Free The Killers Amongst Us: Chimera Dawn Chronicles by Declan Conner

the
results from them and the medical examiner.”
    “You must have some ideas. What are you thinking happened?”
Grimes picked up two shot glasses and grabbed a bottle of JD. He filled a shot
glass and slid it over to Shaw.
    “No thanks, I don’t drink,” he lied, and pushed the glass
back to him.
    “You mean on duty. I’m a bartender, remember? I can see your
hands shaking, and I’ve smelt the JD on your breath at council meetings.” He
slid the glass back and winked. “Go on, it won’t bite. Then you can tell me
what you’ve found.”
    “Like I said, until we get the results, I don’t think
anything. I just need to ask you what you know about Maria, that’s all.”
    He noticed Grimes earlier attempt at a friendly demeanor
change to a scowl.
    “What does that mean, questions?” Grimes glanced over to a
table and shouted. “Annie, look after the bar, I need to talk to the sheriff in
private.”
    He lifted the flap to the counter and beckoned Shaw through.
They walked through to a corridor and into a small office.
    “There’s nothing I can tell you about her that I can think
of.”
    “Well, you received all the applications to rent out the
surgery. I was wondering if she had an address in a letter. I need to find
Maria’s relatives.”
    Grimes had still been scowling up to that point, when his
expression changed to a curled-lip smile.
    “Oh, yeah, I never thought. Maria told me she lived with her
parents when I interviewed her. I have the letter somewhere.”
    Grimes opened his file drawer, running his fingers over the
nametags. He passed Shaw a brown file. Shaw opened it. The address on the
letter was in LA. He closed the file.
    “Mind if I take this? I’m on my way to LA. I can inform the
parents.”
    “Sure.”
    “Incidentally, when did you last see her?”
    Grimes raised an eyebrow, thought for a moment, and then
answered.
    “Wednesday, I took Vinnie for treatment.”
    “Nothing serious I hope?”
    “Nah, just an injection.”
    Shaw glanced out of the window. Two pit bulls were jawing at
a tire. Neither was gaining ground with their tug of war. They didn’t look as
though they had any injuries. They were fit. Too fit for him to want to walk
out into the yard and to inspect them.
    “Good, anyway, I’ll talk to you when I know more,” Shaw
said.
    “I’ll see you out.”
    Shaw followed him and noted Grimes shoes. He couldn’t tell
the size, but they looked bigger than his did. The same silence when he entered
followed him up until he walked through the front door. He clutched the file to
his chest. Grimes’ fingerprints were likely all over the letter.

Chapter 9
     
    AMY was pleased that she had worked her way through
wanting to go home after she had recovered from her fainting fit. She still
wasn’t sure what she had seen. The gang had convinced her it was probably a
deer for it to have been moving so quick, for whatever she saw moving among the
pine trees to have appeared as a blur. Only her insistence for the boys to
re-site the tents next to the shoreline, away from the woods, made her give in
to their bickering.
    Ted could take a hike as far as she was concerned. Amy
sulked, having not taken kindly to being called a soft ass and acting childish.
She sat next to Louise on a camp chair facing the woods, the lake to her back. She
was far enough away from Ted that he likely couldn’t hear them talking. Gyp sat
in front, sitting like the Sphinx, alert and forever scanning the tree line. If
Gyp could have understood the explanation that the others had given, he wasn’t
acting as though he was buying what they’d come up with.
    Tanya and Oliver were making out next to the campfire, some
five yards in front of them. Johno had gone foraging for logs to build up the
fire before darkness fell. He obviously wasn’t frightened of anything that
might be out there. Amy could see that Louise was nervous about Johno being out
there alone, despite her saying it he’d be fine.
    Amy looked over