Mary's Bones

TWENTY-EIGHT

"You've been staring at that flier since yesterday. What's up?" John glanced over his shoulder at me. I hadn't missed the way his right eyebrow quirked.

I caressed the edges of the flier, only then acknowledging its presence. Which was funny, considering I had been staring at the flier for a while now. Just like he pointed out. I must've zoned out once again.

"There was this woman in the store with me yesterday. But she was in a hurry and dropped this on her way out," was my short response.

"Oh?"—he snapped the raw spaghetti noodles in half and dipped them into the pot of boiling water—"why do you still have it then?"

"Well, I don't know. It seems important. There's a lot of hand-written data and information on the back. But there's no information about where she works, so I have no way of returning it to her," I said, sighing.

"Hmm, let me see." He took a step back from the stove and reached his hand forward. I handed him the flier and leaned back in the kitchen chair. "What is this, William's Real Estate Agency? Oh! That's the company working with Jeremiah Adams on the houses in the park, isn't it? Maybe she works here."

"No, no. I overheard her phone conversation in the store. It's definitely not this company. But she does seem to be trying to make some sort of deal with them. So, I don't know. There's definitely a connection."

"Maybe she works for a company in the area then." John shrugged.

I reached for the flier again and laid it flat on the table. "Yeah, you could be right. I just wish I knew what the company was."

"Hey, don't stress about it. She probably has that information backed up or saved somewhere if it's that important. And you want to know what else I think?" John grasped my hand, kissing across each knuckle. "I think you should put that away for now and rest until dinner is ready. I'm also right about that, aren't I?" Tease laced his tone.

A ghost of a smile haunted my face while I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, sir!" I mock-saluted.

"Watch it." He growled playfully. But I stuck my tongue out and giggled.

"Are you sure you have to go to work tonight?" I pouted and crossed my arms.

Because of this case, his hours had been shifting constantly. One minute, he was stuck at the station all day, and coming home late at night. The next minute, he was home all day, but went into work late at night until early morning—sometimes late afternoon as I was leaving for work.

He smacked my forehead with a kiss. "I do."

I groaned, dropping my pouting act. If it was going to happen, there was no stopping it. "Can you at least appeal to my boredom with what's been going on? I heard the first arrest was made in the case so far." I played with the ends of my curls, eyeing him innocently over my fingers.

He wasted no time in rolling his eyes at me. I observed his next few steps. He moved at a daunting pace until he reached the stove again, running a hand through his hair.

"You're right. We arrested Jeremiah Adams two days ago. But he was released yesterday. The Adams have got quite the lawyer backing their asses," John murmured.

"What? You're kidding!?" I cleared my throat when he shot me a confused look. "Um, I mean, why?"

"It's a little complicated to explain. Now that we've found another girl, we've been carefully taking a look into all the evidence we've gathered on file between 2016 and recently, again. None of Jeremiah's alibis from that year match up to any of the dates the girls went missing.