Free Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 02 - Secrets to Die For by L. J. Sellers Page A

saw Quince making his way through the roomful of cluttered desks toward him. He hung up and waited.
     
    “Amy Hastings called back,” Quince announced. “She says if you want to talk to her, you have to do it now because she’s leaving in the morning. She’s going to Seattle to stay with her sister for a while.” Quince’s brow furrowed. “I feel like I failed her.”
     
    “It’s not over yet. We’ll get him.” Jackson stood and grabbed his coat. “What’s the address?”
     
    The hundred-year-old house near 19th and Patterson looked much like all the other student dwellings in the neighborhood: bicycles chained to the front porch, empty beer bottles under the bushes, and a PEACE sign in the front window.
     
    When Jackson opened the screen door, it came loose from the hinges. Before he could knock on the wooden door, it flew open and a young woman looked at him, then turned and yelled, “The cop is here.” She spun back around and grinned. “Hi, I’m Tara.” He guessed her age at about twenty, but it was hard to tell with her boyishly short hair and no makeup.
     
    Another young woman came down the stairs and stood timidly in the middle of the living room, shoulders hunched forward as if she were cold. The shadow of a bruise darkened one side of her face. “Amy Hastings?”
     
    “Yes, come in.” She didn’t move.
     
    Jackson stepped in and recoiled from the smell of incense. He looked around for the right place to have this painful conversation.
     
    “Let’s go to the kitchen,” Amy suggested. She moved suddenly and Jackson followed. Amy waited and pulled the sliding pocket door closed behind him before they sat down at a cluttered table. She chewed on a fingernail as she waited for Jackson to speak. The girl was frail, five foot five and about a hundred pounds with the boots. Her ash-blond hair was chin length and her blue eyes were weary and awash with pain. Jackson reminded himself not to think of her as a girl. She was twenty-two, an adult.
     
    “Amy, I know this is hard to talk about, so I’m going to focus on two things.” Jackson unconsciously held out two fingers as he talked. “First I want you to tell me everything you remember about your attacker. Then I want to know everything about your daily routine. Where you go and what you do.”
     
    “I don’t have a routine. Not anymore.” Her voice was more adult than her appearance.
     
    “Let’s start with the guy who attacked you. Did you see him at all?”
     
    She blinked and her eyes started to water. “I don’t want to talk about him. I told the other cop everything I know.”
     
    Jackson decided to move on before she shut down completely. “Okay, let’s talk about your routine instead. I know that you work as a bartender at the Black Forest. Any customers there who have shown a special interest or maybe threatened you in some way?”
     
    She shrugged. “It’s a bar full of drunk men. They all creep me out.”
     
    Jackson felt a flicker of irritation. “He’s attacked two women, maybe three, and he’ll likely rape another. He’s probably scoping her out right now. If we can figure out how he chooses his targets, we have a chance of stopping him.”
     
    Amy closed her eyes, gathered some courage, then said, “Nobody at the bar comes to mind. What else do you want to know?”
     
    “What do you do when you’re not at work?”
     
    “I write. You know, short stories, poems, essays.” She brightened a little. “I have an idea for a novel, but I need to get myself in a better space before I can start writing it.”
     
    “Do you belong to a writer’s group?” Jackson jotted down short stories , poems .
     
    “No.”
     
    “Any clubs? Or other hobbies?”
     
    “I go to the Women for Women meetings on Saturday sometimes.”
     
    “Do any men attend?”
     
    Amy rolled her eyes. “It’s called Women for Women for a reason.”
     

Chapter 8
     
    Now Jackson understood. Amy was a lesbian. He felt a