Free Waking Nightmare by Kylie Brant Page A

her. “Hi, I’m Abbie Phillips, a consultant working with the SCMPD.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” snapped the woman sitting next to the bed. Even without an introduction, Abbie knew she was the girl’s mother. Her resemblance to Amanda’s newspaper pictures in the file was too strong for it to be otherwise. Rising, she turned toward Abbie. “You people have deplorable timing.”
    “I asked her to come, Mother.” Amanda’s voice was pleasant but firm. “The operation isn’t scheduled until this afternoon. There’s plenty of time.”
    “There’s no reason to upset yourself before surgery.” The older woman turned her back on Abbie, and reached over to smooth her daughter’s blond hair back from her ruined face. “Whatever this is about, it can wait.”
    Amanda looked at the middle-aged man on the other side of the bed. “Daddy? You don’t mind taking Mother to the cafeteria for a while, do you?”
    He hesitated, sending a steely look toward Abbie. But in the end, he managed a smile for his daughter and said, “Sure, honey.”
    “Phil, really. I don’t think . . .”
    Ignoring his wife’s protests, he rounded the bed, took her elbow, and steered her toward the door. “We’ll be back in twenty minutes.” Abbie knew it wasn’t her imagination that imbued the words with a hint of warning.
    When the door had closed behind the couple, Amanda attempted a smile. Only one side of her mouth responded. “Sorry about that. They can be pretty fierce when it comes to me.”
    “It’s parents’ jobs to be protective.” Even though some parents failed miserably at it. “I can’t blame them for objecting to the timing.”
    “I’ll be out of it for days after the surgery.” Amanda hit the button to elevate the head of the bed more. “Pain meds have that effect on me. And I didn’t want to wait that long. I heard Grandpa Richards tell Daddy they’d brought in an expert, and I wanted to talk to you.”
    It took Abbie a moment to make the connection. Mayor Richards. Someone, presumably Commander Dixon, was keeping the man informed. “I don’t know about the expert part, but I do have experience in these kinds of cases. I want to focus on the victimology pattern, and I have some questions that weren’t covered in the earlier interviews.”
    “You mean figuring out why he chose me. Us.”
    Abbie gave a slight nod. The girl was quick. “Exactly.”
    Amanda indicated a chair next to the bed and Abbie sank into it, digging into her purse for her notebook. “I’ve thought about that. I have a lot of time on my hands these days,” she added without rancor. “After it happened, the police asked all these questions about the beauty contests I’ve participated in. I was crowned Miss Savannah last fall and I’m going to compete—I was supposed to compete—in the Miss Georgia contest later this year. My sponsor thought I had a pretty good chance. . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment. Then, visibly collecting herself, she continued, “But I don’t think it had anything to do with the contest. Any of the contests.”
    It had been a valid lead to pursue, one Abbie would have focused on herself, though it hadn’t yielded anything in the long run. “Why not?”
    “Well, it’s not like one of the girls I beat out is going to do this to me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Though there were a couple vicious enough to arrange an accident for anyone standing in their way of the crown. And don’t even get me started on some of the mothers.” She shook her head. “But people surrounding beauty pageants are ninety percent female. And no women I know are capable of this. Or even of arranging this for another woman. I just can’t believe that.”
    “But you did come into contact with men at the pageants,” Abbie pressed.
    Amanda shrugged. “Sure. Sound engineers, emcees, some of the sponsors, agents . . . but what I’m saying is, I come into contact with guys all the time. I attend college here in