in my stomach. I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly want from her.
    It was a short ride to the station. Nothing in this town was too far away, except maybe the Dairy Queen, which was in the strangest spot out west of town, but close to the high school, so I guess that made sense.
    When we walked into the police station and Katy said who she was, they were expecting her and quickly ushered her into a conference room. Probably more like an interrogation room, they just didn’t want to call it that when it was used with someone not suspected of a crime.
    A few minutes later, we were joined by Officer Schultz who had been at the crime scene at Katy’s salon yesterday. Was that only yesterday? It seemed so long ago but had barely been twenty–four hours. Schultz had also been the one to help the FBI arrest Dirt in the first place, so I wasn’t surprised he was the one here now talking to us.
    “Katy, Presley, thanks for coming in. Katy, you said on the phone that Derrick called you?”
    “Yes,” she said, telling him what she had told me earlier.
    “Katy said the call wasn’t collect. Does that mean he’s out of jail?” I asked.
    “Unfortunately, yes it does. He escaped only this morning during a routine transport for a medical checkup. I got the call a couple hours before Katy called us. You were both on my list of people to contact.”
    “Why?” I didn’t understand why he would contact us. We weren‘t victims or anything.
    Schultz sighed. “Dirt has been vocal in prison about coming back to Alkon and getting even. When I saw you back in town, Presley, I included you in the group of people he might want to get even with, even though you don’t live here anymore.”
    Katy and I just looked at each other, taking this in. It was so hard to comprehend the person Dirt had turned into. When you had known someone for as long as we had known him, it just didn’t make sense. We had grown up together. We all used to have sleepovers before we got to the age boys and girls didn’t have co–ed sleepovers.
    “So, what should we do?” Katy asked. I felt bad. This was one more thing she didn’t need to deal with during her wedding week. What else could possibly happen to make things any worse for her?
    “You need to be diligent about noticing your surroundings. If he does come back here, he will likely try to make contact with you when you are alone or in a compromising place. Somewhere without a lot of people around. He can’t afford to be seen. Not in this town where too many people know him. Since he contacted you by phone today, I fully expect for him to contact you again.”
    “Do you think we’re in danger?” I asked.
    Schultz hesitated, and I was sure he probably didn’t like to tell people they should be on the lookout for a crazy convicted murderer.
    “I think it’s a definite possibility, especially with him on the run. He’s going to be more desperate, and desperation does things to a person, causing them to do things they wouldn’t normally do.”
    Which was what had gotten Dirt in