“That stuff will eat the lining out of your stomach.”
Turning around, he stared into Darci’s wide green eyes. “Hey,” he murmured.
She smiled slightly, arching a brow at him. “Hey,” she whispered. Heat flooded her eyes and Kellan felt that look as solidly as if she’d reached out and touched him. Her eyes looked bruised, sleepless. And the sigh that shuddered out of her sounded terribly defeated. “I heard about Kim. Came by, but Grady says he can’t let anybody in.”
He sipped at the coffee, his eyes widening as the caffeine started to sing in his system from the first sip. The minute it hit his empty belly, he winced. “Damn. Probably will eat the lining away,” he muttered before taking another sip. “Kim can’t tell me who it was. Nobody can give me a description, other than dark clothes and a hood. And since we don’t know…Kim is in a lot of danger.”
“I don’t get it.” She moved away from him, dropping into one of the chairs, resting her elbows on the round table as she massaged her temples. “Maybe this is why I’m not a cop, but I don’t see much connection between any of these people. The only thing they have in common is they all worked for the gallery.”
Kellan took the seat across from her, arching a brow. “I imagine Tricia is getting pretty desperate. Peggy spends more time working in her studio than in the gallery, her two employees are gone, and two of her artists.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Apparently, Beth and Carrie are more popular now than they ever were. Talked to Tricia recently-she says she’s never been so busy.”
In the act of lifting his coffee to his lips for another stomach-searing drink, Kellan froze, lowering the cup back to the table. “People love a scandal. And the bloodier, the more notorious, the better,” he murmured. “Three murders… I imagine her gallery is hopping.”
He kept his voice level, but his mind was buzzing as the pieces finally fell together. Stupid…stupid…stupid, he said to himself silently. Money. Not Darci… But Bryce…that didn’t make any sense.
The videos from the past night flashed through his mind. Yes, Kim had been there, but then so had a number of other women. Jealousy. Somehow, that was how Bryce played into it, and the fact that he worked for the gallery, increasing the already notorious reputation.
Three murders. Would have been four, except Kim had gotten away. Had it all been about money? Had the scene just been staged so that it looked personal? He felt eyes on him and he looked up, seeing Darci staring at him with a confused, curious look.
“What?” she asked softly.
He shrugged. “Nothing.” He pushed his cup away and forced a grin. “You’re right. That coffee will tear up a belly. I’ve got to get back to the station, go over a few things,” he said. Leaning forward, he put his mouth by her ear and said, “Go home. Stay there. Don’t talk to anybody.”
Arching a brow at him, she opened her lips to ask a question and he reached out and pressed his finger to her lips. “Don’t ask questions. I can’t answer them. But do this for me. I’m going to advise the deputies to be extra careful, but you do not go anywhere.”
Chapter Seven
Tricia ignored the knock on the door.
Bryce’s chauvinistic attitude aggravated the hell out of her, but he knew how to get the paperwork done. Kim could do it, screwed it up in the process, but at least Tricia didn’t have to deal with it.
So until Kim got out of the hospital and was able to come back to work, Tricia had to do it herself again.
But the fist pounding on the door just banged again. And again. Finally, she tugged her glasses off and left the office, staring through the door at the grim outline of the Sheriff.
Opening the door, she stepped aside. “Hello, Sheriff Grant. Gallery isn’t open on Sundays. And I’m behind now,” she said wearily. “So much paperwork. I’ve got a million things to get done, including trying to hire some more employees.”
“I’m going to have to intrude for a while,” he said.
She sighed and let him enter, pushing the door closed behind him before she walked back to her office, his feet soundless on the plush carpet behind her.
“I don’t have much time, Sheriff. Can we make this fast?”
The Sheriff’s hazel eyes looked blandly back at her through the lenses of his glasses. “I can try. I need to know where you were last night and when Bryce was killed. Then where were you three weekends ago.”
Air trapped in her lungs and she blinked once, frowning at him, “Excuse me?”
“Can you answer the question, Ms. Casey?”
“You’re trying to get my whereabouts for the nights my friends were killed,” she said, amazed, staring at him with wide eyes. She dropped down onto the chair just inside the door, the strength leaving her legs as she stared up at him. “You’re serious.”
“Ms. Casey…”
She passed her glasses from one hand to another as she hollowly said, “Last night, I was home. Alone. But the night Bryce died…well, I’ve told you that. I was in Columbus for a dinner meeting with several other gallery owners. I’ve been thinking of expanding and…” her voice trailed away and she realized she wasn’t going to be able to do that right now. All of her plans-this would ruin her. Having a gallery where her employees and contract artists were being murdered was one thing.
But nobody would want to do business with somebody accused of murder.
“And I was with Beth the night Carrie was killed,” Tricia whispered. “But you can’t ask her, can you?”
No. But Kellan did have the reports from the deputies who had done the questioning of Carrie’s friends. Fuck. He flipped his notebook open and jotted down a few notes. “You heard about Kim, right?”
He watched as she nodded slowly. For once, she actually looked her age. Normally, she never let a line show on her face, but right now, she looked totally shell-shocked. He left the gallery a few minutes later, plowing a hand through his hair.
He couldn’t focus. First, he had thought it was Kim. Then Tricia. Oh, he’d check her story out, verify it. But already he had a bad suspicion that her story would check out.
Idiot. He was letting Darci skew his thinking. Worrying about her, so convinced it was about her. “It’s not, is it?” he muttered as he returned to his car.
Totally unaware of the eyes that watched him.
Tricia was still sitting there, staring dumbly at nothing when the door opened. Sliding Peggy an evil look, she said waspishly, “Well, your plan is working. We’ve got more business than we could ever dream of, Carrie is out of the way and she can’t cause us any more trouble. Beth’s constant bitching is over with and we’ve made buckets off of the works of our artists who were so tragically killed. But now he knows.”
“He doesn’t know. He may suspect, but if he knew, you’d be on your way to the station,” Peggy snapped. Her salt-and-pepper hair hung in careless ringlets around her face as she tossed her head, rolling her eyes at Tricia.
“I want to know about Bryce.”
Peggy arched a brow, her mouth flat. “Excuse me?”
“Why did you kill Bryce? And Kim? That’s what is causing the trouble. Damn it, if you had just stopped-”
Peggy sneered. “Oh, don’t go acting like you had nothing to do with any of this. Don’t forget who killed Beth. You’re just as much involved in this as I am. And Kim, hell, she’s a whiny whelp. Useless. What does it matter?”
“What about Bryce? He wasn’t in the plan. And he was just as annoying as Kim is,” Tricia snapped, control fading fast. She wanted to shout and scream and pummel Peggy’s face. Damned irrational bitch had gotten her into this mess.