CHAPTER SEVEN
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“I’m telling you, Martin doesn’t know anything.” Louise sounded as if she were about to have a nervous breakdown, and Brett couldn’t blame her. “He just got off the phone with Chad. Can you believe they were talking about emergency generators? Chad had to keep up the ruse that everything is fine. He didn’t want to be the one to spill the beans. Brett, this is a total disaster. What if Martin figures out I told the police about their affair?”
Brett pulled back the curtain on her living room window. She couldn’t see anything out there in the dark. The street light appeared to be nothing more than a blur from the amount of snow being blown around, so it was basically useless for her to try and locate Coen. He’d been outside for well over fifteen minutes. What was he doing out there that would take this long? He was going to freeze out there in the storm. He did mention that he was from Florida.
“You said yourself that Martin doesn’t know you’re aware that he and Heidi were together,” Brett pointed out, trying her best to reassure Louise that she was safe while worrying about Coen. Both were easier said than done considering this week had been filled with nothing but secrets and lies. “You really should have told the police all of this last weekend. It would be done by now if you had.”
She didn’t mean for that last statement to come out the way it sounded, but all of this could have been avoided had Louise simply told the police the truth from the beginning. Brett was always telling her class that honesty always won out in the grand scheme of things.
“You say that in hindsight, but even you were skeptical that Martin could do such a thing so completely horrific. He was our friend, just like everyone else who was up at the campground. How could he do something so evil?” It was easy to hear that Louise was on the verge of tears. “Listen, you live across the street from that deputy sheriff. Can’t you go over there and ask when they plan on arresting Martin? I tried to call the sheriff, but the police department are only taking calls if it’s an emergency due to the storm. No one will tell me anything.”
Brett wanted more than anything to tell Louise who Coen really was and the reason he was here, but she’d made a promise. She couldn’t risk his investigation, nor put herself in any more danger than she might possibly be in, given the circumstances. The bottom line was that it was better to keep Coen’s presence here at the house under wraps.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Chad’s first priority is your safety, so he never would have tipped Martin off that the police are about to show up on his doorstep.” There was nothing like losing a friend at the hands of another to put things into perspective. Heidi’s death had done that and more. Chad had set aside his foolish pride over a beaten down issue that he and Louise had argued about for longer than the time they’d actually been together. “Besides, the sheriff has to be on his way over there right now with an arrest warrant. It’s been hours already.”
Brett and Louise had spent most of late afternoon talking to the police and filling them in on the secrets Louise had been privy to in regards to Heidi and Martin’s brief affair. He had no idea that anyone else knew about their argument, and he was probably even more confident when no one brought it up when the group had been questioned last weekend.
“And don’t you think if Martin were to try something like that, he wouldn’t come after me too? We both called the sheriff.” Brett paused a moment as what she said triggered another worry that she didn’t want or need. She let the curtain fall back into place before stepping away from the window. What if the accident outside her house hadn’t been genuine? What if Martin had figured out that she and Louise had turned him into the police? “Louise, hold on for a second, would you?”
Brett stood in the middle of her living room with the phone in her hand while she debated what to do. Coen should have been back by now. This was one of the reasons why she wanted to join him outside. There was always safety in numbers.
“Shit,” Brett muttered in response to the front door banging open. The unexpected noise had taken her by surprise and put her on edge.
It was obvious a gust of wind had taken over, causing Coen’s grip to slip from the wood. He quickly gained control before slamming the door behind him and flipping the deadbolt in one motion. His dark hair was damp with snow. He ran a hand over his short beard, getting rid of those flakes that hadn’t melted. He shot her a look of surprise for her expletive.
“What?” Brett said in frustration, more because he’d scared her than his response to her cursing. “It’s not like I’m Mother Theresa or something.”
Coen tilted his head and gave a small shrug as if he disagreed. His gaze traveled down before settling on the phone in her hand. Crap. She’d forgotten all about Louise.
“Sorry,” Brett apologized to Louise, rushing into her next sentence so her friend didn’t inquire about who she was with. “I know that everything points toward Martin as the one who murdered Heidi, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it. We’ve all known him for years, Louise. I’m not making excuses, but maybe he just lost it in the heat of the moment. I just can’t bring myself to believe that he would intentionally set out to hurt any of us. Besides, the police already know what we know. It wouldn’t make sense for him to come after either one of us after the fact.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Louise was hanging on by a thread, and there wasn’t anything Brett could say to ease her concern. “What if—”
“Louise, it’s going to be fine. Take a moment, crack open a bottle of wine, and relax.” Brett continued to reassure Louise as Coen removed his jacket and boots after having set down the flashlight and what looked to be an envelope full of papers. They most likely came from the glove compartment of the car currently wrapped around one of her favorite trees. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Someone slid off the road and wrecked into my boxelder out front. I need to make sure they are all right.”
