Текст книги "Shattered Secrets"

Автор книги: Karen Harper

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“Oh,” she said, “I’m surprised the Kentons came.”

“They didn’t. Friends offered to take care of it for them. Mrs. Kenton’s not doing well, and the father, Win, is understandably mad as heck.”

“I think that’s how my father must have reacted, and at my mother.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right.”

Tess noticed they’d also displayed baseball caps with bills that looked like tombstones. She suddenly imagined herself looking out a window, down at a small cemetery, the stones gray in the day or at dusk....

She must have been looking out a high window, maybe from the attic in Dane’s house at the animal graves. And hadn’t she had some nightmare about seeing people in open graves, maybe ones crying like in the drawing she’d done? Could Dane have threatened her by saying he’d bury her out there if she didn’t behave, didn’t stop being a bad girl? Had he terrorized her so that she, amnesia drugs aside, couldn’t clearly recall much else?

“Sometimes I think I do remember Dane’s house,” she told Vic as they passed the police station. “I hope Gabe gets that search warrant soon. But the thing is, since Dane seemed the obvious culprit before, I don’t want that to influence my memories. That can happen, you know. A child’s memories become warped to fit something not understood. The big, noisy reaping machine turns into a monster, for example. I read about displacement in a book from the library here.”

He held the pub door for her and waited until they were seated to answer her. “So the cemetery of your buried—pardon the pun—memory would be of a cemetery much smaller than what Dane Thompson has now, since he’s really expanded over the years.”

“Yes. Yes, exactly. I picture a smaller one.”

“Then maybe we’re getting somewhere, the beginning of a breakthrough. But Gabe and I’d better find something in his place like drugs that cause amnesia—or something like Rohypnol or Scopolamine, the so-called date rape drugs. I call them predator drugs, and that’s exactly what we’re dealing with in these abductions—a predator. Still, I don’t think an interrogation and especially a court case can turn on vague, traumatic memories buried this long.

“But listen,” he went on, after they’d ordered Reuben sandwiches and soft drinks, “you haven’t phoned your father yet, have you?”

“No, but Reese Owens told me to and gave me Dad’s phone number, which I didn’t have before. Their connection over the years strikes me as strange. So you’re thinking I should call him?”

“Well, yeah, maybe with Gabe or me on the line in case he says something about Reese we can use.”

“Or about himself? Vic, his phone number is burning not only a hole in my pocket but a hole in my heart.”

“It’s hard to forgive someone for desertion on top of unfaithfulness.”

“Yes, he was unfaithful to leave us like that.”

“I’ll bet your mother partly blamed herself.”

“For not watching me better that day. He accused her of that.”

“He should have blamed himself for being gone so much for their marital troubles. Your dad must have thought your mother or Rod McCord wouldn’t find out about the affair between him and the sheriff’s wife.”

Her stomach cartwheeled. And then all the missing pieces of things Gabe had said—and mostly hadn’t said—slammed into place for her. He’d come so close to telling her more than once but had always changed the subject. Her mother had begun to tell her once that there was another reason her dad had left besides Tess’s abduction. No doubt it was the elephant in the room her sisters knew about but never explained.

Now Tess understood some things. That her mother had tried to protect her too much. That Vic had assumed she knew about the affair because he felt she should be treated like an adult and not some child to be coddled. But Gabe didn’t. He could not be trusted to tell her the truth she needed to know even if it hurt. It was almost as if he’d lied to her. She was going to tell him off and then go it alone. And if it came to it, she’d just sell the property long-distance.

“Vic, I’m sorry to be rude, but I need to go find Gabe and talk to him right now. I’ll cancel my order on the way out.”

“Tell him about the memory of looking out at Dane’s pet cemetery?”

“Yes. Those little tombstone hats back at the gift shop table...”

She was afraid she wasn’t making sense, that he would see the hurt and anger on her face, but maybe she looked like that all the time. Except now she’d been betrayed not by a stranger, not even by her long-gone father, but by Mom, Kate, Char and the man she’d stupidly imagined she loved.

20

Blinking back tears, Tess stormed out of the pub and headed for Gabe’s office. As she walked in, Ann looked up and frowned at her. “I wouldn’t advise that you bother him.”

“So he’s here?” Tess demanded. “Alone?”

“Yes, but I’ll just have you wait for him and let him know,” Ann said, and moved to pick up her desk phone.

“I’m not waiting for him anymore,” Tess said.

