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slumped.
    Poor kid.
    Remy wished he could do more for the boy, say more. But his nephew shut everybody out these days, and the kind of heart-to-heart they needed to have would have to wait until Remy had a few more minutes available. He had to get to Nielson’s office.
    Now that they no longer had Hope Carson as a suspect, he needed an update.
    Maybe later, he’d go by Reilly’s, see how she was doing …
    But even as that thought tried to work its way into his mind, he shut it down. Had to shut it down, because he could
not
be thinking about her like that.
    Whether she was responsible for what had happened to Reilly or not, the woman was unbalanced.
    That right there was a complication he did not want or need in his life.
    “The victim’s next of kin claimed the body today,” Dwight said.
    “Finally.” Remy scowled, counting the days in his mind. A little over two weeks had passed since the woman’s lifeless body had been found on Reilly’s property. Far too long. “What took her so long?”
    “Delays,” Nielson grimaced. “And give her a break, kid. She was out of the country and it took forever forme to get her name from the fiancé. I get the feeling he didn’t know the cousin very well. I was going through all the red tape on my end, but he ended up getting in contact with her before I did and she called me just a few days ago. Took her a few days to make it back to the country.”
    “She’s the only family?”
    “Yeah.” Nielson sighed. “There’s the boyfriend, but … well, he seems like a nice enough guy, but he’s not handling this too well.”
    “How well would you handle it if your fiancé disappeared, then was murdered only weeks before your wedding?” Remy asked absently.
    Nielson shrugged. “Lousy.”
    “Anything new other than locating the next of kin?”
    “Not a damn thing,” Nielson said, shaking his head. He looked utterly disgusted.
    “So basically, we’re back where we started,” Remy muttered, skimming the report.
    Then he tossed it onto the sheriff’s desk and studied Nielson’s face. It was a lean, intelligent face, one that might look more suited to a scholar, perhaps a minister. Quite a few had underestimated the sheriff, and Remy had more than once stood aside and watched as more than one learned the error of their ways.
    He was a sharp man, and a fair one.
    And right now, he was probably about as frustrated and pissed off as Remy was feeling.
    “We have no idea who killed Prather, no idea who attacked Reilly—basically, we know jackshit. That’s where we stand,” Remy said.
    “That’s exactly where we stand.” Dwight shrugged and said, “I can’t say I’m terribly disappointed we had to let go of Ms. Carson. I never did like the girl for this attack on Lawson, and it still left too many questions unanswered. She couldn’t have done Prather, and mymind just wasn’t taking in the idea of separate perps—two different people, one who beat the shit out of Reilly, and one who killed my deputy, and in the same house?”
    “Hell, I didn’t like the idea, either.” Remy brooded, staring out the window at the stingy square of scenery Dwight commanded. He could see a small slice of the square, carefully tended with flowers, the sidewalk. This time of day, it was crowded with people going to lunch or just finishing. Ash was a small town, but a busy one.
    The past few weeks had cast one hell of a pall on the quiet little town, though.
    A dead woman, her body found on Reilly’s property.
    Then a cop gets killed by person or persons unknown … in Reilly’s
home
.
    And Reilly gets assaulted.
    Reilly.
    It all circled back to him. This bloody mess going on all circled back to Reilly. If and when Remy ever had anybody to prosecute, they needed to figure out how Reilly was connected to this.
    “We need to talk to Reilly more. Figure out how he’s connected to this. I want to know everything you already have on him and everything you can find out on him. What