Reading Online Novel

What Janie Saw(5)



                “Brittney Travis,” Rafe said slowly.

                Across from him, Janie pressed her lips together and nodded.

                Rafe gripped the phone, hard. He prayed—prayed that it was some kind of mistake, some kind of joke, that Brittney wasn’t dead, hadn’t suffered. He prayed that he could still save her.

                This wasn’t the kind of closure Rafe had been hoping for.

                “Yes.” Nathan’s voice was terse, guarded.

                “Have you had time to—”

                “We can’t do anything until we speak with Miss Vincent in person.”

                “I’ll escort her myself,” Rafe promised. “I can free up my late afternoon.”

                Katie reached across and took hold of one of Janie’s hands.

                Nathan immediately snapped, “Late afternoon? I was hoping it would be sooner. And why do you have to escort her? You think she’s the type to skip?”

                “No.” Rafe eyed Janie and Katie. “I don’t think that at all.” Katie couldn’t run, not in her condition, and while Janie was the type, she only ran when she felt no one was listening to her.

                Well, if what she’d found was a true account of a murder, she’d have plenty of people willing to listen to her. Too bad it wasn’t Katie who’d read the art book. Solid, businesslike and driven, Katie would be the kind of witness cops dreamed about.

                Janie, on the other hand, was flighty, whimsical and always believed the grass was greener on the other side. She acted and spoke without much forethought and a bit rashly.

                Rafe said to Nathan, “I intend to be involved in every step of this new lead. So, along with you, I’m Janie’s new best friend.”

                Janie raised one eyebrow and looked askance at her sister.

                Actually, Rafe had a home-court advantage over Nathan. He might not be Janie’s best friend, but he knew her fairly well. He knew things like she only enjoyed coffee if she had French-vanilla creamer to add to it. That she could sit at a table at the Corner Diner and draw for an hour without being aware of anything that was going on about her. That if the very pregnant waitress happened to serve Janie, Janie tripled the tip.

                His mother, Lucille, owned the diner and had noticed these traits first. She’d passed every observation on to Rafe, whether he wanted to hear it or not.

                Mom had been playing matchmaker for Rafe over a decade now. She wasn’t very good at it, though admittedly, he’d always found both sisters intriguing. Katie Rittenhouse played with tigers. Janie Vincent painted them from a safe distance. Though the scar on the left side of her face indicated that hadn’t always been true.

                “Is there something I should be aware of?” Nathan asked. “She ever been in trouble?”

                Rafe had twice been called out to Bridget’s Animal Adventure, the animal habitat Janie’s big sister and husband managed, and where Janie spent much of her time. Once, he’d investigated the plight of two tiny bears, declawed and abandoned. On the second instance, he’d had to make sure the big cats were all accounted for, as there’d been a sighting in town. The cougars, leopards and mountain lions at BAA were all in their enclosures. Rafe never did find out whether it had been an actual sighting or whether someone in Scorpion Ridge owned a very large black domestic cat.