And I’m trying to distract myself, she realized, fighting the fear that she didn’t want to know why the lieutenant was there, in her office.
“Blake didn’t…get away or something, did he?” she asked.
“Mr. Ralston?” She looked surprised. “We’re not usually that careless. No, Captain McAllister just finished interviewing him.”
“Did he learn anything?”
“You’ll have to ask him. I only saw the tail end.”
Cait nodded. “Please. Have a seat. What can I do for you?”
She listened in shock as the lieutenant explained to her how they could tell bullets had been fired by the same gun, and how Jerry Hegland’s killer was also the individual who had attempted to murder her.
“But…why?” she managed to beg.
“That’s what we have to figure out. The captain said you’d run into Mr. Hegland when you first arrived in Angel Butte.”
She gave her head a dazed shake. “Yes. It was…really nothing. Nell and I had lunch together. We were leaving and I literally bumped into him. I recognized him—he recognized me. We exchanged a few words, but he was supposed to meet someone, and that was that.”
Jane Vahalik’s expression had gotten more intent. “Did you see who was he meeting?”
It had been so long since that day, Cait could only shake her head. “I didn’t even look. I was too taken aback to see Jerry.”
“Why do you say ‘taken aback’?”
“Frankly, I wouldn’t have expected to recognize anyone,” she explained. “You know I haven’t been back in Angel Butte at all, don’t you? Colin and I got together wherever I lived. Kids don’t pay that much attention to adults, and after twenty years? Maybe a teacher. Even my friends from back then would have changed so much.”
The lieutenant leaned forward. “Then why is it that you recognized Mr. Hegland right away?”
Cait hesitated. “I don’t know how comfortable Colin would be with me telling you this.”
“Whatever the connection is between you and Mr. Hegland, we have to find it,” the other woman said gently.
“Yes, but this—” Oh, what difference did it make? If her mother lived there in town and had a reputation to protect, it might be different, but as it was, her secret wasn’t that important, not to anyone. Not even me, she realized in surprise. Sixteen-year-old Cait had cared a whole lot, but now? Maybe after her own relationship with Blake, she’d gained some perspective. Who was she to sit in judgment of Mom?
“My mother had an affair with him,” she said flatly—one second before the light rap of knuckles on her not-quite-latched door was followed by Noah stepping into the room. From his expression, she could tell he’d heard.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, not bothering to sound as if he meant it.
The lieutenant wiped her face clean, the way Colin did so easily. To hide irritation? What could she say, given that Noah was essentially her boss, too?
“There’s no reason you can’t hear this, Noah,” Cait said. “I truly can’t imagine it has anything to do with what’s happening now.”
Jane glanced at her open notebook. “At ten years old, you understood that your mother was sleeping with a man not your father?”
“Of course not.” Brisk, Cait told herself. Make it clear to both of them that this is ancient history, that’s all. “I knew he was Mommy’s friend. She took me with her sometimes to see him. He bought us burgers and fries. We took a picnic to a lake, that kind of thing. Only…maybe half a dozen times.”
“And yet you remembered him.” The lieutenant sounded skeptical.
Noah, leaning against the wall just inside the door, was watching Cait, but she didn’t look at him.
“I doubt I would have, except when I was sixteen I found a packet of notes from him and a picture that my mother had kept. It was obvious from the notes that their relationship was sexual. I’d say my mother came crashing down from her pedestal, except, well, I was a teenager.”
Jane cracked a smile. “And Mom had long since tumbled.”
“Exactly. Even so, at the time, it was a big deal. That’s why he was stuck in my head.”