“Sorry. Your phone was ringing.” He handed it to me. “I think it was your sister.”
I groaned, remembering the weird feeling I’d had earlier.
“Be right back,” I said, standing and walking over to the sidewalk where I’d be better able to hear when my sister answered. The voice I heard, though, was a man’s.
“Hello, this is Sheriff MacIver calling from Hays County in Texas. You are listed in a woman’s phone as the emergency contact.”
I felt my stomach drop. “That would be my sister, Sybil Knight. Has something happened?”
“Ma’am, is there somewhere you can take a seat?”
“Why?”
The man cleared his throat. “A woman we believe might be your sister was found outside of Austin, Texas, this evening. I’m sorry, Miss Knight, but…”
“But, what?” I shrieked. I saw Adler stand and walk in my direction. Several other people were staring at me.
“We haven’t been able to confirm her identity, but if it is your sister—again, I’m sorry, ma’am—but she’s dead.”
3
Decker
It had taken exactly three seconds for me to get into the dead woman’s phone. Didn’t people know by now that the first password someone would try was password?
I looked up when Mac walked out of his office.
“What did you find out?”
Mac motioned for me to come in and closed the door.
“Reached the sister. Her name is Mila Knight. If it’s her, our victim is Sybil Knight.”
“Knight? The name sounds familiar.”
“You’re probably thinking of Judd Knight, their father.”
“Whatever happened to him?”
Mac shook his head. “He and their mother—I think her name was Nancy—divorced damn near twenty years ago. I haven’t seen any of them around these parts since the girls were little. I remember hearing that Nancy died. Can’t remember when that was exactly, at least ten years, though.”
“If the mother is dead, wouldn’t Judd be next of kin?”
“The sister’s already on her way to identify the body.”
Poor woman. First, she lost her mother, and now, her sister. “Where’s she flying in from?” I asked.
“Boston, of all Godforsaken places.” John “Mac” MacIver believed anywhere outside of the great State of Texas was Godforsaken. The sheriff scrubbed his face with his hand. “It’s always hard to tell someone their loved one is dead, but over the phone…”
I’d never had to do it; I didn’t envy Mac’s position.
“After I broke the news, someone else came on the line. A man. He was the person who confirmed she’d come and identify the body.”
“When’s she flying in?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you then.”