Read Online Home to Whiskey Creek by Brenda Novak - Free Book Online Page B

since high school. Or, if they had, no one knew about it. Gran had visited her regularly all the years she’d been gone, and they talked on the phone every few days when they weren’t together. She would’ve heard if any of the people she’d known had been charged with a crime. She also received the Gold Country Gazette, Whiskey Creek’s weekly paper, at her apartment in Davis. So even if Gran didn’t mention an arrest, the newspaper would. She’d subscribed for that very reason.
    For the thirteen years she’d been gone, all had been quiet.
    “That’s okay,” Stacy said. “I’ll still get him.”
    “I’m praying you will.” This came from Gran, who’d been listening silently but intently.
    Chief Stacy scooted forward in his seat. He’d been handed the worst crime to be perpetrated in Whiskey Creek in at least a decade and had just promised her he’d find the man responsible, but he had nothing to go on. “So why you?”
    Wishing this could be over, Addy threaded her fingers more tightly together and searched for an explanation he’d find plausible. “I’ve heard...on various forensic shows that most crimes are crimes of opportunity. I guess...I guess I made it too easy when I left my door open.” Essentially, she was taking the blame. She deserved some of it—not for leaving her door open, but for sneaking out and attending that stupid party in the first place. Gran had told her she couldn’t go.
    If only she’d listened...
    “There’s got to be a detail, some evidence we’re missing,” Stacy said.
    “Nothing I can think of right now,” Adelaide told him. “But...if I remember anything, I’ll give you a call.”
    He put his notepad and pen in his pocket. “I did find an interesting object that might help.”
    Adelaide’s chest constricted. “What did you say?”
    “The man who attacked you must’ve dropped his knife when he was wrestling you out to his truck, because I found this—” he straightened one leg so he could take something from his pocket “—in the flower bed outside the door to your bedroom.”
    If it had been a plain pocketknife, Adelaide wouldn’t have paid it much heed. But it had a wolf carved into the handle, which wasn’t something one saw every day.
    Her mind raced. “Couldn’t that have been dropped by someone else?”
    “I doubt it. With all the watering in the summer and the rain we get in the winter—” he flipped out the blade “—there’d be some rust if it’d been exposed to the elements for any length of time.” He pointed to the shiny steel. “Look at that. It’s perfect. Someone loved this knife.”
    Palms sweaty, heart pounding, she sat in silence.
    “So you didn’t see him with it?” he asked.
    “He—he said he had a knife. But...I didn’t see it, no. And...I—I assumed he had it with him the whole time.”
    Stacy studied the carving. “Okay, I’ll keep asking around. See if anyone can identify its owner.”
    “He must’ve used that to cut the screen,” Gran said. “Were there any fingerprints on it?”
    Adelaide held her breath. Please, no.
    “Unfortunately not. I’m guessing he wiped it clean before he came here.”
    “He—he was wearing gloves,” Adelaide said. “I remember that from when...from when he was tying my hands. The gloves made it difficult.”
    “Gloves.” Chief Stacy sighed in a way that indicated he found this expected but disappointing. Then he lifted the knife. “But...this is very hopeful. We’ll see what turns up.”
    The police chief and Gran moved on to other subjects while he finished his coffee and cake. Adelaide learned that he was recently divorced, that he was suing his wife for custody of their two kids, that his ex was “crazy” if she thought she was going to tell their son he couldn’t play football.
    At last Stacy got up to leave—with a final promise to see that her attacker was apprehended.
    Closing her eyes, Adelaide stayed where she was while Gran showed him out. She was