“Hey, just a minute!” Ann shouted as Tess strode back to Gabe’s office. The door was ajar. He was on the phone, arguing with someone.

She pushed the door open just as he hung up. “That judge has dragged her feet too long,” he muttered as he looked up at her. “Did you see Grace and Lee and their—”

Tess slammed the door in Ann’s face. “Don’t blame Vic for this, blame yourself!” she shouted.

“For wh—”

“Oh, it’s my fault, of course! For thinking you were treating me like an adult. Vic let slip about our parents’ love affair. Your bored, lonely mother, my angry, supersalesman father, right? Right? And you wouldn’t tell me, not little Tess, who still can’t think things through for herself. If I’m willing to face what happened to me when I was kidnapped, don’t you think I can handle a family hardship?”

He put up his hands as if to hold her off, though she stayed on the other side of the desk. She was not getting near this man again, in any way.

“I was honoring your family’s wishes,” he insisted. “Since they hadn’t told you, why should I? You’re delicate enough, and I needed to protect—”

“Needed to use me to get what you wanted and needed! How can I trust you? Though I sometimes feel trapped in my past, I’m not a child, Sheriff McCord!”

“That’s obvious to me in more ways than one. My eyes—my entire body—are fully aware you are not a child, Tess. I thought protecting you from something that would upset you was the best way to go. And I guess I should have clued in Vic that you didn’t know about our parents.”

“No, you should have clued me in! Before you kissed me at the falls and at your house! Before you made me think you cared about me as more than just an eyewitness who could not remember one stupid thing! But now I’m starting to recall sounds and sights.”

“Sights, like what?”

“See, that’s all you care about! Like seeing a small graveyard out an attic or upper-level window.”

“Dane.”

“Probably. And I’m remembering what an idiot I was to think you cared about me.”

“Tess,” he said, slowly coming around the desk. “It’s the wrong time to say this, but I not only need you to help me solve this—your case—but I need you in other wa—”

“No!” she shouted, moving out of his reach. “You need to find Sandy Kenton and Jill Stillwell, Amanda Bell too—so if I think of anything that will help, I’ll let you know. Probably through Vic or Deputy Miller. Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay locked in my house at night until I decide if I’m staying or going from your Cold Creek kingdom!” She yanked open his office door.

Ann stood in the hall. She jumped back, knowing she’d been caught listening. Tess glared at her and walked out into the hall. No way was she going to run like a child.

“Gabe,” Ann said. “Jace called, but I told him you were...occupied. He said Dane’s driven his van into the Lake Azure area, but he didn’t follow him farther since he’d be spotted. And a fax is coming in for you from Judge Wilson’s office.”

“Thanks. Call Vic for me and get him back here pronto.”

Tess slowed to hear what was happening. She knew Gabe probably wanted to chase her, but he wouldn’t with his precious search warrant waiting. She hesitated in the empty outer office, tempted for one moment to go back.

“And tell Vic,” she heard Gabe call out to Ann, “as soon as Dane gets back on his property, we’re going in. I want to shake him up when we serve the warrant and start to take the place apart. Who knows what he’ll admit then?”

Tess went outside. She was working on her own now. It was nearly noon, and the farmers’ market was winding down. Shoppers were leaving; a few tables were being carried by vendors to their cars.

She went to her car and drove away, thoughts racing. Dane wasn’t home and Marva was still at her market booth. Gabe wouldn’t be on Dane’s property until the vet got back from Lake Azure.

She was going to go there herself on foot, through the cornfield, to take a look at the pet cemetery. It just had to trigger memories. And from now on, she was going to dig up her past not for the sheriff, not for herself, but for those lost girls. And any risk was worth that.

* * *

Tess dumped the contents of her purse onto her kitchen table, then took her new house keys and phone out of the pile of items. She put the two items in the child’s backpack she’d brought from home, mostly because it reminded her of her students. She’d stenciled SUNSHINE AND SMILES on packs for each of her kids last year.

For the first time, she analyzed the real reason she was so dedicated to her job as a preschool teacher. She realized she’d been trying to recover from her lost, damaged childhood through her students. She needed to protect and comfort them. She desperately wanted to have her own day care center, to make the lives of children better, sweeter, safer.

She went to use the bathroom, threw on her dark windbreaker, pulled a scarf over her head and knotted it. As she slung the little backpack over one shoulder, her phone rang. She dug it out and checked the caller ID. Gabe. She let it go to voice mail.

She had to get this done quickly before Dane returned to his place or Gabe showed up.

