Page 117 of The Sister's Curse
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking these are tweakers hired by the Kings. Or…” I stared at the snake tattoo. “Maybe witches.” I felt okay about speculating with Monica about flesh-and-blood people who thought they were witches, though I kept my thoughts about the Rusalka hidden. We were accustomed to dealing with crazies, and I didn’t want to be one of them in her eyes.
“I mean, half the guys at the local biker bar have ink like it.” Monica frowned. “We’ve got a fuck ton of potential suspects, but no real leads. If we serve warrants on Lister and Sumner, they might never lead us to Viv.”
“What about that drowning on the news? If there’s a connection to Lister and Sumner there, maybe some evidence will—”
“The guy who drowned was Quentin Sims’s uncle,” Monica said quietly. “There are signs of violence.”
“What about the girls?”
“Leah and Rebecca were accounted for. I have alibis so far for three of the other six—something about a bake sale. It’s possible that the three I haven’t been in touch with drowned the dude. Or they might say they were having a slumber party.” She spread her hands. “They back each other up, just like the Kings of Warsaw Creek did back in the day.”
“This isn’t going to stop until all the Kings and all the Kings’ men are dead.” I stared at the clock on the dash. It was almost July fourth.
“Might not be such a bad thing.” Monica’s eyes were narrowed, and she was crunching some hard candy. “Seems to be wiping out church leadership. Not that I said that out loud.”
“But where are Sumner and Lister?”
“I’ve had Vice cruising by their houses. Nothing yet.”
Monica’s phone dinged, and she scanned her texts. Her eyebrows lost their perfect shape and twitched. “Just heard back on Fred Jasper’s alibi for when the kids nearly drowned and the cousins got killed.”
“Yeah? He said he was directing traffic at the Flower Festival.”
Monica frowned. “The festival organizer says he self-reported his overtime. Nobody actually had eyes on him the whole time.”
My brows drew together. “You think Fred—”
“This isn’t proof that he wasn’t where he said he was. But it puts Fred on the table as a suspect.”
I exhaled. “Yeah. I guess it does.”
“I’ll see if we can find any witnesses.”
“But it can’t be Fred,” I said. “That man in the retaining pond tonight…A dead guy can’t commit murder.”Right?My thoughtsspun. I had Viv accounted for. Jasper was dead. That left the girls…
Monica chewed her gum thoughtfully. “He may have had nothing to do with any of this. Or he may not have been working alone. He had means, motive, and opportunity for some of these incidents.”
I sank down in my seat. “You’re gonna get in a helluva lot of trouble for looping me in, you know.”
Monica lifted a shoulder. “Maybe not as much as you’d think. You know that new radio system I’ve been so fucking leery of?”
“Yeah?”
“You notice I haven’t been using it to contact you?”
I exhaled. “It’s not secure.”
“No. I wouldn’t say anything on it that I wouldn’t post on a billboard.”
“This is why you’re Wonder Woman,” I said.
Monica nodded sagely. “Now get out of my car, Wonder Girl. I gotta go do an inventory of every meth head out on bond to try to find Viv. Go home. That’s an order, or I will have you picked up and put in jail for your own protection. Understand?”
I nodded. I had fucked up by losing Viv, and Monica needed me out of the way if anything was gonna get done. It wasn’t personal.
I took a bag of gummy bears away from Gibby, stepped out of the car with him, and stood by the ice machine once more as she pulled out of the lot.
