Page 41 of In Her Grasp

Together they strode down the hallway, their footsteps echoing in unison against the unforgiving floor. “It will be worth our time to talk with him,” Jenna said, the decision firm in her voice as she edged through the heavy steel door leading out of the Genesius County Jail.

The drive was silent, a reflective quiet that stretched between them like the long shadows cast by the late afternoon sun across the road. They were both deep in thought, the weight of the case pressing down upon them, though neither spoke a word. The familiar scenery of Trentville passed by, unnoticed in their preoccupation.

Pulling up to Frank Doyle’s modest bungalow, Jenna felt a twinge of nostalgia for the simpler times in her life. The sight of Frank’s weathered face splitting into a warm smile was a welcome reprieve from the tension coiling within her.

“Jenna, Jake,” Frank greeted, his voice rich with the gravelly timbre of age and experience as he ushered them inside. The living room welcomed them with the comforting scent of old books and the faint aroma of coffee—a stark contrast to the sterile hallways of the jail they had just left behind.

“Want coffee?” he asked.

“No, I’m jangled enough,” Jenna replied. Jake agreed, and they all sat down in the living room.

“I hear you found two more bodies in the reservoir last night,” Frank said.

Jenna leaned forward in her chair, elbows on knees, adopting her habitual posture when her mind was at work. “That’s right, Frank,” she began, her voice steady despite the gravity of the news. We’ve identified one of them as Clive Carroway. And we believe the other might be Jimmy Koontz.”

Frank’s surprise at the mention of Jimmy Koontz seemed to momentarily lift the weight from the room. “Jimmy Koontz? Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years.” His voice held a note of confusion, as if trying to place a ghost back into the frame of the living.

Jenna’s nod was slight, an acknowledgment of the past resurfacing. She hesitated, her fingertips grazing her temples where a headache threatened to bloom. “We’ve also arrested Carl Reeves in connection with the murders.”

“Carl? Are you sure?” The former Sheriff’s face, usually an open book of hard-earned wisdom, now folded into lines of doubt and concern.

“We’re not entirely convinced,” Jake admitted, his voice a baritone thread amidst the thickening tension.

Jenna began to recount Carl’s story about the incident at the reservoir. Each sentence seemed to carve deeper furrows into Frank’s brow, his features darkening as though threatened by an approaching storm.

“I remember those boys,” Frank said, finally breaking the silence that had coalesced around Jenna’s last words. He shook his head as if to dispel the images that clung to his memory. “Always swimming where they shouldn’t. I’d chase them off, but they’d be back the next hot day.”

His words hung in the air, painting a picture of youthful defiance against authority, of summer days reckless with abandon. Jenna could almost hear the distant laughter, the splash of water against skin, and the stern reprimand of a sheriff who cared more than he let on. Frank’s recollections offered a glimpse into another time—a different Trentville—but Jenna knew that nostalgia couldn’t mask the undercurrent of something darker.

Frank’s words faded, leaving a silence that seemed to speak volumes in the modest living room of his bungalow. Jenna watched him closely, her analytical mind parsing the slivers of history he offered. The former Sheriff’s gaze turned inward, lost in the corridors of his recollections.

“I do recall that Carl stopped hanging around with the others,” Frank told them. “Never knew why, though, at least not until now. Thought it was just kids growing apart.” His eyes, those windows to bygone days, fixed on a spot beyond the walls of his home, as though to the very edges of the reservoir where youth and innocence once played.

A new piece of the past came unbidden from Frank’s lips, filling the room with the weight of revelation. “Tommy Larson then took Carl’s place as the fourth member of the group.” He said it simply, matter-of-factly, unaware of the ripples his words sent through the present.

Jenna felt a jolt of surprise, not so much at the news itself but at the implications.

“Tommy told us he was never part of that group,” Jake said. His tone carried the strain of a man reevaluating what he thought he knew; it was tight, like a cord pulled to its limit.

Frank, ever the steadfast oak, shook his head, dispelling any doubts about his conviction. “No, I’m sure of it. Even though he was younger, Tommy became the fourth member of that little gang. Saw them together all the time after Carl dropped out. They were inseparable.”

Jenna knew this was no mere discrepancy—it had been a deliberate untruth.

“Tommy lied to us,” she said, her voice betraying none of the turmoil she felt. It was a statement, not a question. “What did he have to gain—or to hide?”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Jenna sat back in her chair as she processed the information. Then she told Frank what Tommy Larson had said to them earlier—that he was never part of that gang with his brother, that he was just a pesky kid they didn’t want to have hanging around.

“So why did he lie to us?” Jake muttered. “Does this mean that he was the killer? Of his own brother as well as the others?”

“Personal obsessions have been known to cause stranger things over time,” Frank’s voice grumbled. “Killing a family member isn’t unheard of. We just don’t know what might have driven Tommy to do anything like that.”

Jenna straightened up, decisiveness lighting her features. “I’m going to give him a call,” she declared, already reaching for her phone. “Maybe he’ll reveal something more.”

Frank’s gray eyes met hers with a mixture of concern and trust. “Be careful, Jenna,” he warned, the gruffness of his voice not quite masking his protective instinct. “If something set him off for those three murders, we don’t know what he’d be capable of next.”

She replied, “My plan is to question him stealthily, just to see if he keeps the same story going.”

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