by Brenda Novak
He did come across a big stack of outstanding bills shoved into a kitchen drawer, however. Most were overdue. And right there, near the bottom, he found Don’s most recent telephone bill, which showed several calls to Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. “That’s what I want.”
Feeling he was finally getting somewhere, Isaac grabbed a dish towel to pick up the phone, so he wouldn’t leave any prints. He wanted to see where the Idaho number went, see if Les Weaver answered. If Les was used to accepting calls from Don’s house, he’d recognize the number on caller ID and might pick up, despite—
But before Isaac could dial, he heard a noise that made him freeze.
Someone had just come through the front door.
Claire couldn’t feel her hands or her feet. Jeremy had ripped out the cords of the lamps in her motel room and used them to tie her up until he could get some rope from his car. Then he’d used that instead. He’d gagged her, too, with a strip of fabric he tore from the motel sheets. He said he couldn’t think with her begging him to let her go. He also said she’d be happy he’d done this in the end.
She couldn’t imagine that. But without the use of her limbs, or even her mouth, she couldn’t get free. Her wrists were already raw from trying. She wasn’t sure where he’d gotten the rope but it was the worst kind, so scratchy it hurt even before she’d rubbed the skin away. At this point, the slightest movement brought pain. There was nothing she could do except lie on the backseat of his car in a sideways crouch with her cheek pressed against the fabric of his seat, which smelled like dirty socks. She tried to brace herself against the jostling of the car, but even that became impossible once he turned off the highway.
The suspension in his old car wasn’t the best for such rough terrain. The vehicle bounced as he drove through potholes and rocks and ruts. He seemed to be taking her up into the mountains on one of the many fire roads that led to remote hunting or fishing destinations. She couldn’t tell if he’d chosen it at random or he’d been here before, but he rarely left home so she doubted he knew what he was doing or where he was going. She also had no idea how anyone would ever find her out here—or how, if she managed to get free, she’d reach the highway.
As the minutes dragged on, tears slipped from her eyes, but they weren’t tears of sadness or fear as much as anger and frustration. She’d tried to be so good to Jeremy. For years she’d put up with him and endured the teasing his devotion had inspired among her friends, the discomfort of his inappropriate remarks, the awkwardness of his constant and invasive staring, the lecturing from her parents about the less fortunate. And this was how he repaid her?
“I’m sorry I have to do this,” he said at length.
He was crazy. She was beginning to understand how crazy. She’d thought he was just slow and rather sweet. Someone who’d always been bullied. That was the whole reason she’d been willing to tolerate him. But he’d been telling her how his father had shot himself the night of the fire, and instead of calling the police, he washed the blood and brains off the wall and buried him under the house.
She didn’t know whether or not to believe him, especially when he insisted that her mother was down there, too. How could that be? Jeremy claimed his father had murdered her, but Don Salter had no connection to her mother. Except for the fact that he was seen burning the files, and the fact that Don had once been her father’s friend.
If what Jeremy said was true, Tug had to be behind her mother’s death.
She wanted to ask for details, proof, but she couldn’t even talk.
“You believe me, don’t you?” he asked.
He sounded childlike again. Harmless. And that made her angriest of all. He’d taken everyone in—everyone but his own father, perhaps. She now realized that the whole town had probably misjudged Don, at least when it came to his son. It was a miracle that he’d cared for Jeremy all those years. They’d all been so afraid Jeremy would end up in a sanatorium, but she was pretty sure that was exactly where he belonged.
He slowed to a stop, but she got the impression that they hadn’t yet reached their destination. “You can grunt if you believe me.”
She did nothing. She was beginning to hate him. If he’d known where her mother was all these years, why hadn’t he told someone? Maybe he wasn’t the smartest person in town, but he’d been fully aware of how long she’d been searching for the truth and how much it would mean to her to finally know. He’d mentioned the situation quite often.
I hope you find her, Claire…?. He used to say that all the time. If he loved her like he claimed, why hadn’t he taken pity on her and told her the truth years ago?
“You’re not being very nice,” he said when she maintained her silence.
That statement alone proved he was unbalanced. She wasn’t being nice?
He started driving again, but slowly. He was obviously more interested in talking to her. “I hope you’re not mad. You’ll be fine. I don’t want you to worry. I’m going to take care of you. Just like David did.”
He didn’t have the ability to take care of anyone, even himself. But that wasn’t what she focused on. She was thinking about David. She had so many questions. If Don had killed her mother, was he also the one who’d hired Les Weaver to shoot David? Or had Tug handled that?
Fresh tears slipped from Claire’s eyes. Dad, could you really have done this to me? Taken away two of the most important people in my life?
Her heart said no. But everything else said yes. It had to be him or Roni. Jeremy had told her they’d been seeing each other well before her mother went missing, just as April had said. He’d been watching her for so long, he knew almost as much about her family as he did about her. Isaac believed her stepfather was behind it; she could tell by the way he’d approached their talk about forgiveness.
