Impulse by Joann Ross Page B

mutilated body.
    Unfortunately, Will knew all too well that the horrific images had been scorched onto the teen’s brain and would probably haunt him for the rest of his life, popping up when he’d least expect them, bringing back this night he’d undoubtedly give anything to forget.
    “If you’d gone out to the lake earlier, you could’ve been killed as well.”
    “Like anyone would give a shit.”
    Why didn’t the kid just take Will’s Glock and shoot him through the heart. Christ, hadn’t he changed his entire life for his son? What the hell else could he do to prove he was trying his damnedest to be a good father? “I’d care. So would your grandfather.”
    Again, nothing.
    “I didn’t kill Erin,” Josh said after they’d gone another quarter mile. “I know I said I did, when I saw her body, but I didn’t mean I’m the one who cut her throat.”
    “I never, for a single second, thought you were.”
    “You going to catch the bastard who did it?”
    Will nodded. Firmly. Resolutely. “You bet.”
    It was Josh’s turn to nod. “Good. Then you can shoot him. Beginning with his balls, then working out from there.”
    “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way ,” Will said. “But believe me, s on, we’re in perfect agreement about wishing it did.”
     

 
     
    17
     
     
    G oing right back on the air, knowing that Erin was zipped into some ugly black police body bag, undoubtedly on her way to Jackson, since Faith guessed Hazard wouldn’t have the forensics necessary for a serious autopsy, had been one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.
    Each time she’d dodged a caller’s question, she’d wanted to break down and weep.
    If that wasn’t bad enough for her nerves, she kept waiting for Sal to call again. Or worse yet, to show up at the station, armed to the teeth, prepared to shoot anyone who got in his way.
    But he did neither, and the only calls were from listeners wanting to know what had happened out at the lake. Keeping to her agreement with Will, Faith merely revealed that a body had been discovered by two sledders, that the sheriff was conducting an investigation and would be holding a press conference in the morning.
    Fortunately, the audience tended to drop off in the last hour of the show, allowing her to mostly play music and watch out the window for headlights.
    Which, thank God, never appeared.
    Having hated the way she’d allowed Sal to control not just her life, but her emotions, Faith had been determined never to let anyone frighten her again. Nevertheless, she wasn’t about to protest when Mike insisted on following her home, as he had every night since she’d begun working at KWIND.
    He waited in front of her rented house while she pulled her Explorer into the garage and unlocked the kitchen door. She was probably the only person in Hazard to bother to lock her doors, but she’d lived too long in cities to be able to just walk out the door and leave her home open to anyone passing by who might decide to wander in and steal her stuff.
    Not that she had anything worth stealing. In fact, the only pieces of furniture in the house were a sofa, a bed, a chest of drawers, a kitchen table, and four wooden chairs she’d found at Grannie’s Attic Antiques down on Main Street. But for her they signified a major lifestyle change since they were the first she’d ever owned.
    The diesel engine on Mike’s old pickup truck clattered as he continued to idle, giving her time to get inside her house, waiting until the garage door rumbled back down again.
    Then, with a little toot of his horn, he was gone.
    Normally, when she arrived home from work, she’d make a cup of tea and settle down with a book for an hour or so to unwind before going to sleep.
    Unfortunately, the past few hours had been anything but normal. Going from room to room, she closed the draperies and made sure all the windows were locked.
    From her early years with her mother, to another two years spent in