Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6)

by Toni Anderson

  Erin’s voice got louder.

  “Have you reported it?” She had her phone in a death grip. She looked first to the chief and then to him. “Rachel Knight’s mother is on the line. Rachel is missing.”

  * * *

  Erin headed to Rachel’s house, even though her boss had told her that they couldn’t treat her as a missing person until the girl had been unaccounted for for a full twenty-four hours, which was bullshit. What if Rachel harmed herself?

  The truck groaned going uphill in the steadily falling snow. They’d had two more inches already, but a lot more was in the forecast. Darsh sat beside her, talking on his cell. Neither of them had mentioned last night, nor their argument this morning. They were back to being professional and working the case. She was grateful. Oddly, his presence bolstered her courage and security. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but worry for Rachel overwhelmed everything else.

  He hung up, and she glanced toward him, then had to correct for a slight slip of the back tires. She needed to keep her eyes on the road unless she wanted to end up in the ditch.

  “I just spoke to a friend of mine who co-owns a security firm in DC. They’re sending some extra security guards up to help on campus. The college contacted them for help.”

  Which was a waste of time considering how many young women were around here, but the college wanted to look like it was being pro-active until the cops caught the killer. It couldn’t hurt. “Any news on the evidence?”

  “Not yet. Lab said they’d have some results by the end of the day.”

  She bit back her frustration. Where the hell was Rachel? Had she been suicidal or had she been abducted? Had Erin missed something yesterday? Had she let Rachel down? The thought made her stomach knot with anxiety. The truck skidded again, and she forced herself to focus on driving, otherwise she’d cause a wreck and maybe put both her and Darsh in the hospital.

  “She probably just went to a friend’s house,” he told her quietly.

  She gave him a curt nod. He was trying to help, but until she spoke to Rachel, the overwhelming sense of guilt would continue to stack up inside her mind.

  Finally they reached the Knights’ residence. She pulled up into the driveway, and Rachel’s mom opened the door and stood there waiting for them. The worry in the woman’s eyes broke her heart, but Erin snapped her spine straight and got out of the truck. She had a job to do and getting emotionally compromised wasn’t going to help.

  She strode up the path with Darsh at her side. The temptation to reach out and take his hand for reassurance was huge. And completely inappropriate.

  “Dr. Knight.” She nodded and walked inside the door. “When did you last see your daughter?”

  The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “Last night. I kissed her goodnight around ten.”

  “You didn’t hear from her again, or see her leave?”

  She shook her head.

  “Can we see her room?” Darsh asked.

  Erin knew this was the real reason Darsh was here. He wanted to snoop and gain insight into the victim in a way that wasn’t possible when Rachel was here. She shouldn’t resent him for it, he was just doing his job.

  Rachel’s mom turned on her heel and jogged up the stairs. “She wouldn’t have gone off anywhere without telling me. She always told me where she was going and what time she’d be back.”

  Rosemary Knight strode down a carpeted hallway and opened a door into a large pale blue room with a big four-poster bed in the middle of it. The bed was made. A computer sat on the desk.

  “Does she have her phone with her?” Erin asked as Darsh made a beeline for the laptop.

  “Yes.” The shoulders were narrow and tight. “At least, I assume so. It isn’t here.”

  “What’s the number?” Darsh asked. Pulling his cell from his pocket he speed-dialed someone.

  Rosemary told him, and he gave it to whomever was on the other end of the line and asked them to try to ping it and call him back. He hung up. “Was the security system armed?”

  Rachel’s mom nodded. “Always. Someone turned it off to leave the house around six.”

  Darsh went back to reading email on Rachel’s computer. There was no password.

  “And no sign of a break-in?” asked Erin.

  “No.”

  There hadn’t been at Cassie and Mandy’s house either, but how would the perp attack and kidnap Rachel without someone hearing? And how had he known the code for the alarm? “Would you have heard if she’d disarmed the security system and left?”

  She let out a breath, and her features sagged. “Maybe, but I doubt it. I took a tablet to help me sleep.” She put her hands over her face, hiding tears. “A terrible part of me wants to believe she’s been kidnapped. It would be easier than knowing she ran away of her own volition.”

  “Rachel is a grown woman, Dr. Knight. Maybe she just needed a little space.”

  “You think I smother her?” The words were bitter and biting.

  “No,” Erin hedged. “After everything she’s been through I realize you feel compelled to protect her, but maybe she just went to talk to a friend? Or drove out of the state because she was scared about these murders.” Erin was praying with every lapsed-Catholic cell in her body. “Maybe she’ll call you in an hour, and she’ll be standing on a beach in Maine.” Erin was trying to be optimistic for the other woman’s sake. Rosemary Knight didn’t need to hear her other theories.

