Read Nowhere To Run for Free Online

think of anything Sarah was involved in that might lead to violence?”
    “Not that I know of,” Elizabeth replied. She examined her fingernails for a moment. “We don’t talk that much anymore. I mean we haven’t really told each other stuff for years.”
    “How about the plane ticket to Vancouver. Do you know why Sarah was planning to leave town?”
    Elizabeth shook her head. Another silence stretched out and she was horrified to realize that the sudden stream blurring her vision was tears.
    “I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt Sarah,” she was able to say before she broke into wracking sobs.
    “It’s okay Elizabeth,” Susan leaned forward and awkwardly patted the girl’s shoulder, aware of the banality of the words as she said them. “It’s okay.”
    She waited a moment until the girl’s sobs had subsided, and Elizabeth had composed herself.
    “How about I leave you my card, and if you think of anything that was going on in Sarah’s life that might relate to what happened, however insignificant, you give me a call.”
    She paused while the girl wiped her eyes with a tissue. “We’ll be in contact with your parents regularly, so if you ever want to talk, Constable Driscoll or I won’t be far from our phones.”
    Elizabeth nodded her head, but didn’t make eye contact, waiting until the Inspector and her partner had left the office before looking up.
    *
    A twenty minute drive later and Susan was back in her office at the Wiarton station, attempting to ignore the muted phone’s flashing red light. Was there any way to silence the visual indicator, she wondered to herself wearily. Throwing the phone out the window was a tempting solution, but an image of Deputy Commissioner Rutlidge’s barrel figure arriving in her doorway stilled her hand. She shuddered at the thought of his nearly non-existent neck, mottled red with the annoyance of being forced to leave the OPP head office in Thunder Bay.
    Time to grow up, Susan chided herself. Face the music as they say. Her team was doing everything they could, unearthing more information every passing minute. Facts that were of no consequence in the bigger picture. What they needed was an arrest. What they needed was a suspect.
    Her promotion two years previous had come as a surprise, both to herself and to many of her colleagues. Not that she didn’t have aspirations to move up, not that she didn’t have a conviction record she was privately immensely proud of. But it came earlier then she had expected, certainly earlier than Deputy Commissioner Rutlidge would have chosen had he been in position to at the time. In fact, Susan wasn’t sure she would have even made his short list. However things were as they were. She was here and the previous Deputy Commissioner, her mentor Andrews, was six feet underground at the Owen Sound cemetery, one short year after his promotion to Deputy Commissioner. Now, like it or not, his replacement was waiting for her call.
    She had dialed the first three digits when a tap sounded on her half open door and Alex’s head appeared. She beckoned him in and the rest of his body appeared, somehow managing to look within seconds as though he was sprawled comfortably in the stiff backed police issue chair across from her.
    Susan cheered visibly as the click of a voice mail recording sounded, and the Deputy Commissioner’s voice rasped a demand to leave a message.
    “Alright Commish, Susan here,” she sat up in her chair. “Lots of information coming in, I’ll bring you up to speed when we connect.” She replaced the receiver, feeling splashes of red creeping up her cheeks. Damn give away complexion.
    “Hanging in there?” Alex questioned sympathetically.
    “I’d feel better with a solid lead,” she leaned back in her chair. “You have anything for me?”
    “Nothing on her computer aside from the usual; emails back and forth with the fiancé are pretty mundane. I checked her cell phone history too, just the