“I found it in my father’s office. I was curious.”
He clicked his tongue. “You know what they say about curiosity.”
She offered a winsome smile. “It’s who I am.”
It was. She was an avid reader, she traveled to historical sites whenever she had the time, and she devoted herself to treating her customers as if they were her family.
“Tell me what bothered you about the cashier.”
“She claimed she was alone in the station and that she’d gone into a storage room,” Wynter said. “It wasn’t until she heard the shots that she realized a crime had been committed and ran outside to find my mother dead and the mugger already gone.”
“And?”
She lifted the photo and pointed toward the gas station in the background. It was barely larger than a shed with a huge window painted with the words SHELL GAS STATION, and a glass door.
“Who is that looking out of the window?”
* * *
Wynter sensed Noah’s tension, even if she didn’t fully understand it. Okay, she was probably on a wild-goose chase. There’d never been any reason to suspect that her mother’s death was anything but a statistic. Just one more victim of senseless crime.
Not until she’d opened the envelope.
Still, it wasn’t like she was making wild accusations or leaping to conclusions. She agreed with Noah that there were a dozen reasons the criminal might have pulled the trigger. Fear. Drugs. Insanity ...
But there was no way she could return to Larkin without asking a few questions. Sheriff Jansen had been a trained lawman. If he was troubled by something in the photo, then she owed it to her mother to at least try to discover more about what happened that night.
Stopping by the motel office to check out, Wynter asked directions to Tillie Lyddon’s house. The middle-aged woman didn’t hesitate to offer a detailed map along with a pleasant smile, despite the murders that had recently devastated Pike. Small towns never changed.
Ten minutes later she was pulling her truck to a halt in front of a small, prefab house with a narrow porch and a side deck that was sagging beneath the weight of boxes, plastic containers, and at least two moldy mattresses.
“This must be it,” Noah murmured, leaning forward to peer out the front windshield.
Wynter wrinkled her nose. Even with the morning sunlight she felt a small shiver race through her. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”
Noah sent her a puzzled glance. “The house?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure it has emotions, but I’ll admit it looks run-down.”
Wynter continued to study the windows that were blocked by thick curtains and the yard that was cluttered with trash.
“Houses might not have emotions, but they reflect the people who live inside,” she insisted. “This one is sad. Neglected. Unloved.”
His dark gaze swept over her face, an indulgent amusement softening his features before he was out of the truck and headed toward the front porch. “Let’s go see what she has to say.”
Wynter had to scramble to catch up, barely reaching his side before he pounded on the door. From inside they could hear the sound of a TV turned on loud enough to leak through the thin walls, but there was no response. Noah pounded again. And again.
“Christ, keep your pants on,” a voice called out before the front door was being jerked open.
A woman not much taller than Wynter stood on the threshold, wearing an old robe that fell to her knees and a pair of worn slippers. Her frizzy hair was dyed black and her thin face deeply lined, revealing years of smoking. Her eyes were gray and hard with suspicion as she took in first Noah and then Wynter.
She smelled of cigarette smoke, coffee, and stale regret.
“Yeah?” she demanded in a hoarse voice. As if she wasn’t used to speaking.
“Tillie Lyddon?” Wynter asked.
“I’m Tillie.” The woman who looked as if she was in her late fifties scowled. “I suppose you’re from the sheriff’s office?” She didn’t wait for Wynter to respond. “Tell that bitch to get off my back. I’m waiting on a dumpster to start cleaning.”
“I’m not from the sheriff ’s office,” Wynter assured her.
“Oh.” The woman furrowed her brow before releasing a sharp, ugly laugh. “Then I suppose you’re looking to squeeze money out of me for some worthless cause. Tough luck. I ain’t got nothing to squeeze.”
Wynter shook her head. “I’m not here for money.”
The woman’s expression hardened with suspicion. “Then what do you want?”
“I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.”
“Is this a survey?” The scowl was replaced with a sudden burst of greed. “Do I get paid? I won’t take less than twenty-five bucks. My time’s worth that.”
Again Wynter shook her head. “I’m Wynter Moore.”
“And?” Tillie snapped. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“My mother was Laurel Moore.” Tillie’s eyes were blank at the mention of her mother’s name and Wynter swallowed a sigh. There was one way to jog the woman’s memory. “She was shot at the gas station where you were working twenty-five years ago.”
Tillie flinched, as if Wynter had physically struck her. “What is this?” she hissed. “Some sort of joke?”
“No, Ms. Lyddon. I’m in Pike to visit my mother’s grave—”
“Look, I’m going to tell you exactly what I told that damned sheriff the hundred times he questioned me,” Tillie interrupted, her shock replaced by an ugly anger. “I saw nothing. I was in the storage room when the bastard shot your mother. I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
Wynter didn’t know what she’d expected. Perhaps confused memories after so much time had passed. Or even a reluctance to discuss an event that must have been traumatic for everyone involved.
But not this fury.
Did Tillie fear that Wynter blamed her for not having done more to protect her mother?
Wynter pulled the photo out of the envelope she clutched in her hand. “I have a picture.”
“Whoopie doo for you.” Tillie stepped back, her face red and her eyes dark with an emotion that Wynter couldn’t read. “I got a door. And a lock.”
Wynter hastily shoved her hand out, waving the photo beneath the woman’s nose. “This was just before my mother was shot. There’s a person standing in the window, watching it happen.”
Tillie stiffened, her gaze instinctively lowering to the photo that was nearly touching her nose.
“I don’t see anything,” she muttered.
Wynter reached to point at the gas station. “Right there.”
“It’s a shadow.”
“It’s you,” Wynter insisted.
Tillie roughly shoved Wynter’s hand away. “You can’t prove that.”
“I can’t, but the photo can. All I have to do is have it enlarged and then cleaned up. There’s software now that can do miracles with old pictures.” She made the claim with more bravado than facts. She’d read an article about apps capable of fixing blurry pictures, but she had no idea how they worked or exactly how good they were.