“What’s going on?” Coen inquired with a frown after she was finally able to disengage from her conversation with Louise. He swiped the papers off the side table before he entered the living room. “The sheriff didn’t pick up Eyles yet?”
“No. Martin called to talk to Chad about emergency generators a little bit ago.” Brett didn’t like all of these loose ends. A shiver passed over her, and she didn’t think it was from the cold air Coen had let in through the door. “Louise is worried that Martin will find out she told the police.”
“I can make a call to Sheriff Whitney, if you like,” Coen offered as he came to stand in front of her. He smelled of fresh air and pine, but it was his presence that chased away the chill. “I’ll see if that arrest warrant came through, and then also have him check on a gentleman by the name of Lester Koett. I might just have my buddy back home run a check, too. There’s no phone number on this registration, or any of the other papers that I found in his glove compartment.”
“Lester?” Brett finally had something to smile at, though concern soon settled in. “He’s one of the custodians at the school. I wonder what he was doing out in this weather running around.”
“Me, too.” Coen was still frowning as he rattled off the address from the registration in his hand. “Isn’t that across town from here?”
“Yes, it is.” Brett held up her phone in small victory, grateful that something was going their way. “While you’re contacting Sheriff Whitney, I have an emergency contact list in my email for everyone working at the school. I’ll try to reach Lester that way.”
Brett sat down in her favorite overstuffed chair she used when grading papers while Coen walked into the kitchen. She wondered why he didn’t stay with her, but then figured he didn’t want the two of them to talk over one another. At least, she hoped it was that versus him not wanting her to hear his conversation with the sheriff. Was Coen still hiding something from her about Shepherd Moss or Martin?
The ringing of her phone had her tearing her gaze away from the doorway to the kitchen. It was an unknown number, but there were times the cell service in this area had issues and couldn’t display where the call originated. They still had those kind of issues in small town America. It was most likely her mother checking in, so Brett accepted the call with a swipe.
“Hello?”
There was nothing but static on the other end of the line.
“Hello? Mom? Are you there?”
Click.
Brett brought the phone away from her ear and stared at the lighted display with unease. Chances were it had either been her mother or her father. Well, it would definitely have been her mom first, because her dad didn’t like to use the telephone. She fumbled with her cell when it started to vibrate and ring once more before finally steadying it in her hand.
“Hello?”
“Sorry about that,” Louise said, her voice now coming through loud and clear. “I must have butt-dialed you.”
“That’s good to know.” Brett breathed a silent sigh of relief, not wanting Louise to know how much on edge she really was ever since they’d contacted the police. “I found out that one of the custodians at my school was the one who slid off the road. I was just going to try and call him to see if he was all right.”
“He didn’t stick around or knock on your door?”
“No, which is really odd.” Brett had a vision of the older man bleeding from the head and wandering off from the site of the accident. Her life had been comfortingly mundane prior to this past week. She never would have assumed the worst. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Brett didn’t waste any more time, wanting to make sure Lester was okay and also find out what Coen had learned from Sheriff Whitney. It took her a good minute longer than it would have had she used her laptop to find the information she needed, but she’d left it in her bedroom. She finally found a contact number for Lester, though it took four rings before the call was answered.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Koett?” Brett continued after the older woman confirmed that she was, indeed, Lester’s wife. “This is Brett Lambert. I work with your husband at the school. I’m one of the second grade teachers. Did he happen to come home this evening yet? I don’t want to worry you, but his car skidded off the road and into a tree on my property. He was gone before we realized what happened.”
“Oh, dear!” Brett could hear Mrs. Koett yelling for her husband, which on one hand was a relief. Unfortunately, what came after wasn’t something she’d braced herself to hear. “Lester is fine. He wasn’t driving the car this evening. It was my nephew—Martin Eyles.”
*
He was cold.
He slid down farther into the seat of his car, curling into himself to generate heat while he looked through the lenses of the binoculars. Visibility was becoming less and less with each passing minute, but he was still able to follow the shadow underneath the street light.
It appeared Brettany Lambert had a guest.
This certainly complicated things.