No one had looked down.
That day had shattered a piece of her she hadn’t known was still intact.
But this day might be the worst day. She’d been drugged. In the water probably, or one of the protein bars. Molly had been in her bunker, and then when she’d blinked, she was waking up on an old, thin mattress with springs digging into her ribs.
Without moving, in case someone was there with her, Molly cataloged the aches in her body. They were all familiar to her—her hand that hadn’t healed right, her dry throat, the dull pang in her stomach from eating anything. Dread chased relief, though—overtook it and pounced, teeth sinking into a vulnerable neck.
She’d been moved.
Molly didn’t think she knew much in this world anymore, but she knew that wasn’t a good sign.
She’d thought the footsteps day would be the worst, but at least she’d been in the darkness that had become her constant, her reality, her . . . safety. Now she was in the light, and somehow she knew that was far more dangerous.
This was the worst day because it would probably be her last.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
LUCY THORNE
Sunday, 7:15 a.m.
Lucy sat back slowly, nudging the bottom drawer closed as she did. There was still hope that Hicks might not realize she’d found anything.
His eyes tracked her movements, but his face was impassive.
She looked over his shoulder, but Zoey still wasn’t back. Would the woman help Lucy if she were?
“Sorry.” Lucy held her hands up, all contrition and appeasement. “Zoey thought you might have started a file on Molly Thomas. You know, before . . .”
Before we found out you were lying about your connection to the self-confessed killer.
That part went left unsaid.
Hicks stepped into the office, and Lucy used the opportunity to get to her feet. A better tactical position. As he crossed the small space, she moved in tandem, and they orbited an invisible point in the center, something like relief unspooling within her as she realized he wouldn’t try to trap her there.
He kept his eyes on her even as he reached down to open the drawer opposite the one she’d been rifling through. Hicks barely had to glance down before pulling out the file and tossing it to the far side of the desk, so she wouldn’t have to get close to him.
“It’s alphabetical,” he murmured, as she took three quick steps forward to grab it. He waved to the drawers. “My system.”
If that was the worst that he was going to dole out, she’d be grateful. Sarcasm she could handle. Actual physical force could get messy.
“Thanks,” she said, giving him a cheery smile just as Zoey breezed back in with two cups of coffee.
“Boss,” Zoey called out. “Didn’t realize you’d be here.”
Hicks’s eyes didn’t leave Lucy’s face. She tried to mirror the blankness he seemed to be able to deploy at will. “Had some work to catch up on.”
Zoey peeked over Lucy’s shoulder at the file, and there was a new tension in her voice once she realized which one it was. “Molly.”
Lucy glanced down for lack of something better to do. Molly. She hadn’t been in the woods, hadn’t been a body they’d pulled from the earth. Was she still alive?
“Don’t let me keep you,” Hicks said. It was a polite nudge that Lucy found interesting. She would have thought he’d try to get them to spill information on the case. That’s what she would have done in his situation. But here he was, moving them along.
Zoey glanced between them. “Okay,” she said slowly.
“Come on.” Lucy shifted. Once she turned, heading back to Zoey’s office, she realized how silly her fear had been. Hicks was a sheriff. He wasn’t going to assault her in his office. It might not even be that strange that he had Kate Martinez’s file, considering she died after she worked at his family’s ranch.
But even as Lucy told herself all that while leading the way back to Zoey’s office, she couldn’t stop replaying the way he’d smiled at the Laundromat the night before when she’d told him she’d find his secrets. Couldn’t help but wonder if the clothes in the dryers had even been his or if he’d just been waiting for her to stumble upon him.
Couldn’t drown out the thought that she’d found that file way too easily.
When they got back to Zoey’s office, Lucy gratefully took the coffee, feeling a slight quiver of shame from having searched the deputy’s desk while she’d been gone. “I know it was only a brief conversation with Molly, but did you get the sense that she was . . .”
“Nervous?” Zoey guessed. “Heck yeah. She about peed her pants.”
“No.” Lucy shook her head. “Guilty.”
“Oh.” Zoey took a careful sip of her coffee. “A little, I guess? Like a kid, you know? Like she was doing something she knew she shouldn’t be doing.”
“Tattling.”
“Exactly.” Zoey snapped her fingers and pointed. “On who, though?”
“Hicks?”
Zoey shrugged. “I guess.”
Lucy glanced between the file and the whiteboard, thinking about the initials carved into the wooden fence post. What if the three girls had come up with some kind of scheme? Eliza, Molly, and Alessandra. They’d been close, probably.
What if something had gone wrong, and Alessandra had died. And then Molly had seen it headed south once again and tried to get help. Eliza had found out and snapped, killing Molly, as well.
“Did anyone see you?” Lucy asked. “Talking with Molly?”
“I don’t . . .” Zoey tipped her head. “She’d been watching me in the coffee shop but didn’t talk to me until we were both outside in the alleyway.”
“Was there anyone in the shop? Any Church people?” Lucy asked, vaguely noting how she’d already fallen into giving them their own designation.
“Yeah, I think. I think,” Zoey said, her voice starting out unsure but getting stronger. “But I don’t . . . maybe.”
“Okay, what about right afterward?” Lucy didn’t know why she was hounding this point, only that something about that moment felt important. Molly had disappeared only a few days after she’d tried to go to law enforcement. The dots weren’t hard to connect.
“Um, I walked to the sheriff’s office,” Zoey said. “I can’t—”
She stopped, her eyes flying to Lucy’s. Then she exhaled. “Darcy Dawson.”
“What?”
Zoey visibly swallowed. “I . . . I can’t believe I forgot that. I ran into Darcy on the sidewalk outside.” She jerked her head toward the left. “We didn’t stop to talk, but now that I think about it, she might have been in the coffee shop.”
“Did she see you talking to Molly?”
“Maybe? I don’t know.” Zoey stared at her, almost helpless.
Lucy reined in her own galloping speculations and dropped down into her seat.
“So what’s next?” Zoey asked.
Connections. Which ones were important?
“I’m tired of feeling like I’m trying to solve two different cases,” Lucy said, looking back to the board. “Let’s figure out where everything connects.”