She locked the back door and ran across her yard and into the corn. No more room for fear. No more clinging to Gabe or calling Char for counseling or hoping Kate called her again. As she shoved her way through the tall stalks and bumped into the ears, she thought she might phone her father once she calmed down. But how could she ever forgive him for having an affair with Gabe’s mother, for daring to blame Mom for not keeping an eternal eye on his “terrific, terrible Teresa,” then deserting all of them?

How many people in Cold Creek knew her father had been unfaithful with Mrs. McCord? She realized Miss Etta had alluded to it when Tess had first come back to town, but she hadn’t caught on. “Your father was interested in other things,” Miss Etta had said with a disapproving tone.

Out of breath, Tess stopped several rows from Dane’s property. She was proud of herself for coming right through the field full of anger instead of fear. And she was just where she thought she would emerge, behind the pet cemetery with the east side of his large, old house in view. She stared up at the second floor and attic windows. Had she been held there for the eight months she was gone? Had she gazed out those small attic windows toward the then much smaller graveyard? She realized she would have seen her own house from those windows. Why couldn’t she recall gazing out toward home?

She wanted to get closer to the house to see if it triggered any new memories. There were old buildings out behind Marva’s abandoned, derelict farmhouse. Could she have been kept there?

Tess crept out of the cornfield and strode through the tombstones. Some of them were small, but most were square or rectangular, nearly the size of those in a human cemetery. But wasn’t she picturing narrow, rounded stones? Embedded in these polished marble ones, pictures of dogs, and a few cats, caught her eye. She saw the little QR codes Marva had mentioned. If only there was some way to access stored images from her past.

Many epitaphs were sad, some funny. She was amazed that people had money for these elaborate memorials when so many others—kids especially—were starving or homeless. She paused before heading out into the open again. After looking around carefully, then glancing out onto the road, she ran across the driveway and pressed her back to the house between two windows. She looked back at the graveyard.

Vic was right, of course. It would have been much smaller twenty years ago, the stones not so elaborate or technology-enhanced. She did see a few toward the front, probably early ones, that were more modest. But she experienced no flood of thoughts, no buried fears unearthed. The cemetery triggered no memories.

She decided to check the death dates on the smaller stones to be sure they would have been here twenty years ago. She darted away from the house and into a row of them just as she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. Dane’s van turned into the driveway and parked in front of the vet clinic.

Tess ducked behind a gravestone and huddled there, waiting for him to go inside. When he got out of the van, he was talking on the phone. She heard him say something about a meeting. He carried a satchel with him, probably a vet bag with medical supplies. To her surprise, he didn’t go into the clinic or his house but walked into the cemetery just a few rows from her.

She crawled behind another stone and put her back to it, sitting on the ground with her knees up to her chest. Not talking, but with the phone still to his ear, he walked past the spot where he could glance down and see her. Tess scolded herself for wishing Gabe was with her. He said he’d be waiting when Dane returned ready to serve him with the warrant and search his house, so where was he? Not that she wanted him to find her here meddling in his plans.

She wondered if Dane was heading for the cornfield. Could he be meeting someone there? Or what if he had something in his satchel to take through the field and leave in her yard? No, probably not in broad daylight.

She wasn’t sure where he was. He could double back and see her. She debated making a run for the cornfield but it was a tall maze in there if she didn’t go in the direction toward home.

She knew she should phone Gabe to tell him that Dane was here, but she was done working with Gabe.

She heard Dane speaking again. He sounded upset, but he was far enough away that she couldn’t catch his words until he shouted, “No!”

A single bang sounded. Tess jumped so hard she hit her head on the stone she was pressed against.

Tess knew she shouldn’t have come here on her own. She wanted to get out of here. Let Gabe and Vic take over. Dane’s voice had stopped, so he must have ended the call, but that didn’t help her pinpoint where he was. She decided she was going to make a break for it.

She got to her feet carefully and yanked the child’s backpack up on her shoulder. Bent over so her head didn’t show above the stones, she started toward the field, glancing at each cross row to be sure Dane didn’t see her.

She’d made it to the last row of tombstones before the field when something caught her eye. Dane Thompson was sprawled on the ground with no one else in sight. Was it a trick to get her to come closer?

She tiptoed two steps nearer. It looked as though he’d hit his head. She saw blood on the corner of a tombstone. Could that have caused the sound she’d heard?

“Dr. Thompson, are you all right?” she asked from about ten feet away. When there was no response she crept closer.

