What Janie Saw(95)
“Did either Townsend or Harrington have a beef with your department chair?”
“No, everyone loved Patricia. Besides, Patricia wasn’t in charge of their division.”
Rafe didn’t even blink, reminding Janie that someone didn’t love Patricia, and maybe that same somebody didn’t love Janie, either.
“How about the eyewitness accounts? Did you recognize any of those names?”
He returned to his chair, finished another piece of ham, then another, and waited. When she finished the last account, she shook her head. “No. It happened so fast.”
He nodded, and scanned Janie up and down, starting with her bandaged arm and lingering on her black eye. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“She’s not fine. She didn’t eat one bite of dinner, and she’s going to need pain medication to sleep because her arm is hurting so badly. And look at her face!” Katie wore her Defender of the Universe expression. Janie’d seen it often during their childhood—usually when she went one-on-one with their aunt over some injustice.
Katie could always talk her way out of trouble, using logic and maturity. She’d always been mature for her age. Little sister Janie had always tried being creative. She’d spent a good deal of her youth getting nowhere.
Right now she was too tired to care.
Rafe didn’t flinch at Katie’s outburst. He just stared at Janie, his brown eyes so searching that Janie felt a blush warm her cheeks. At least the bruises would hide the proof of what his scrutiny was doing to her.
He glanced away before she started to squirm.
“I’m fine. I just want to find out who really pushed me, and what has happened to Brittney.” She didn’t mention how scared she was.
Rafe finished his glass of milk and took some more photos from the briefcase. “I was hoping you’d feel that way. Apparently your trip down the stairs—no pun intended—caused Nathan to have second thoughts about how he’s handling this case. He’s even leaning on the medical examiner to take a closer look at Derek’s death—the family’s happy about that, by the way—and he’s even cool with Scorpion Ridge having equal footing in the investigation.” He laid the new photos on the table.
“Why is the family happy?” Luke asked.
“It will prove what one of our informants has been saying all along. Derek wasn’t a cook. He didn’t make the drugs. He didn’t die because he was stupid.”
No one had to say what they were all thinking—Derek Chaney had died because of what he’d written in his art book. The one that only Janie and Patricia had read.
Closing her eyes, Janie fought off the waves of dizziness that threatened to end her participation in tonight’s queries. She wanted, needed, Derek’s killer found so she could go back to feeling safe. She also needed to understand how the killer had found out that Derek had even submitted it, and how the killer had taken the book from the AHCC’s campus security safe.
Janie had to believe that someday she’d feel safe again. Right now, the people she loved most didn’t even seem to notice her fear or require her input. Katie was so busy poring over the pictures Rafe had laid on the table that she wasn’t clearing the plates. Luke, too, was peering over Rafe’s shoulder. Of the three, he was the most squeamish.