  Darsh’s phone rang, and tension shot through the room. “Send me the address, and I’ll Google it. Thanks.” They all braced themselves.

  He hung up and a few seconds later, his phone dinged with incoming email.

  “Where is she?” Rachel’s mom asked.

  “Agent Rooney managed to ping her phone off a few different cell towers and got an approximate location. Fox Creek Wildlife Park?”

  A wash of relief swept over Rosemary’s features. “She sometimes likes to walk there.” Then her eyes darted to the windows and the growing snowstorm. “What if she got lost?”

  Erin’s thoughts were darker, and she tried to stop herself from assuming the worst. “We’ll find her, Rosemary.” Erin clasped her arm. “We’ll bring her home.” She hoped she wasn’t making promises she couldn’t keep.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Someone needs to stay here in case she calls or turns up.”

  “Donald’s here. Stuck in his study, pretending he’s not scared witless—although really, it would be hard to tell the difference.” She laughed bitterly, proving all was not well in the Knight household. Then they were walking down to the foyer where she grabbed her coat and slid her feet into her boots. “I’m coming with you,” she insisted. “I need to find my baby.”

  Erin drove, glad they were in the truck as the snow grew thicker. Her wipers lazily slashed at the snow on her windshield. Fox Creek was about four miles east of town and formed the entrance to over two thousand acres of National Park. Please be here. Please be crying in your car because fate dealt you a shitty hand and you needed some space.

  She pulled into the small parking lot, and a swell of relief burst through her at the sight of Rachel’s car. But it was obvious the vehicle hadn’t moved in some time, and snow covered it in a thin shroud. The engine must be cold. She drew to a halt a few spaces away, and Darsh sent her a quelling look as he got out.

  “Stay here,” he ordered.

  Erin stayed because it meant Rosemary Knight would be more likely to stay too, and she didn’t want the mother to be the one to find Rachel if she’d decided to take her own life.

  Darsh carefully brushed snow off a side window of Rachel’s car and peered inside, taking what seemed like forever. Then he went to the passenger door and tried the handle. It opened. Erin held her breath and felt Rosemary Knight’s fingers curl into the back of her seat. Darsh ducked inside and then pulled off a glove and dug into his pocket for an evidence bag. He came out holding a cell phone inside the plastic. Then he checked the trunk,
but Erin could see it was empty. He strode back to them, shaking his head.

  “She isn’t here.” Snow whirled around his shoulders, white crystals landing in sharp contrast to his black hair. He held up the cell phone and showed it to Rosemary in the back. “Is this hers?”

  Rosemary reached out, but Darsh withdrew the phone. “I have an agent arriving in less than an hour who might be able to get key information off it, but it can’t be compromised if there’s a chance this might turn out to be a crime scene. Do you understand?” His voice was gentle, but firm.

  Rosemary covered her mouth and sobbed, nodding.

  “Do you know the screen pass code? I’ll see if there’s a text readily visible.”

  “It’s four, four, four, seven.” Then she folded into herself and seemed to just hold on.

  Erin looked from Rosemary to Darsh. “Even though she hasn’t been gone twenty-four hours, I’m calling Search and Rescue.”

  He nodded, tapping the code into Rachel’s cell. “It’s a good idea. They can look for her. We need to get back to the station.”

  Rosemary Knight thrust the door open and started running toward the forest.

  Erin shook her head. “Dammit. Look, call in S&R, then call the station. Get someone to give you a ride back to town. I’m staying here.”

  “Erin—”

  “I can’t leave her.” She pointed to the woman who’d dropped to her knees in front of the vast expanse of wilderness. “Look at her.”

  His expression grew tight. “Your job depends on catching this killer, Erin, not tracking down a lost girl who is more likely to have committed suicide than been abducted,” he said angrily.

  “You don’t know that.” Her eyes flashed to his. “And don’t tell me how to do my job, Agent Singh.”

  His expression was disgusted, and Erin shriveled a little on the inside.

  “Lady, I wouldn’t tell you how to do a damn thing.” He slammed the door closed and stalked away, already on the phone. Erin got out. When she reached Rosemary, she pulled her up out of the wet snow and hugged her tight. “We’ll find her. Don’t give up hope.”

  But the woman collapsed, and Erin could barely hold her up as her sobs rang out in the deadening silence.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next six hours were a blur to Erin. Search and Rescue arrived, mostly volunteers who knew their way around the backcountry even when the weather was hostile. At least a foot of snow had fallen since morning, and Erin didn’t know how anyone out in the woods without the right equipment could survive.