There was blood on the bottom corner of the stone, but as she looked carefully she saw it was spattered all over it, even in the grass!

Horrified, she moved closer. A gun—some sort of old pistol—was in his outstretched hand. She didn’t see his cell phone, but a scarlet-speckled note lay on the slick grass. As she moved around the bloody stone, she saw blood on his neck and shoulders, and half his head was gone.

21

Tess’s hands shook so hard she could barely dial Gabe’s cell number. After she’d said she was on her own, she needed him. Now. He picked up on the first ring.

“Tess? I tried to call you earlier. You home? Vic and I are almost to Dane’s place to serve him w—”

“I came to look at the pet graveyard from his house. I’m here. He—he– I think he killed himself—in the tombstones by the cornfield. Gabe, there’s blood everywhere.”

“Don’t move. We’re close.”

As tears poured down her cheeks, she heard a siren. Thank God they were nearby.

Although she’d declared her independence from Gabe, she did as he said and stood her ground, though she couldn’t bear to wait near Dane’s body. She’d disliked and feared him but had never wished for this.

The siren came closer and stopped. Two doors slammed, bang, bang, but not as loud as the gunshot. Why didn’t she know it was a gunshot?

Gabe’s distant voice called out. “Tess!”

“Over here!”

He and Vic came running but went straight to Dane. Vic bent over to look closely but neither man touched him.

“One shot through the forehead,” Vic said. “Look at that old weapon. He collect them or something?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe said, “but we’ve got the warrant to find out. Suicide? He must have thought we were going to arrest him this time. But who could have told him about the warrant?”

“Stay here. I’ve got to check his house. Nobody move!” Vic said, then ran toward Dane’s house and kicked in the front door. He returned moments later. “No sign of any girls inside, but we need to do a thorough search of the property.”

“I’ve called in help,” Gabe said. “See if you can read that note without touching it while I talk to Tess.”

“Yeah, Tess,” Vic said. “She’s got some explaining to do.”

Gabe approached Tess, who was frozen in shock. He put his arm around her waist and walked her a few tombstones away from the gruesome scene.

“It was suicide, wasn’t it?” she asked them, her voice shaky, as she sat down on the edge of a tombstone.

“Gun’s in his hand, but first impressions are never good enough,” Vic said. “Got to be sure. The angle of the wound looks unusual for a suicide.”

Gabe stooped beside her, his elbows on his bent knees. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“You need to tell Marva,” she said.

“I know. But I don’t want her to see him this way. I’ll notify her, but it should be in person. Tess, tell me everything you saw. Did he see you, confront you?”

“No!” she insisted as he took out a small notepad and pen. “I looked at these tombstones from over by his house, trying to remember if I’d seen that view years ago, but nothing clicked. I saw him drive in, talking to someone on the phone when he got out of his van. He was carrying a satchel, like a medical bag.”

“You sure?” Gabe asked. “There’s not one near him.”

“There isn’t?” she said, craning her neck to look past him. Vic was still hovering near the body, but he stood and came closer. “Maybe he dropped it or hid it. But yes, I’m sure. That is, I thought that’s what it was, but maybe it was a case for his pistol. The only thing I could pick up from his distant voice was something about meeting someone.”

“Now? Later?”

“I don’t know. He shouted ‘No!’ right before I heard the shot, but I didn’t realize what the sound was at the time.”

Gabe and Vic exchanged looks. They were both furiously making notes. Her stomach went into freefall. Surely they didn’t think she had something to do with Dane’s death—that she came here to confront him.

Gabe sat beside her on the edge of the tombstone. She wished she could hold Gabe’s hand, but when she reached out to him, he didn’t touch her. “Just keep calm,” he said. “We’ll have to test your hands—standard procedure. Go ahead. Anything else you remember?”

She shook her head and blinked back tears she dared not brush away. “That’s all. Oh, after the shot, when I didn’t hear him anymore, I was going to sneak back into the cornfield to go home. That’s when I glanced down a row and saw him slumped. I went closer—blood, his head...” She gasped and started to hyperventilate. “But—about my hands,” she said, “I didn’t touch him, don’t have blood on them.”

“We see that,” Gabe said. “It’s for gunpowder residue.”

It was like a punch to the stomach. More standard procedure, but it scared her, until she realized her hands would be clean. But she couldn’t bear it if either of these men—especially Gabe—believed she could have killed Dane. Killed anyone.

Vic broke the tense silence. “I managed to read the note without touching it.”

