Instead, she’d written about serial killers and had defiantly shared her opinion—although the local authorities hadn’t shown much interest—about finding the missing women. And that the killers would have been caught much sooner if the victims had been from prominent families instead of whores and runaways.
She tried to keep her smile in place. “I’m sure this sheriff’s office is quite competent.”
“Why would you assume that?” His gaze made an insolent survey of her tense body. “You made the police departments look like a bunch of fools.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” she said, even knowing that he wasn’t going to believe her.
He didn’t. If anything, his expression darkened. “No. You were all about making stone-cold killers into some sort of cult heroes.”
Carmen shook her head. She wasn’t going to argue the merits, or lack of merits, of her book.
“Look, I’m sorry if you were offended by my book, but I need your help to find out who sent those pictures.” She attempted to bring the man’s attention back to the reason she’d braved the icy roads to drive to town.
The deputy took a long, insulting minute before glancing down at the Polaroids.
“Did you touch them?” he demanded.
Carmen clenched her hands in her lap. “Of course.”
“Then there’s not much use in searching for fingerprints,” he said, as if her touching the Polaroids magically rid them of any other prints. He grabbed the envelope and turned it over. “No postmark?”
“The original envelope was thrown away.”
The deputy loudly cleared his sinuses. He sounded like a drunk goose.
“Convenient.”
Carmen studied him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“It might have cleared up some things,” the deputy said.
“Things?”
He made a production of tucking the photos back into the envelope.
“Right now all we have is some pictures that might or might not be that of dead women,” he said, his tone dismissive. “We don’t have a date or place where the pictures were taken. Or even any indication where the supposed bodies might be now. I’m not sure what you want me to do about it.”
Was he being serious?
“Obviously, I want you to investigate,” she said, unable to hide her irritation. “Don’t you want to know who sent them? And whether those women are really dead?”
His lips pursed. “Tell me, Ms. Jacobs, this wouldn’t have anything to do with your book, would it?”
Carmen counted to ten. Then twenty.
At last she spoke. “Obviously, Neal Scott was one of the killers that I profiled,” she admitted.
“I meant . . .” He tapped a blunt finger on the envelope. “Don’t you have a new book coming out?”
She frowned. Why was he so fixated on her book?
“Not a new one,” she said with a small shrug. “Just the paperback edition.”
“Yeah, but having Scott back in the headlines would pump up the sales, right?” he drawled. “A few mysterious pictures that just happen to show up on your porch and all of a sudden the public is eager to snatch up your book.”
Wham. The accusation slapped her in the face, making her flinch.
So that’s where he was going.
She leaned forward, slamming her hands on the edge of his desk.
“Are you implying that I brought you these pictures as some sort of publicity stunt?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
Angered by the man’s stubborn refusal to listen, Carmen scowled.
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t a woman show up at your signing claiming to be the mother of one of the victims in your book?” the deputy accused. “I read that she later admitted that she was an actress and that she was paid to create that scene.”
Carmen flinched. It was an incident she’d tried to forget.
“No one ever could prove that the woman was actually paid to show up at my book signing, but it’s possible one of the interns at the PR firm that represents me might have thought it was a good idea,” she grudgingly admitted.
The deputy’s lips curled into a sneer as he tapped his finger on top of the pictures.
“Maybe you should check with your PR people and ask them about these.”
“I’ve already talked to them. They don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Easy to say.” The man leaned back in his chair, looking as smug as a cat who’d just cornered a wounded rat.
Muttering beneath her breath, Carmen reached for the purse she’d set on the floor next to her feet.
“If you don’t believe me, you can talk to the head of the PR firm yourself,” she said, pulling out her phone. “They’ll assure you that they didn’t have anything to do with this.”
He shrugged, ignoring the phone she held toward him. “That doesn’t prove anything. It could be your own idea this time.”
“If I wanted to use the pictures as a publicity stunt, I would have sent them to The New York Times or the Today Show, not to myself.”
He shrugged. “But then you wouldn’t have been the center of the story.” He sucked some air through the gap in his front teeth. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Ms. Jacobs. Women like you are always desperate for attention.”
“Women like me? You mean journalists?”
“Women who’ve been featured in the scandal rags their whole life,” he corrected. “You just can’t stand for the spotlight to go away.”
Her whole life?
Carmen forgot to breathe as her gut twisted with horror.
The deputy wasn’t just referring to her book. He clearly knew about her parents. And the shocking details of their deaths that had rocked and dominated the headlines for months.
Her fingers curled tightly around the phone. Briefly she had an image of whacking the man across the face. He wouldn’t look so smug with a bloody nose.
Then sanity made a timely return and she shoved the phone back into her purse.
Spending Christmas in a jail cell wasn’t on her agenda. Not if she wanted to actually do something to try to discover the creep responsible for sending her the pictures.
“Can I assume that your only response to the photos is to call me a liar?” she bluntly asked.
The deputy suddenly appeared vaguely uncomfortable. As if he hadn’t expected her to demand he come out and bluntly spell out what he preferred to imply.
“I’m saying the timing of these unknown pictures suddenly appearing when you’re about to pimp another book is more than a little coincidental,” he hedged.
“Fine.” Carmen reached to pluck the envelope from his chubby fingers as she surged to her feet.
“Hey.” He blinked, making a belated grab for the envelope. “Where are you going with those?”
Carmen was already headed toward the nearby door. “You don’t believe me. I’ll find someone who will.”
She half expected him to rush and block her path. What respectable law officer wouldn’t be anxious to ensure there wasn’t a new killer out there?
But the deputy merely muttered a curse, his chair creaking as he settled himself into a more comfortable position.
“Merry Christmas, Ms. Jacobs,” he called out.
“Jerk,” she muttered, marching across the outer reception area and back into the frigid cold.
She shivered, slipping and sliding across the small parking lot to climb into her Jeep. Then, starting the engine, she flipped on the heater and stared out the frosty window.
She wasn’t looking at the nearby slopes that were packed with brightly attired skiers clustered in small groups. Or even the dramatic, snow-covered mountains that loomed just beyond the ski lodge.
Instead, she tossed the envelope into the passenger seat and dug through her purse to pull out her phone. It was obvious she couldn’t depend on law enforcement to help her. She’d burned too many bridges when she’d written her book. Not only by implying the police should have been more concerned about the missing women, but she’d been more than a little aggressive in demanding details that they hadn’t wanted to share with the public.
Plus, as the deputy had so painfully exposed, there would always be those people who assumed she was somehow deranged because of her past.
She had to have proof. Absolute, inarguable proof.
So who could help her?
She scrolled quickly through the names. Most of them were from the publishing world. Or the media. But she did have a few connections who worked on the fringes of law enforcement.