On Pins and Needles. Victoria Pade

come to. It’s an empirical fact.”

      “An empirical fact that you took note of.”

      “Do you want to talk about the problems this man is determined to cause us or about his appearance?”

      “Maybe you could flirt us out of problems with him,” Nissa joked.

      “You definitely don’t know Josh Brimley.” Although there had been some flirting going on in the under currents.

      Or had she only imagined it? Maybe at the same time she’d been imagining him kissing her…

      “This is serious, Nissa,” Megan claimed as if her own mind hadn’t just wandered from the weightiness of the situation. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take it lightly.”

      Nissa shrugged again. “No matter how we take it, what can we do about it? I assume this Josh Brimley is going to investigate and find out what really happened all those years ago and who did it.”

      “But will he find out the truth if he doesn’t look at any scenario that doesn’t put the blame on Mom and Dad? Because as it stands now, he seems to believe that our leaving Elk Creek was a sign of their guilt, that they were running away.”

      “I have to think that the truth will out,” Nissa said, honestly sounding un concerned as she took her cup and headed for the shower.

      But Megan couldn’t be so confident. She didn’t for a minute doubt her parents’ innocence. But she did doubt that Josh Brimley would explore other possibilities since he’d seemed to have his heels dug into suspecting them.

      So what was she going to do about it? she asked herself.

      But she didn’t have an instant answer.

      Especially not when that kitchen chair Nissa had just vacated started taunting her with images of the sheriff sitting in it again.

      And once that happened, she had trouble concentrating on anything else….

      When Josh Brimley showed up at her office at about the same time that afternoon that he had the afternoon before, Megan’s first thought was that he must have been passing by, seen her through the waiting room windows putting the final touches on the base board paint and decided that even though it was Sunday he might as well take advantage of her being there and come in to have the acupuncture they hadn’t gotten to the previous day. She even imagined that he’d re considered everything, realized how silly he was being to suspect her parents of murder, opened up his mind to an alternative allergy treatment, and they could start fresh.

      Okay, so maybe she was being naive and overly optimistic. But she certainly didn’t expect what he’d really come for.

      “You have a warrant to search our house and be longings?”

      “That’s what I said. I’ll need you to take us over there and let us in right now.”

      “Us?”

      He nodded his handsome head over his shoulder and for the first time Megan noted the forensics van that had been at her house the prior evening and a State Patrol car parked on the opposite side of Center Street near Josh’s squad car.

      “You can’t be serious,” she said in clear disbelief.

      “As serious as I can get,” he assured her. “It’s standard operating procedure. The forensics guys want another look around in daylight and the patrolmen and I need to search the house and premises. I had to go into Cheyenne and interrupt a judge’s Sunday dinner to get the warrant but I didn’t have any problem convincing the judge that it should be issued and executed immediately.”

      “Right. On a Sunday. Before Nissa and I might destroy evidence that’s already been around for eighteen years.”

      “It’s just routine.”

      “For you to go through our things?” Megan said as the reality of a home search began to sink in.

      Josh’s silence confirmed that he was. “You’re welcome to just give me the key and stay here so you don’t have to see it.”

      That was even worse.

      “You can’t go into my house without me at least being there.”

      “It’s up to you. But one way or another I’m already slowing things down by coming here first to let you know. I have to get out there.”

      Was that supposed to make her feel better? That he was allowing her some small courtesy he wouldn’t have allowed someone else before he rifled through her under wear drawer?

      Well, it didn’t make her feel better about it. Not in the least.

      But regardless of how she felt, when she glanced at the warrant he handed her as proof of what he was saying, she could see she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

      “I guess I’ll have to take you,” she finally said, wishing her sister were there to go along. But Nissa had garnered more than interest from potential clients the previous night and had gone on a date to Cheyenne for the day and evening. Which left Megan alone on the hot seat.

      “We’ll mainly be looking for blood,” Josh told her. “On the walls, the floors, the base boards, the door jambs, the edges and corners of counters and cup boards, and on whatever furniture has been there all along. We’ll probably have to spray luminol inside the drawers of any dresser that you didn’t bring with you, but you can take out your personal things yourself before we do that. And on the bright side, for now the warrant doesn’t allow us to pull up floor boards or get into your pipes.”

      He seemed to think that was some kind of consolation. He also almost sounded sympathetic and apologetic. But none of it made any difference. A bunch of strangers—men—were about to go into her home, open her closet doors, her cup boards, her drawers, and go through every nook and cranny of her living quarters, no matter how private. There was no consolation for that and even if he was sorry about it, it didn’t change anything.

      But since there was nothing she could do to stop it, Megan closed her paint can, went to set her brush to soak in the sink in the break room and, without another word to Josh Brimley, she walked out of her office to her car, thinking the whole way that no matter how terrific-looking Josh Brimley was, it didn’t make up for this.

      The search took several hours and Megan hated every minute of it. Even though Josh allowed her to be the one to take her and Nissa’s undergarments from the drawers, and their personal things from the bathroom, he was still right there watching her, keeping an eye on everything she removed as she removed it.

      It was humiliating. Embarrassing. Enraging.

      And it made her determined to dish out a little in return. So, once her and Nissa’s unmentionables were out of the way, she opted for never letting Josh out of her sight as if she didn’t trust him as far as she could see him.

      But it didn’t seem to bother him quite the same way. Instead, as if she weren’t there at all, he went about his business.

      As the forensics unit studied the grave and surrounding area, and the patrolmen walked the rest of the property and searched the old barn, Josh searched the house.

      He did a thorough job of it, beginning by getting up into the attic and down into the crawl space, then turning his attention to the main floor and the second level of the two-story home.

      Since the furniture had been there from before her family had taken to the road, Josh left no piece of it unmoved, over turned, or with a drawer that wasn’t pulled completely free and checked inside and out.

      When that was accomplished, he sprayed the luminol over nearly every surface and used a fluorescent light that he explained would expose even old blood that was in visible to the naked eye.

      And while he confiscated several items—her father’s ancient sneakers and her mother’s equally aged gardening gloves among them—Megan was convinced he didn’t find anything that would end