Whispers at Midnight Read Free Page A

He’d already made up his mind that he wasn’tgoing to leave any more loose ends around. Once upon a time he had made the biggest mistake of his life by erring on the side of restraint. He wasn’t making that mistake again.
    Not when all of a sudden he had so much to lose.
    “Here, dog.”
    Trying to sound pleasant, he crouched, snapping his fingers. The dog shivered and tucked its tail between its legs, watching him but keeping a safe distance.
    Giving up after a few more tries, he had a thought and went back to the car to retrieve the Twinkie Marsha had been eating. One was squashed all over the driver’s seat, he discovered with a grimace as he opened the door, but there was another one still in its open package on the passenger side. Leaning in, he grabbed it. Then, Twinkie in hand, he headed back toward the dog.
    “Here, dog,” he said in a honeyed tone as he approached, holding out the treat.
    It started to bark hysterically.
    For a moment he froze. The night was dark as Hades, the nearest house was unoccupied, and the chances of anybody hearing the damned animal were slim. But still the sound grated at him, made him jumpy, had him looking all around.
    “Shut up,” he ordered, then as it kept barking he lost his head and lunged threateningly at it. The dog jumped away, barking even more shrilly. This is stupid, he thought, and threw the Twinkie at it.
    Then he got into the car and floored the gas, sending showers of dirt shooting skyward as he did his best to run the ugly little thing down.
    Yelping, it dodged and scuttled away, scooting under a fence as he sent the Taurus roaring after it. He slammed on the brakes just in time to keep from hitting the fence, cursing as the dog disappeared in a sea of tall corn.
    So it got away, he told himself savagely as he nosed the Taurus back onto the road a little while later. So what? It would probably be dead by morning. Anyway, it wasn’t a loose end he was leaving behind, not really. It was just a damned dog.

3

    June 28
    “I HEAR YOU TWO had a fight.”
    Matt Converse watched the boyfriend’s eyes. They flicked away, came back almost immediately. The guy—Keith Kenan, thirty-six years old, one divorce, employed on the line at Honda for five years and resident of Benton for that same period, clean police record except for one brawl over in Savannah two years back and a couple of old DUIs—was nervous. Nervous didn’t always equal guilt, but it bore watching.
    “Who told you that?”
    Matt shrugged noncommittally.
    “So what if we did? That don’t mean anything. Everybody has fights.” Kenan’s tone was defensive. He was getting agitated. Matt observed the quickening of his breathing, the tightening of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, with clinical detachment. Kenan was a big, burly guy with a dark blond buzz cut, smallish pale blue eyes, and a tattoo of a heart pierced by a dagger on one pumped-up biceps, which was bared by the ratty tank top he was wearing with black nylon gym shorts. The two of them were standing in the combination living/dining room of the apartment Kenan shared with Marsha Hughes.
    Correction: had shared. Marsha Hughes had been missing for justover a week. This was Matt’s second conversation with Kenan. He’d first talked to him five days ago, after one of Marsha’s friends at work had become concerned enough about her unexplained absence to report it to the sheriff’s department.
    “Everybody has fights,” Matt conceded. Kenan started to pace. Matt took advantage of his distraction to glance around. Except for a single meal’s worth of dishes on the diningroom table—apparently the previous night’s supper because, upon answering the door, Kenan had complained about being rousted from bed—the apartment was neat. Furniture by Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart. Worn green carpet. Gold drapes drawn against the bright morning sun. Walls painted white, hung with a few nondescript prints. As far as he could tell, nothing out of the