Page 56 of Dirty Valentine
Patricia’s expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight stiffening of her shoulders.“You think I killed Victoria Mills?”
“We’re eliminating possibilities,” Jack said evenly.“Standard procedure.”
“I have a medical kit in the truck,” I added.“Just a simple cheek swab.Takes thirty seconds.”
Patricia looked around the dig site—at the careful excavations, the documented foundations, the painstaking work of uncovering the past.Her whole career was built on finding truth buried in the earth, on giving voice to people who’d been forgotten by history.
Now she was the one being examined, her life sifted through for evidence of guilt.
“Fine,” she said quietly.“But I want this on record—I’m cooperating voluntarily.I have nothing to hide.”
As I retrieved my medical kit from Jack’s Tahoe, I found myself wondering if we were looking at our killer.Patricia’s scratches could be from archaeological work, or they could be from a desperate woman fighting for her life.
The storm clouds on the horizon were moving closer, and I had the uneasy feeling that we hadn’t seen the worst of it yet.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
The driveback from Patricia’s dig site felt different than our arrival.The same Virginia countryside rolled past our windows, but now it seemed to watch us with calculating eyes.Every farmhouse tucked behind ancient oaks, every family cemetery glimpsed through breaks in the tree line, every weathered barn that had stood since Colonial times—all of it felt connected to the web of secrets we were trying to untangle.
“She’s hiding something,” I said, breaking the silence that had stretched between us since leaving the archaeological site.
Jack’s hands shifted on the steering wheel, a subtle tell that meant he was working through possibilities.“Maybe.Or maybe she’s just a woman who’s learned to compartmentalize in twenty-three years of marriage to a serial cheater.”
“The DNA will tell us if she fought with Victoria Mills.”I pressed the sealed sample container in my lap, feeling its slight weight like evidence of guilt or innocence waiting to be revealed.
Jack slowed for a curve that wound through a stand of tulip poplars, their leaves creating a green tunnel that filtered the afternoon light into dancing patterns.
“She’s definitely got motive,” Jack said.“A woman scorned.She’s got no alibi, and the scratches on her arms are pretty damning.But I don’t know if she fits the profile.This killer thinks in symbols and rituals, plans elaborate scenes that tell stories.Patricia Whitman strikes me as someone who’d use a shovel if she wanted to kill someone, not stage a historical reenactment.”
The observation was quintessentially Jack—cutting through emotion to reach the practical heart of human behavior.It was one of the things that made him such an effective sheriff, this ability to see past surface drama to the patterns underneath.
We drove back toward the Towne Square and the sheriff’s office, but before Jack could pull into his parking spot Cole was flagging him down.I passed the DNA sample to him.
“From Patricia Whitman,” I said.“We need to expedite that.The lab already has Victoria Mills’s sample.It should only take a couple of hours to determine whether Patricia is our killer.”
“Got it,” Cole said and looked at Jack.“Got a lead on your missing donut girl.Martinez tracked down the registered address for that Lincoln Town Car she drives.Turns out it belongs to someone named Evangeline Toscano, lives out on Marsh Creek Road near the wildlife preserve.”
“The mysterious psychic,” I said.“How far is that from here?”
“Thirty minutes if you take Route 218 through the bottomland.Fair warning though—it’s pretty isolated out there.Cell service is spotty, and there’s only one road in and out.”
“We’ll head there now,” Jack said.“Have Martinez run a background check on this Evangeline Toscano.I want to know if she’s got any connection to our victims’ families.”
“Already on it.”Cole slapped the hood of the Tahoe and said, “Happy hunting.”
Jack nodded and backed out, turning on his lights without sirens as we navigated through the traffic of downtown.
The drive to Marsh Creek Road took us deeper into the kind of Virginia wilderness that most tourists never saw.Here, the carefully manicured horse farms and historic mansions gave way to something older and more primal.Ancient cypress trees rose from brackish water, their knees creating a landscape that looked prehistoric.Spanish moss hung like tattered curtains, and the air that came through the vents carried the rich, organic smell of decomposition and new growth happening simultaneously.
“This place gives me the creeps,” I admitted, watching a great blue heron lift off from a hidden creek and disappear into the canopy.
“It’s beautiful,” Jack said, but I could hear the wariness in his voice.“And isolated.Perfect place to hide if you don’t want to be found.”
The road narrowed until it was barely wide enough for one vehicle, with thick vegetation pressing in from both sides.Water glimmered between the trees—sometimes a narrow creek, sometimes a pond whose surface reflected the sky like black glass.We passed a few mailboxes attached to crooked posts, but no houses were visible from the road.
“There,” Jack said, pointing to a hand-painted sign that readToscanoin faded letters.But instead of a driveway, there was only a dirt path that disappeared into the trees.
The road ended at a small clearing where the black Lincoln Town Car sat beside a weathered wooden post with a chain across what looked like an old logging trail.Jack parked behind the Lincoln, and we could see the path continued on foot toward the sound of moving water.