“What did it say?” Gabe asked, looking up at Vic.

“I got it exactly.” Vic flipped back a page in his notepad. “Sorry this is late. I know you won’t forget, but can you forgive? Dane. The bottom of the note’s trimmed off as if there was something else. Now, who could he be apologizing to?” Vic asked. “Was he hoping someone would forgive him, someone who came here to meet him?”

Tess saw Gabe stiffen at that suggestion, but she wasn’t waiting for him to stand up for her. “Not me!” she insisted. “I was angry with Gabe for not telling me about our parents’ affair. I decided to come over here on my own, only to see if looking at this cemetery reminded me that I was kept here. Not to settle anything with Dane. I’d overheard Gabe say he wasn’t here, so that’s why I came.”

“If he surprised you and you struggled with him and his gun, it would be self-defense,” Vic said.

“Damn it, Vic!” Gabe exploded. “Don’t try to put words in her mouth!”

“Sure, fine, but you both need someone who isn’t emotionally caught up in this—and each other.”

Tess jolted at that. Was it so obvious?

“And,” Vic plunged on, “Tess took off from her meeting with me—and evidently you too, Gabe—angry and upset.”

“At you two, not at Dane!” Tess countered.

Gabe stood, then helped Tess up, keeping his hand on her elbow. “Mike’s got a lot of work to do here. But if he says Tess’s hands are clean, we have her statement and she can go home.”

“For now,” Vic agreed. “I gotta admit, ‘Kidnapper Kills Self in Remorse’ sounds like a good headline for the papers. But the placement of that head wound tells me someone else shot that gun.”

Tess cleared her throat. “Write this down, both of you. If someone shot him, it wasn’t me. He did yell ‘No!’ and probably not at himself.”

Vic finally nodded, instead of frowning at her. “I didn’t see any sign of his phone,” he said, his voice not so strident. “Unless it’s under the body or in his pocket. Tess, you mind if we take a look at what’s in your backpack?”

“Be my guest,” she said. She turned so she could shrug out of it without touching it. Vic looked through it, shook his head but didn’t give it back.

“Maybe he called to say goodbye to his sister,” Gabe said. “She tried to talk him out of it, he yelled ‘No!’ and bang. But you’re right about the bullet placement. Male suicides often ‘eat’ the gun, and if not, shoot the side of their head, not their forehead and at an upward angle. I saw some suicides when I was in Iraq.”

Despite the fact that Tess was still angry, her heart went out to him again. “If there’s no phone and no sign of the satchel I swear I saw, maybe the meeting with the person on the phone was at the edge of the cornfield. When that person killed Dane, he or she took both items and ran into the field,” she said, almost whispering.

“We’ll have it searched as well as this graveyard,” Gabe said. “So, who has the motive to point a pistol point-blank at a man’s forehead, stare him right in the eye and blow his skull apart? I say, not Tess Lockwood.”

“Is his sister shorter than him?” Vic asked. “Tess was here—and if she suddenly remembered he was the kidnapper—she has motive.”

“I said I didn’t and I don’t!” she shouted. “There are other suspects, and I wouldn’t do something to keep us from finding the other girls if he’s the one who had them stashed somewhere!”

“Maybe Mike will get prints off the gun,” Gabe said. “But things like wine bottles and doorknobs have been wiped clean so far. As soon as we get this scene turned over to others, we’ll hit the house. We’ll have to ask Marva if he was talking to her and if she’s seen that antique pistol before.”

“Okay,” Vic agreed. “After Mike checks Tess’s hands, let’s get her out of here until we get a formal deposition. The forensics posse will be here soon. I don’t figure you for a flight risk, Tess, but we need your word you won’t leave the area. Gabe and I have a lot to do, and I don’t want to be fighting him on insisting we hold you for further questioning right now.”

Tess looked Vic straight in the eye. “As scared as I’ve been ever since I’ve been back here, I’m not leaving the area. I’m in this to find out what happened to me twenty years ago, who is trying to scare me away now and more important, to help find those girls.”

“I admire your courage, Tess. I just always check every angle.” Vic turned toward Gabe. “After Mike dusts the weapon, I’m gonna take it and run it down—type, provenance.”

Tess was amazed to realize that, despite Dane’s bloody body and the grilling she just experienced, she was feeling stronger.

Vic tilted his head and craned his neck. “Two vehicles just drove in. Mike and your deputy. No, three. A silver car right behind them.”

