Fatal Strike by Shannon McKenna

kept staring, so Miles sighed, and laid it out there. “You’re trying to decide whether to take me in for questioning?”
    Barlow shrugged.
    “Please, don’t,” Miles said wearily. “It’s been a hell of a day already, and I’m not your man. Plus, if I find out anything, I’ll tell you.”
    “Before or after you do the serious hurting to people who may or may not have had a trial by law with a jury of their peers?”
    “I’ll be good,” he said. “Look, do you know Sam Petrie?”
    The guy’s eyes slitted. “Why?”
    “I was just with him an hour ago, at the wedding of a mutual friend. He knows me. Call him. He’ll vouch for me.”
    “Wait here,” Barlow said. “Stay put.”
    He went out onto the steps to make his call. Miles crossed his fingers that Petrie had kept his phone on and was still coherent. Barlow kept Miles in his line of sight as he conducted his conversation.
    He came back in. “So you’re that Miles Davenport.”
    Miles sighed. “My fame precedes me.” That bad business a couple of years ago with Kev, Edie. A firefight in the woods, a shootout at a murdered billionaire’s house. That shit stuck in people’s minds.
    “He vouched for you,” Barlow said. “Going to the graveside service?”
    Miles shook his head.
    “Then I’ll say goodbye, for now,” Barlow said, peeling a card out of his wallet and handing it over. “Don’t leave town.”
    “I’ll pass you anything I find,” Miles said, tucking the card in his pocket. “I want you to find that scumbag and grind him into paste.”
    “Me, too. Why don’t you plug that number into your phone right now, and call me with it?” Barlow suggested. “I’d like to keep our lines of communication open.”
    Miles could think of no logical reason to object. His own fault, for coming here. Sticking his neck out. He was planning on switching out a new SIM card anyway, for some privacy. He did as Barlow asked.
    Tension drained out of Miles’ body as he watched the guy walk away. Barlow seemed like a reasonable guy, but still, it paid to be careful with the Man.
    The church was almost empty now, just a round little woman in her seventies, taking down photos displayed on a bulletin board.
    Miles walked over to look. The woman wore White Shoulders, and some godawful hairspray. She reached for a picture of Matilda with an eighties hairdo, holding a tiny Amy. Baby pics, graduation photos. A shot of her, Amy and Steve on a sternwheeler cruise on the Columbia.
    Pressure built in his throat. What was up with him? Why was he even looking at this stuff? Jerking himself around on purpose? Did he actually want to wake up in Urgent Care with tubes in every orifice?
    The lady strained for a photo pinned too high for her short frame. Miles reached to get it for her. It was Matilda, in the mountains—
    His hand froze. The horned hill. Its base was half-hidden by Matilda’s head, but the top was pronged, with that big nose jutting down between. The lady swiveled and looked at him over her glasses.
    “So?” she asked. “Are you going to take that down for me, or not?”
    “Did you take this picture?” he asked
    “No, I got it off Facebook. It was the best recent picture of her that I could find. That lovely smile.”
    “Facebook?” Miles stared at it. “Do you know where it was taken?”
    “She posted it a week ago,” the lady said. “Her new profile picture. Only a few days before she . . . before she . . .” Her voice clogged up.
    Miles pulled out Edie’s drawing. It was the same, but from a different angle, which caused the nose to slant more to the right. Some part of him pulsed like a strobe light, deep inside.
    “She’d taken a few personal days to tend to some business. And that was the last time we saw her.” The woman proceeded to dissolve.
    Without vetting the idea for practicality, or even baseline sanity, he found himself hugging her, and getting a big whanking noseful of White Shoulders and toxic hair fixative in the