“I forgot,” Everett said, following her gaze, “you were quite the fan of my fish tank.”
Juniper almost told him to cut the crap, that they both knew exactly what she was looking at, but she was hoping to play the ingénue a bit longer.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she agreed.
“But I take it that’s not why you’re here.” Everett held up his arms in surrender and gave her a contrite look. “Hey, I’m really sorry about this afternoon. I swear, I wasn’t trying to give you the third degree. I was just asking questions. It comes with the job. Guess I’m not very good at it yet.”
Bullshit. He knew exactly what he was doing, and his good cop/bad cop performance was pathetically obvious. But she accepted his apology with a shrug. “I overreacted. I don’t like talking about—or even thinking about—that summer. Lots of bad memories.”
Everett seemed to take stock of her posture, her words, and something inside him shifted. “Do-over?” he asked. “I promise I won’t grill you about that night. I think we could help each other.”
If he wanted to pretend they were cool, she would play along. “Okay,” she said, sliding off her coat and abandoning it on the floor. She followed him into the living room and sank into the corner of the sofa. Everett lingered over her for just a minute, then gestured to the bottle that was sitting on the coffee table. A beer, half gone.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’d love a glass of water.” She smiled, calculating the distance between where she was sitting and the office door, and wondering whether she could make it there and back before Everett returned. She couldn’t.
When he reappeared a minute later with an ice water, he sat down in the middle of the couch. Their knees weren’t touching, but close enough, and it made Juniper feel vaguely threatened. She was exhausted and shaky, and the truth was that Everett made her skin crawl.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, wiping the condensation from the glass with her thumbs.
Everett’s smile was lopsided and insincere. “Doing what?”
“Reopening the Murphy case. Asking questions about that night.”
“It’s my job,” he told her with a self-important smirk.
“Except it’s not. You’re not a detective, and the DCI unit handles cold cases in Iowa.” She gave him a pointed look. “You’re a small-town cop in Nowhere, Northwest Iowa.”
His smile frosted over, and then he gave up the facade and glared at her. “The murders happened in this town, my town. I have access to the files, the evidence, the community.”
Juniper nodded once, wishing that she could get her hands on those files and boxes of evidence. “And what have you discovered?”
“That’s absolutely none of your business.”
“You’re accusing my brother.”
Everett laughed. “Everyone accused your brother. He was found standing over Calvin Murphy’s body, quite literally holding the smoking gun.”
“No gunshot residue. No motive. He called 911. What killer would do that?” Juniper asked, borrowing from India’s playbook.
Everett seemed to consider her words for a moment. Then he leaned forward, bringing himself close enough to touch. She leaned back. “He did it,” Everett said slowly. “I know that he did. And I’m going to prove it.”
For just a heartbeat Juniper flashed to that night, to the rough-hewn boards biting into the skin of her bare shoulders and the shadow of a man beside her. She felt the blood drain from her face. “You’re wrong,” she forced herself to say.
“We’ll see.” Everett grabbed his beer off the coffee table and took a swig. “I find his behavior highly suspicious. He’ll trip up.”
“He’s awake,” Juniper said, and tried to hide her surprise when that tidbit of information made Everett’s eyes cloud over. The news hadn’t reached him yet.
“Good,” he said, too late.
But Juniper wasn’t sure what to do with his insincerity, so she asked, “Why aren’t you looking into the Tates? Franklin? Sterling?”
“Sullivan.”
“Him too.”
“You’re his alibi,” Everett reminded her. “And Jonathan’s, too. Is there something you’d like to tell me about that night?”
None of them had been where they were supposed to be. It was such an impossible situation. Suddenly Juniper had a splitting headache and she could feel tears forming behind her eyes. Wasn’t this where she always got caught up? She couldn’t believe that either Sullivan or Jonathan was capable of killing the Murphys in cold blood. And yet, had she felt a sense of familiarity in the barn that night? Please, God. No. Don’t let it be someone I love.