“That’s probably Marva,” Gabe said. “You brief Mike so he can check Tess’s hands, and I’ll talk to Marva, tell her she can’t go in now because of the warrant. It’s best she not see Dane.”

“Gabe,” Tess said as he started to move away. “Maybe I can help you break it to Marva. She’s been good to me lately, friendly when I came back.”

“Let’s see how she does first,” he said as he broke into a run. Vic went to brief Deputy Miller and Mike, who was toting a lot of gear. Tess leaned against the tombstone until Mike approached her. He explained that it was standard procedure to test her hands for residue—in case she’d picked up the gun. He produced what he called adhesive tabs and took samplings of her hands and wrists.

“I’ll check these out in the van with my scanning electron microscope,” he told her. “But I’ve got to photograph and deal with the body first.”

A scream pierced the air. “No! No! He wouldn’t!”

Tess hurried down a row of tombstones toward the driveway. Gabe was talking to Marva, bracing her with both hands on her shoulders. “If he’s dead, someone killed him!” she screamed.

Gabe’s low, steady voice sounded, followed by more shouting from Marva. “He wouldn’t do that, he had lots to live for! Yes, he bought a few old guns lately, Civil War ones, a couple older. No, I didn’t talk to him on the phone, haven’t since this morning, and he seemed fine.”

Marva saw Tess over Gabe’s shoulder. Tess stepped forward, hoping to find words of comfort.

“What’s she doing here?” Marva screeched, pointing at her. “Dane had nothing to do with her kidnapping, and this latest one’s made it worse! All he did was live across the field!”

Startled, Tess stopped walking. Gabe kept his voice low as he spoke to Marva again, but she cried out, “I don’t believe her! She’s the one who put you up to this—new suspicions, a search warrant. She came here to spy on or accuse Dane, and who knows she didn’t kill him?”

* * *

It was late afternoon and, exhausted and frustrated, Gabe and Vic sat silent in Gabe’s cruiser. They had searched Dane’s house. Mike had run the test to be sure Tess’s hands were clear of gunpowder residue before they’d let her go. They were still waiting for the body to be taken to the morgue for an autopsy. They planned to have volunteers search the entire cornfield for Dane’s satchel and phone, but nothing had turned up nearby.

Mike had helped with the search of Dane’s property; Jace too, after he had run Tess home and the coroner had taken over the crime scene. Gabe had been tempted to send Tess to the police station for safekeeping, but he didn’t want her there alone with Ann. Marva’s reaction to her had been tense enough, although the woman wasn’t responsible for what she said right now. She’d been taken to a friend’s house, and Dr. Nelson had sedated her.

And that, Gabe thought, was a good one, because they could probably have just taken a sedation drug from Dane’s cache of them hidden in his attic. They’d scoured it and the basement for forensics evidence of Sandy Kenton, coming up with nothing. But they had discovered two key things. They found a lot of drugs, including a few for humans like amnestics and hallucinogens, all neatly labeled. It would take Mike and the BCI lab days to do the tox tests on all of them, maybe match one of them to what was in Tess’s system when she drank the wine. They also found that Dane did have a small collection of antique American guns, two rifles and four pistols. When they’d shown the pistol in question to Marva, she hadn’t recognized it as Dane’s. But they could find no formal paperwork on it or on two of the other pistols, so it was impossible to know how many he’d had.

Gabe glanced in the rearview mirror again. He had it angled so he could watch for the body bag to be placed on a gurney to be wheeled out of the cemetery to the E.R. vehicle. It was starting to rain, perfect weather for this tragedy. Usually he loved the rain because he’d missed it when he was in Iraq, but today it only depressed him more. A handy place to die, a cemetery, Gabe thought. Marva said Dane had wanted to be buried there so it did make sense he’d kill himself there.

But the missing cell phone and satchel meant there had been someone else in the cemetery. It was looking like murder, not suicide, and that would complicate his investigation into the missing girls.

“They’re finally done with the body,” Gabe said when he saw movement. He and Vic got out to stand by their vehicle as the body bag was loaded, the doors slammed shut on a man’s life. The E.R. vehicle pulled past them and drove out.

“Even if his death stops future abductions, we still don’t have Sandy or the others back,” Gabe stated the obvious as they got back in the car. They pulled out, following the E.R. vehicle at a distance.

“Yeah.” Vic sounded as tired and discouraged as he felt. “Gut instinct—you think it was him who took the girls? Maybe in cahoots with someone else, like his sister?”