Page 71 of Last Seen
They both turn to look at her, and the sheriff runs a hand across his face as if he’s tired, the first bit of humanity she’s seen out of him.
“Dr. Jana Chowdhury. She’s dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Halley forces her jaw closed. Things are going from bad to worse. First Kater, now Chowdhury?
“How? How did she die?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t kill her,” she says with impatience. “I have exactly zero reasons to want the woman dead. On the contrary, her death hampers my investigation.”
“Oh yeah,yourinvestigation. Early warned me you’d style yourself as some sort of law enforcement investigator because of your limited background in crime scene forensics. But you don’t have a job at all, so I hear. You certainly don’t have a badge. You have no protection, you’re carrying a weapon illegally, and two women you had contact with in the past forty-eight hours are dead. You tellmewhat I’m supposed to think.”
Noah sits heavily in the second chair. “Hey,” he says to her, the gentleness in his tone a total contrast to his brother’s bluster.
“Why are you here?” she asks him.
“Because you’re asking about your sister, and I was the last person to see—”
“Enough!” Cameron roars. “Stop right there. Leave, Noah. I have this covered. Unless you’d like to spend a night in a cell, too?”
Noah hesitates, then meets her eyes. “I’ll be waiting right outside.” Then, to his brother, “Stop fucking with her, Cameron. Tell her the truth.”
Halley is more and more confused. Noah, true to his word, seethes out the door, slamming it behind him.
“You can explain all that to me later,” Halley says to the sheriff. “How did Chowdhury die?”
He sits on the edge of his desk, arms crossed.
“Stabbed. Just like your friend. Early found the car pulled to the side of the road and the doctor lying across the seat. She’d been dead for a few hours,Mesaid.”
She covers her mouth with her hand. What in the hell is going on? Kater. Chowdhury. All because Halley started asking questions about her sister? Everyone she’s talked to ...
“Was there a note or anything?”
“Like what was tacked to your friend’s chest? No. Nothing like that. Early said it was messy and violent. Less controlled. The doctor fought back.”
“You need to call the Boston PD and do a welfare check on a woman named Alison Everlane. She was my sister’s best friend, and she was the one who gave me Chowdhury’s name.”
He assesses her for a moment, then puts a hand on his phone. “You talk to anyone else?”
“Just Cat’s ex-husband, Tyler Armstrong.”
“What the hell you think you’re doing? You planning to be a PI or something?”
“Check on Alison, and I’ll explain.”
“You have a phone number for her?”
“In my bag.”
He nods and leaves for a second, then comes back with her bag, dumps it in her lap. It is missing the gun, but the letter Chowdhury gave her is in there, along with the spiral-bound she’d been taking notes in. A flash in her mind of the notebook paper tacked to Kater’s chest ...Yes, whoever is behind these deaths must have looked in her notebook. Which means someone was in the house.
The cat, locked in the basement. It wasn’t an accident. Whoever it was must have come in that way.
She flips through the pages and reads off the number. He taps on the computer for a few minutes, then dials his phone. The phone rings several times, then goes to voicemail.
