Page 7 of Search for the Truth
It was bad enough he’d had to come out to the daycare program to track down a potential lead, but then again, it wasn’t like Cassandra West had given them many choices.
“Make sure you’re casual about your run-in with her, or she’s going to feel like we ambushed her,” Price said, once again. “Cass might not be as popular as she once was, but tick her off, and it’ll be like kicking a hornet’s nest.”
“I’m not here to ambush her,” Liam defended. “I’m here to make an appointment, is all. It’s not a big deal.”
That was a lie. It was a big deal to Liam.
Cassandra was one of the last people to see Missy Clearwater alive.
It had been more than two months since Missy’s body had been found. In the time since, her case had been ruled a suicide. It was a point of severe contention between Liam and the general public. Everyone had believed that Missy’s life had taken such a turn that her ending had made sense. There was no hard evidence to say otherwise, and even her own flesh and blood had accepted this tragic outcome. Doc Ernest’s original suspicion had also changed. Like Price, she had had an emotional reaction to the death of a woman she had watched grow up. So much so, she had mistaken a hope that Missy hadn’t done it to herself for a gut instinct that someone had been behind it.
When, in reality, the fall had been what had done the girl in.
That should have been that, but Liam... He couldn’t let it go.
He hadn’t watched Missy Clearwater grow up, but his gut had doubled down on something not being quite right.
And that all started from the flash drive he had found beneath the bridge.
That’s why, months later, he was still trying to piece together the day of Missy’s death. Off the books. For his own peace of mind.
It’s why he needed to talk to Cassandra West.
And if that meant starting that talk off casually, then he would.
Ten minutes later and that need was bristling under Liam’s skin. He wasn’t a man who fidgeted, but the urgency had him out of the gym and standing in the parking lot before the waves of people started to filter out.
However, he bumped into someone else first.
“Here.”
Liam looked down at the woman who had tapped his shoulder. Red hair, green eyes and a pretty sun dress with a spit-up stain on it.
She smiled. She was holding his shirt.
“Thank you for this,” she added. “It saved me from freezing under that AC for sure. I hope you weren’t too cold.”
Liam, not a man built for small talk, found an easy smile. He tapped his short sleeve.
“No worries here. I’m built warm.”
Liam was about to ask where her kids were, genuinely curious, but the woman’s gaze went behind him in the parking lot. With it, her smile disappeared.
Tension lined every inch of her so quickly that Liam’s body mirrored that tension on reflex.
It was such a complete change that Liam was about to ask what was wrong, but the woman was faster than his concern.
She pressed his shirt into his chest.
“Thanks again,” she said, words cold. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Liam turned around to watch the woman walk with purpose toward something else.
Someone else.
A man he didn’t recognize was standing at the end of the parking lot, staring.
And it wasn’t until the woman got closer to him that he turned tail and ran into the wooded area behind the school. And it wasn’t until he was running that the woman gave chase, disappearing into the tree line in a flash.
