Don't Make a Sound (Sawyer Brooks #1)(6)

“Who are you?” Perez gestured toward the lanyard that hung around her neck and disappeared inside her shirt.

She pulled the lanyard free and showed him her ID.

“Are you here with Palmer?”

She nodded. “He’s downstairs.”

“Where’s Geezer?”

“Out sick.”

“Do you have pictures of the crime scene on your camera?”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed. He reached for her camera, and she hesitated before pulling the strap over her neck and handing it to him. After a moment, he gave it back to her. “Get out of here before I have you arrested.”

The detective followed her through the apartment and out the main door. He stopped to look up and down at the uniformed officer standing in the hallway. “Where the hell were you?”

“I had to pee.”

“Leave this spot again and I’ll report you. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sawyer had already pushed the elevator button when she saw the detective marching toward her. She forced her shoulders to relax. Don’t check my pockets. If he did, she’d be up shit creek. The elevator doors opened. She stepped inside and turned around. His eyes bored into hers. “What’s your name?”

“Sawyer Brooks.”

“Step out here. I want to—”

“Detective Perez,” someone called from inside Kylie’s apartment. “Found something you might want to see.”

The doors clamped shut.

Sawyer inhaled and tucked her lanyard back into her shirt, then hid her camera as best she could before the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors opened again. She walked toward the exit.

“Hey, you,” a security guard called out as she passed.

She could make a run for the parking lot, or she could see what he wanted. She stopped and waited.

“I need you to sign out.”

She walked his way, signed her name, jotted down the time of day.

“I couldn’t find your name on the tenant list.”

“I’m Nancy’s granddaughter.” He grabbed another list and was looking through it when she added, “Bad day to pay her a visit, but I’ll be back.” She left before he could question her further.

Outside, Sawyer took in the sea of faces as she walked back to her car. The crowd had doubled. Sean Palmer was nowhere to be seen.





CHAPTER THREE

Sawyer was back in her cubicle, clacking away on her keyboard. It was ten minutes after six when she finished writing about the birthday party gone amiss. She ended the sad tale with key points about safety precautions around reptiles, then connected to her email service, composed a message to her boss, attached the file, and hit “Send.”

Immediately after leaving the apartment building in West Sacramento where Kylie Hartford had been murdered, Sawyer had called Sean Palmer to tell him what she’d seen and heard. When he didn’t answer, she drove to the hospital where the boy had died from the venomous snakebite. Sawyer had been surprised to walk into the hospital’s main lobby and find Jason Carlson, the man who’d thought it was a good idea to pull out a poisonous reptile at his son’s party, sitting alone.

When she found him, he’d been crying—noisy sobs between short, convulsive gasps. He must have needed to talk to someone, because all it had taken was for her to offer a bit of sympathy for him to open the floodgates. He hadn’t seemed to care that she was a reporter from a local paper. The man had talked freely, grief-stricken by what had happened.

Sawyer had found herself feeling sorry for him. Not a reaction she’d expected after first hearing the story. Her sisters had accused her, on more than one occasion, of lacking empathy. But Sawyer disagreed. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the suffering of others, she believed her compassion allowed her to keep emotion out of moments like this.

Jason Carlson and his children had grown up around snakes. He swore his snakes were not aggressive and believed all the commotion that day had prompted the attack. But he also admitted to being naive to think something like this couldn’t happen. He wasn’t sure whether the boy’s parents intended to press charges, but he said he wouldn’t blame them for doing so.

If only the snake had bitten him instead, he said, over and over again.

If only.

Negligence. Accident. It wasn’t her job to judge or tell her audience how to feel. Her job was to tell the story. Be fair. Let readers make up their own minds.

Her phone buzzed. The screen showed DAD. She picked up the call and said hello.

“Are you at home?” he asked.

“No. I’m at work.”

“Gramma Sally passed away last night. She died in her sleep.”

Her heart sank. Gramma Sally was her mom’s mother. “Is Mom okay?”

“She’s fine.”

It helped to know Gramma hadn’t suffered, and yet guilt for not being there for her weighed heavily. When Gramma Sally had moved from Florida to River Rock to live with Sawyer and her parents, she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Despite her failing health, she’d lived another seventeen years, and made it to eighty-three. The thought of never seeing her again left an ache in Sawyer’s chest. Gramma had taught Sawyer that life wasn’t always fair and people needed to learn to suck it up. Be brave. Be strong. When life gets tough, you need to get tougher, she used to say.