She blushed, hoping the others hadn’t heard. Dustin looked up at Delilah. “Honestly, it was nothing more than simple first aid, but thank you, Delilah. I’d love to have a ‘Liv’ this morning.”
“Me, too,” Olivia said. “And I’d also love your Sunday-morning hash and—oh, Dustin! If you haven’t had them yet, you have to try the cheese grits. They’re the best in the South, I swear.”
“Well, then, two ‘Livs,’ two orders of corned beef hash and two orders of cheese grits,” Dustin said.
“Don’t forget the biscuits,” Coot added.
When Delilah was gone, Dustin turned to Coot and asked softly, “You know something?”
“Can’t rightly say I know anything,” he said. “But I just figured, what with everything that’s going on, any small thing might be important.”
Dustin nodded. “Yes, you’re right.”
Coot glanced at Olivia. “A bunch of those boys from Parsonage House were in here last night, with one of their monitors. I was sitting at a booth reading the paper.” He shook his head sadly. “Aaron is great with those boys but I guess everyone over at the Horse Farm is kind of on the ‘watch and wait’ list.”
Olivia cringed and stared down at the table. “The monitor was reading a book, not paying much mind to the boys. They were talking about the camping trip.”
“And they said something,” Dustin said, gently urging Coot to go on.
“Yeah, they were trying to reconstruct things for themselves,” Coot told them.
“What did they talk about?”
“Who was where when. Seems Joey saw you go flying out of the tent when everyone heard the scream. He scrambled out himself. He saw Olivia—and she grabbed Drew and they ran off.”
“That’s pretty much what happened,” Olivia said.
“They went on to talk about it, and they said there was one person they didn’t notice until Dustin asked about Aaron. She must’ve been gone for a while, ’cause she came back to the group late,” Coot said.
“Sandra?” Olivia asked.
Coot looked at her. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“She was the only other ‘she’ there.”
“They didn’t see her crawl out of the tent?” Dustin asked.
“They might have—they’re not sure. But they’re certain they didn’t see her the whole time. They all mulled it over for a while, but then, of course, they started saying they couldn’t be positive, so they’d best not say anything.”
“Thanks, Coot.” They all fell silent as Delilah came over with their food.
“There you go,” she said, setting down the plates, which were garnished with melon and apple slices. “Now you two eat up. I’m glad you ordered big. This isn’t a morning to be snacking on nothing but tomato juice and a few wedges of fruit. The body needs nourishment.”
“It looks wonderful, and we’re going to enjoy every fattening bite of it,” Olivia assured her.
“You burn energy like a bird in flight, Liv,” Delilah said. “Speaking of juice—want some?”
“Sure, juice sounds great,” Olivia replied. “That will make it a bit healthier, right?”
“That’s exactly what I told Sandra Cheever last night. She said she’d been sitting at the hospital for hours and was going back—but that she had to have something besides hospital food.”
Coot frowned. “Sandra was here last night? I didn’t see her.”
“Oh, she came in before you and the boys.” Delilah made a dismissive gesture. “First she says she has to have some good food—then she turns her nose up at my menu, saying I didn’t have healthy choices. Why, I told her to have some juice and a salad and she said I needed fat-free dressings!”
As she spoke, the door to the café opened again.
Frank Vine came in. He nodded to the tourists at the counter and walked back to join them in the booth.
“Strong coffee, Delilah, please,” Frank said as he slid in next to Coot. “Morning, everyone.”
They all greeted him, and Delilah asked, “That’s it, Frank, just coffee?”
Frank nodded. When she’d left, Frank looked at all of them.
He inhaled loudly and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Aaron Bentley is dead,” he told them.
Accident. Like hell.
Dustin stood in Aaron Bentley’s bathroom, studying the scene.
Aaron had insisted he get out of the hospital that morning, and he’d been deemed well enough to go home. No problem; a cop had stayed outside his house.
Then, according to the police officer who’d been watching the house, there was a loud hissing sound and the house seemed to glow and then went dark.
He’d rushed in. Aaron had been alone in the bathtub, dead. Somehow, he hadn’t had the sense not to place his iPod charger on the back of the commode—next to the tub. It was ridiculous. He’d been saved from drowning only to die in his bathtub—electrocuted.
Dustin still couldn’t believe the man had died so stupidly. Or that such a death could have been an accident. According to the crime scene tech who’d first escorted him through, Aaron Bentley must have reached for the iPod to change it—but knocked the whole system into the tub. It had been plugged in. Electricity had raced through the water like wildfire.
There was nothing in the bathroom to suggest that anyone else had been with him. Dustin’s first question, of course, had to do with Sandra Cheever. She’d been so determined that she was going to stay with Aaron. Where the hell had she been?
According to Sandra—and there were witnesses to verify that it was true—she’d dropped Aaron at home and gone, at his suggestion, to check on things at the Horse Farm. She’d promised to be right back. But by the time she’d returned, the officer on duty had already flown into the house—breaking the lock to get in.
So, the house had been locked, an officer had been on duty, Sandra had been at the Horse Farm—and Aaron had managed to kill himself in his bathtub.
He remained in the tub.
Frank Vine had come to the diner to make the announcement regarding Aaron’s death, then bring Dustin back with him to Aaron’s house.
Dustin hadn’t left Olivia behind. But he hadn’t brought her in here, either. She and Callahan were outside, waiting. There was no reason for her to see a man she worked with and cared about as he was now, naked and scorched, his eyes still open as if they were about to pop out of his skull, an expression of horror on his face. The smell of singed flesh hung all around them like a musky haze.
“What do you say to this?” Frank asked him.
“I say he didn’t reach for anything—that someone was here and tossed that charger into the water and electrocuted him.”
“There’s absolutely no indication that anyone was in here with him,” Frank said.
“So I hear.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“Bring Sandra in for questioning. And, of course, the medical examiner may find something we’re not seeing. Then again, he may not. Why the hell did the idiot have to take a bath?” Dustin muttered. “He made it so damned easy for whoever was here.”
“He just got out of the hospital. After a camping trip. He was probably trying to relax—hell, why not?” Frank said disgustedly. “There was a sheriff’s car right in front of his house. He must have felt safe and secure.”
Dustin turned around and stalked out of the bathroom. The sheriff’s department, crime scene people and medical personnel were all still at work. He paused in various rooms of the house, looking around, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. He noticed that the medical examiner was Dr. Wilson.