Dad, how could you? Those words went through her mind again and again, but she supposed that anyone who’d had a loved one do something like this felt the same. As horrible and unfair and unthinkable as it was, it happened. There was no way of understanding it. There was only the bitter taste of betrayal—by Tug, the man she’d accepted as her father, and by Jeremy, the boy she’d stood up for all her life.
Soon the jostling took its toll. Her body ached from being unable to change positions. Her head pounded from lack of sleep, a surfeit of emotion and the gag cutting into her jaw. Yet Jeremy drove on.
Did he even know where he was going? Did he have any kind of plan?
He’d said his father had killed himself. Was that true, or had Jeremy shot him? He had a gun…?.
Either way, Jeremy had nothing to go back to. No family, no friends. After this he wouldn’t even have his job at Hank’s.
So what could he have in mind? They couldn’t survive out here, not for any length of time. She doubted they had enough food or water for twenty-four hours. They hadn’t stopped anywhere; nothing was open this late. And she wasn’t sure Jeremy had come prepared.
Maybe survival wasn’t what he had in mind. Maybe he only wanted to escape the consequences of what he’d done long enough to spend some time with her, after which he might let her go.
Or he might kill himself and take her with him.
“Isaac?”
Isaac released his breath and stuck his gun back in his waistband. He’d been sure it was Les Weaver, coming to finish what he’d failed to do when he started the fire. But this was a much more familiar voice. It didn’t belong to someone he particularly liked, but running into a man he didn’t like was better than running into a contract killer. “In here.”
Rusty Clegg came around the corner and eyed him from head to foot.
Isaac didn’t appreciate his condescending expression. “Did you have something you wanted to say to me?”
“I thought that was your truck parked off in the trees.” He clicked his tongue as he shook his head. “You just don’t know how to stay out of trouble, do ya?”
“Excuse me?”
He hooked his thumbs in his utility belt and puffed o
ut his chest—to show off the badge on his uniform or make himself seem bigger and tougher, or both. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Probably the same thing you are. I’m looking for Don.”
“By going through his stuff?”
“I’m hoping to find something that can tell me why he hasn’t been seen for two days. And whether or not he’s had contact with someone in Idaho.”
“That’s not your place! You’re not a deputy!”
Isaac raised his eyebrows. “Maybe if you were doing your job I wouldn’t have to be doing it for you.”
His eyes glittered. “You could be arrested for interfering with a police investigation.”
“Last I heard, this wasn’t an official investigation.”
“But if Don’s missing—”
Isaac broke in. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Don’s not just missing, Deputy Clegg. He’s dead.”
This took him aback, wiped the contempt from his face. “How do you know?”
“Let’s call it an educated guess. First of all, Jeremy’s freaking out because he hasn’t seen his father for two days. Don’s never taken off like this before, especially when his car is in the garage. There’s a bullet hole in the wall out there—” he gestured toward the living room “—and a big wet spot on the carpet, where someone used a hell of a lot of bleach.”
“That’s not like finding a body,” he argued.
Isaac propped his hands on his hips. “It’s enough that someone should start looking for one.”
What was left of Rusty’s bravado disappeared and his shoulders slumped. “But…who would want to kill Don?”
“Someone convinced he knows too much. Someone who saw him as a weak link.”
“Based on your theory that Les Weaver shot David on purpose.”
“He did. And I’m going to prove it.”
“Shit.” He ran three fingers over the distress lines in his forehead. “I was there. I was with him. It seemed legit. Weaver was so upset.” A little of his former belligerence returned. “And there was no motive. Weaver was a total stranger, an upstanding citizen from out of state. You wouldn’t have suspected anything, either!”
“That ‘upstanding citizen’ has ties to the Lucchese family.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“One of the most powerful organized crime syndicates in New York City.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked Myles to check. It was that simple.” Heck, even Leland Faust had an uncomfortable feeling about how smoothly that day’s events had been explained and accepted. If Rusty hadn’t taken the easy road, the one Les Weaver had paved for him with his good looks, charity work and attorney trappings, the truth might’ve come out a year ago. And if that had happened, maybe Isaac’s house wouldn’t be in ashes. “I’ve got to be honest with you, Rusty. You should’ve asked a few more questions.”
Crimson suffused the deputy’s face as his lips pulled back to show his teeth. “You’re so full of bullshit, standing there like you know everything. Big Isaac, who swoops in at the last minute to steal my girl.”
So it wasn’t all about Les or David. “Your girl? Claire’s never been yours.” In one way or another, she’d always been his—she’d known it and he’d known it—even when she was with David.
“Without your interference, she might’ve been. She asked me out last week. That was a start. Then you got involved.”
“She wasn’t really interested in you, Rusty. She just wanted to get out.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know shit. And you have no proof Les killed David on purpose. You’re just trying to make me look bad so you look better.” With that he left the kitchen and started going from room to room, calling for Don and Jeremy.
“Jeremy’s with Claire in Libby. So don’t waste your breath yelling for him,” Isaac said. And if Don was home Isaac would already know it, but…Rusty didn’t respond.
Isaac listened as the deputy marched upstairs; when he came back and headed down to the basement, Isaac followed.
