Free Nightwind by Charlotte Boyett-Compo Page B

wondering if you wasn’t afraid to be out there all by your lonesome,” Jackson remarked.
    “What with most folks in Santa Rosa County thinking the place’s haunted.”
    Syntian laughed. “So I’ve been told. But I don’t think Jesup Herndon is going to bother me.”
    “And why’s that?” Jackson asked, curious about the strange look that had flitted quickly across the
    other man’s face.
    “I’d be more likely to scare him.”
    The Sheriff found himself thinking the same thing. He looked down at his note pad for the too direct gaze
    of Syntian Cree’s umber eyes made him uncomfortable. “Are you seeing the Fowler girl?”
    A look of surprise crossed Cree’s face. “Lauren?” As the Sheriff looked up at him, Syntian shook his
    head. “No, I’m not, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying.”
    “How’s that?” Jackson asked, wondering what the man could possibly see in Maxine Fowler’s old maid
    daughter.
    Syntian grinned ruefully. “The lady seems to be immune to my charms.”
    “To my knowledge, she ain’t never had a date,” the Sheriff informed him.
    A glimmer of dislike passed over Syntian’s face. “And I would imagine the entire town would have
    known if she had.”
    Jackson didn’t pick up on either the insult or the tone with which it had been spoken. “I’d imagine so.”
    He closed his note pad, stuck his pen through the top of the spiral binding then shoved pad and pen into
    his raincoat pocket. “I might have a few more questions for you, Mr. Cree. You aren’t planning on
    leaving town any time soon, are you?”
    Syntian schooled his face into confusion. “No. Am I a suspect in these attacks, Sheriff Jackson?”
    Wiley Jackson shrugged, his lower lip thrusting out and arching down. “You’re new in town. We don’t
    know you, yet. I’d have been remiss if I hadn’t questioned you.”
    “I see.” Syntian dropped the words like a stone. He let his face set in insult. “Will there be anything
    else?”
    Wiley Jackson shook his head, understanding that he had just made a life-long enemy of the man before
    him. He wondered why that worried him more than it should have.
    “Then, may I go?”
    “Yeah.”
    Syntian nodded curtly and pushed his way through the door into the storm outside. The Sheriff watched
    him get into the expensive foreign job parked at the curb and pull away.
    “Sheriff?”
    Jackson turned to find the Fowler girl looking at him with fearful eyes. “How’s Lou?” he asked, passing
    his attention over the drably-dressed woman, pondering once more how a man of such sophistication and
    obvious breeding as Syntian Cree could find anything interesting in her.
    “She’s washing her face.” Lauren had overheard the Sheriff’s questioning of Syntian Cree. “Mr. Cree
    really isn’t a suspect, is he?”
    If Wiley Jackson was surprised by the admonishing tone in the woman’s voice, he didn’t let it show.
    “Every man in this town is a suspect until I know he had nothing to do with this mess.”
    “But surely you couldn’t think Mr. Cree capable of such a thing.”
    “What do you know about him, Miss Fowler? Do you know where he came from? Who his friends
    were? If he’s married, divorced, widowed?” He let his gaze slide insultingly over the woman. “For all you
    know, he could have a wife in every state.”
    As the black Porsche sped down Stewart Street, the shift ground as the angry hand clutching it
    pushed the stick too fast to accommodate the clutch. A hiss of rage filled the silence in the sports
    car as the Sheriff’s words intruded into Syntian Cree’s consciousness.
    Lauren’s chin came up. “I don’t know Mr. Cree well at all, Sheriff. I’ve only spoken to him on a few
    occasions.”
    “Yet he drove you to work this morning,” the Sheriff insinuated, his tone curt. “We have a witness that
    saw him at your place and you getting in that car of his.”
    The Porsche’s tires lurched dangerously on the wet pavement, the rear end of the