“We have to consider that Ruth may have been this unsub’s first victim. Oftentimes, a serial offender’s first kill is someonethey know personally, someone they have a grudge against or who hurt them in some way.”
His gray eyes fastened on her. “If you’ve read the file my father put together, you can see he was thorough and questioned everyone in town.”
“Including you?” Ellie asked with an eyebrow raise.
“He questioned all the kids at school who knew Ruth.”
“You were what, sixteen at the time?”
“Seventeen,” he responded. “I was a couple years ahead of Ruth.”
“And popular, I heard.” Ellie offered him a smile, stroking his ego.
He gave a little shrug, but his chest seemed to puff up. “Girls go for the jocks.”
Ellie wanted to roll her eyes. “How long had you and Ruth been dating?”
“About four months I guess.”
Ellie maintained a neutral tone. “Things were going well?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought she’d just broken up with you.”
Unease flickered in his eyes. “We may have argued the day before but things were okay.”
“What did you argue about?”
“She was jealous, you know. Wanted all my attention and accused me of flirting with other girls.”
Ellie imagined him as a flirt, especially at seventeen. “So youdidn’tbreak up?”
“We just took a couple of days to cool off. I figured she’d come back once she did.”
What a narcissist. “And you had plenty of other girls crushing on you.”
Irritation tightened his mouth. “Where are you going with this, Detective?”
“It’s on record that Ruth snuck out of the house that night to meet someone. Was she meeting you?”
He shook his head no. “I hung out with the guys,” he said. “If you’re asking for my alibi, it’s in the report. Besides, I would never have hurt Ruth. The reason I became sheriff was because of what happened to her.”
Hmm. Ellie wondered if that was true. Or if perhaps he chose law enforcement to keep the truth from being revealed. “If you weren’t meeting her, do you know who she might have been going to see? Was another guy interested in her?”
“All the guys thought she was hot, but they knew she was mine and was off limits.”
Ellie contemplated that. “Would she have hooked up with someone else to make you jealous?”
“If she did, I sure as hell didn’t know about it,” he said bluntly.
His defensive tone held a hint of anger. At her or at Ruth because he had suspected her of cheating? Or had he been bitter that she broke up with him?
FIFTY-FOUR
Deer Run Lake
Derrick’s research on the former sheriff Chester indicated he’d retired six years ago and after a quick election, his son Clint assumed office.