“Are you satisfied yet?” he asked when Rusty stood staring at Jeremy’s empty room.
Again, he didn’t answer. He was gaping at a wall covered in pictures of Claire and embellished with poems and dried flowers and drawings of hearts. “What the hell is this?”
Isaac had seen it earlier. He’d found it a bit unsettling but not surprising. “What does it look like?”
“That little creep has it bad.”
So did Rusty. He’d been trying to get together with Claire ever since David was killed. “Creep? You probably have a shrine in your house, too.”
“Screw you.”
Isaac had provoked him so he let it go. They needed to put aside their differences and get to the bottom of what was going on here. “Look, something’s not right. Don’t you think you should call the sheriff and have him send over some forensic techs?”
The stubborn set to his jaw hadn’t lessened. “Hell, no. I’ve seen no sign of a struggle. No forced entry. No blood and no body. Nothing but a little cleaning solution that could’ve been spilled and a bullet that could’ve come from Jeremy messing around with his daddy’s gun.”
“Then where’s Don?”
“Who knows? He’s an adult. Maybe he took off for a few days. He’ll turn up.”
“Dead.” Isaac had heard enough. He was done with Rusty. “That’s it. I’m calling the sheriff myself.” Whirling around, he started up the stairs.
Rusty began to trail after him but stopped. “Wait a second!”
It was the tone of his voice and not his words that made Isaac pause. “What is it?”
“Look at this.”
Rusty had snapped on the flashlight he carried on his belt and was aiming its beam into the shadowy area below the stairs, but Isaac couldn’t see what he was referring to. “Look at what?”
“The crawl space. It’s been locked.”
Isaac hadn’t even noticed. The dim glow of the single bulb dangling over the laundry area didn’t extend to the corners of the concrete basement, and he’d been searching the finished parts of the house, looking through drawers and in closets for bank statements, bills and other documentation. “Is that unusual?”
“One padlock wouldn’t be. But six?”
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Isaac drove as fast as he could all the way to Libby. He wanted to believe Claire was there and had simply been sleeping too deeply to hear the phone.
But he already knew that couldn’t be the case. When he couldn’t rouse her or Jeremy, he’d contacted the manager and had him check. Both rooms were empty, and Jeremy’s car was gone.
Where could they be?
Isaac had no idea. But the images Les had painted of Jeremy flying into a panic and strangling Alana kept coming to mind. Jeremy had plenty of strength. If he got his hands on Claire, there’d be nothing she could do.
Surely he wouldn’t hurt her. He loved her, had always adored her.
But he probably hadn’t disliked Alana. And he wasn’t himself right now. Depending on what had happened in Don’s house, there was no telling what Jeremy had seen or done or suffered this week. If he was spinning out of control, he could strangle her like he had her mother, without even realizing he was doing it. Les had said Jeremy didn’t believe he’d killed Alana. He’d completely blocked it out.
Isaac wished he could use his cell phone. He would’ve had service once he reached Libby, but he didn’t have the phone itself anymore. It’d been destroyed in the fire, along with all his other belongings. He’d called Myles before he left Don’s house, while he still had a landline, and told him what was going on. Myles was on his way, and he was sending several deputies, leaving Jared Davis to meet the coroner, who was coming to collect Rusty’s body, and the paramedics, who were going to take Les Weaver to the hospital in Kalispell.
But that was twenty minutes ago. Isaac wanted an
update, wanted to stay in touch. He knew he wouldn’t be nearly as effective at searching for Claire if he couldn’t coordinate with others making the same effort. All he could do was drive around, hoping to spot Jeremy’s car, even though he doubted Jeremy and Claire were still in town. It was dawn. Isaac had left Libby seven hours ago, and they could’ve left shortly after…?.
He went to the motel first. The manager had gone in, but he had to see with his own eyes that Claire was really gone. He also wanted to look for any hint as to where Jeremy might’ve taken her. But it was far from obvious. He found Claire’s overnight bag, the shirt and bra she’d removed when she dressed for bed and her shoes.
He also found a torn sheet, electrical cords that had been ripped from the lamps and proof of a struggle.
Claire wasn’t sure she wanted it to get light. She’d kicked Jeremy in the face and then the balls when he tried to grab her, which had dropped him to the ground and given her just enough time to steady herself and run into the forest. But he’d come after her. For the past hour, she’d heard him searching through the trees, sometimes very close, alternately calling her name and throwing a temper tantrum when she wouldn’t respond.
The darkness had worked in her favor. All she had to do was stay still and let him be the one to thrash around. As daylight approached, she had to risk moving—without any shoes. Considering that her feet were already so cut and bruised, she’d have no chance if it came to a footrace. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to limp very far…?.
“How could you do this to me?” Jeremy wailed.
The words bounced against the surrounding mountains, creating an echo. Do this to me…do this to me…do this to me. She hated the sound of it, hated his voice, hated his distress and what he’d done to her. But hating didn’t help. And neither would answering. She couldn’t reason with him. He wasn’t capable of it.