When a woman moves into the sleepy town, it rouses everyone's tongues to start wagging. She is strange and distant in her manner. Tia Frost is blissfully unaware of the townsfolk's discomfort with her. With Burt at her side, she wonders about the wo...
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"Right so let me get this straight... she accidentally joined the cult and then ran off with a group of children, including her own. Then she put them all in to care but she intends to keep Tobin?"
"That's right Roland."
He shook his head looking at the board. "That man beat her until she had brain damage. The things people think they can get away with. Why isn't he in prison?"
"If enough people side with him it's the whole group against one. Wounds aren't enough evidence as anyone could have beaten her. The photographs help but... the simple answer is she's afraid to stand up to them. It's easy for them to kill her."
Roland smiled. "Maybe she can come clean with us to help defend her?"
"Maybe in time." I looked down at the book in my hands the horror book was about a woman who was mistreated and ran away. The man kept following her until she eventually shot him in the chest with a shotgun.
"What I'm most concerned about is Tobin thinks the people after him have found him. They are sitting in the basement making plans in case they have to kill them. She practically told me she would shoot them if they came into her house. I know she's got our force outgunned."
"Have they found them or is it just the fears of a scared child?"
I put the book aside and shrugged. "I don't know. I think Tobin is just scared."
Roland frowned. "You got work soon."
"Yes... how are we going to hide this broad?"
Roland smiled standing and walking to the place where my canvases lay. "While you were out I had an idea." He pulled out one of the pictures and held it up over the board. "You could modify one of these to slide over the top."
I nodded. "I'll do that when I come home."
"In the morning? After your nightshirt?"
I stood picking up the canvas and returning it to its place. "Yes, Roland. The chief doesn't trust me now so I need to hide this before he comes looking."
I walked into the bathroom showered and then got ready for work.
A standard nightshirt was only broken up by me driving past the bottom of the driveways, of Tia and Edith's house. I saw no black Volvo and nothing else of interest. I parked up old Betty and walked into the station as it got light.
"Hey Mac how was the night shift?"
"Morning Janna. Nothing to report."
She put a cup of tea down at the desk for me. "You're right about the chief acting odd."
"Why what happened?"
She sat down at the reception desk. "He's been showing a lot more paranoid thoughts. He thinks you've teamed up with Tia and are planning to kill him."
