Badlands Witch (Cormac and Amelia 2)

“Work,” he said truthfully.

“What kind of work?”

“I’m a freelance investigator.” Also not a lie.

“Investigating what?”

He winced. Yeah, that was going to be the hard part to explain. “Usually stuff that no one else wants to investigate. Haunted houses, old cursed burial grounds.” He shrugged, as if it didn’t mean anything.

The way she stared, he couldn’t tell if she was a believer or a skeptic. “There a lot of that going around? Cursed burial grounds?”

“Google Cheesman Park in Denver. You’d be surprised.”

“Aubrey Walker hired you?” Nielson asked.

That made Cormac sit up a little straighter, and the skin on the back of his neck crawled. “That’s. . .a little complicated. Someone pretending to be Aubrey Walker hired me. Used Professor Walker’s credentials to get me to take a job. There was a mix-up.” How much of this was he going to have to explain? Because he wasn’t sure he could, not in a way that would make sense to a hard-assed police detective.

“But you met with Professor Walker yesterday?”

“I did, yes. She helped me figure out that someone was pretending to be her. A woman named Isabelle Durant. We tracked her down on the security cameras over at the dig headquarters.”

Nielson betrayed nothing, not so much as a flicker of understanding. “Have you seen Professor Walker since your meeting yesterday?”

“No, I’ve been trying to track down this Durant person, find out what she really wants.” Cormac was just about done being polite. “Detective Nielson, what happened?”

She pressed her lips together and drew a couple of eight-by-ten photos from the second folder. Crime scene photos showing Aubrey Walker’s dead body. She looked like she was on a gravel road, sprawled at awkward angles, legs bent, arms flung out, head to the side, eyes staring. Blood covered half her face, pouring from a combination of abrasions and a gash across her forehead. Her shirt was spattered with blood, her hair disheveled. Like she’d been hit by a car or something.

He closed his eyes. This wasn’t fair. This was wrong, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He hadn’t done the deed but he was pretty sure Aubrey was dead because of him.

“Aubrey Walker was alive the last time you saw her?” Nielson asked. “You’re sure?”

“What happened?” Cormac asked again, his voice rough. “She was hit by a car, wasn’t she?”

Nielson nodded. “Probably at high speed. She probably went over the top. Death would have been almost instantaneous.”

“People always say that like it’s a good thing.”

“Some of us don’t like to think about innocent people suffering. I very much want to know who did this.”

He flipped through the pictures, not spending much time on them. Aubrey had suffered, even if only for a few seconds. Nielson had to know that. One of the pictures set the scene, a country road, probably near the dig headquarters. Durant had known where the dig headquarters were. So did Cormac.

“Your patrol officers searched the outside of my car,” he said. “They didn’t find anything.”

“You could have washed it.”

“Go out and take a look at it yourself, I haven’t washed it in months.”

“I already did, Mr. Bennett. And you’re right. You really should give that thing a wash.”

That was why they let him drive here himself. He ran a hand through his hair, wondered what else Nielson was looking for. She was looking for a confession. For a missing piece that would give Cormac a reason to kill the archeologist.

Cormac couldn’t get arrested. He couldn’t go back to prison. He wouldn’t. He had to get out of this room, he had to—

“Mr. Bennett? Tell me about your contact with Aubrey Walker. From the beginning.”

“I’m not sure I can explain it. It’s. . .strange.”

“Even more reason for you to explain it.”