  Rosemary Knight sat in the back of Erin’s truck, wrapped in a blanket. Donald Knight was out there somewhere searching in the forest for his daughter. He’d come when Rosemary had called him, but the two hadn’t spoken. The strain between them was palpable.

  Erin swallowed tightly against the sadness that welled up inside her. It wasn’t just the victim who suffered—although they suffered the most—but the people who loved them floundered too. Wanting to help. Failing through no fault of their own. She knew her own parents had been horrified by the knowledge her husband had beat her. And bereft when she’d picked up sticks and moved away. She’d done what she had to for her own survival. But looking at the devastation wrought on Rachel’s parents’ faces, Erin realized she needed to go home and face her past. They needed to see she was whole, not broken. That she’d come through the experience and was happy again.

  Okay, happy was stretching it. Content maybe.

  She thought of Darsh, and him saying he wanted more, and wrapped her arms tighter around herself. She’d dismissed it. Dismissed him when he’d taken that leap and asked her.

  Had she refused to consider more because she wasn’t interested? Or was he right about her running away from the potential to be hurt again? She had a horrible feeling it was the latter because even the sight of the darkly handsome FBI agent sent a quiver through her, not just lust, but something else too. Something too small and frightening to bring out into the light.

  She leaned against the hood of her truck. The engine was running to provide heat for Rachel’s mother and a warm refuge for anyone else who needed to defrost. There was a fire going over on one side of the parking lot, close to the entrance. Movement caught her eye, and she straightened. A group of searchers tromped out of the shadows of the forest. Erin recognized the team leader, Greg Thompson, from previous searches. Some had ended well. Others had ended badly.

  She had no idea how this was going to end.

  They’d put out news bulletins for anyone seeing Rachel Knight to get in touch with the cops immediately. There had been a few calls, but nothing had panned out.

  The group headed toward the fire. She trudged over to meet them, her toes frozen nubs inside her boots. Someone had their rear door open with a waterproof map laid out inside.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  Greg turned to her and shook his head. “No sign of anyone out there. No tracks. Snow covered everything before we got here.” His breath came out in a frosty cloud. Someone handed him a drink from a thermos and he took it, looking grateful.

  Another group arrived back, Prof Huxley leading the way. He’d been out since noon when his class had finished.

  He shook his head as they approached, though it was obvious Rachel wasn’t with them. One of the men broke away and headed over to Erin’s truck. Donald Knight. He opened the door, said something to his wife, then slammed it before walking away to his own vehicle.

  “Must be hard.” Huxley leaned close to her ear.

  She glanced up. “What?”

  “Not knowing where your child might be, whether they’re even alive.”

  Erin shivered. “No sign of her at all?”

  Huxley shook his head.

  “Are you guys done for the day?”

  “It’s dark.” Huxley accepted a warm drink from one of the volunteers. His skin was pale, cheeks ruddy. “We’re all sweaty and exhausted which is dangerous when it’s this cold. Can’t afford for the rescuers to become liabilities when they succumb to hypothermia.” His lips firmed. “I’m sorry, Erin. Very sorry. I know you’re close to the girl.” He eyed her with concern. “You look terrible. I bet you haven’t eaten all day. Let me take you to dinner.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t leave yet.” She hugged herself harder.

  He nodded thoughtfully and then turned away. Erin stood watching them all pack up their gear and start to leave. She went over to Greg. She pretended to be calm, but she felt shaky inside. “What’s the plan?”

  “There’s so much ground to cover it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack while wearing a blindfold. I’ve arranged for a tracking dog to join the search tomorrow.” Regret flickered in his eyes. “But even a seasoned outdoorsman would struggle in these conditions. I don’t want to sound pessimistic but…”

  Erin nodded silently. She understood, even though she didn’t want them to stop searching.

  “We’ll be back at dawn.”

  “Thanks, Greg. I know the family appreciates it. I appreciate it.”

  “We all know what she went through last year…” He glanced over to Erin’s truck and Donald’s car. “Unless she took off and just left her car behind.” He grimaced. “I’d be pissed but relieved. It’ll be a miracle to find her alive in this weather, that’s for sure.”

  Erin thanked him and the others and walked back to her truck. She opened the back door. “There’s no news yet.”

  “They’re not giving up, are they?” Rosemary asked. The whites of her eyes glowed pink she’d been crying so much.

  “They need to rest and recoup. They’ll be back at dawn,” Erin told her firmly.

  “But what about Rachel?” The woman’s voice rose.

  “They need to rest, Rosemary. And so do you. Do you need me to drive you home or will you go with your husband?”

  The expression on her face was a mix of anger and deep longing. “I don’t know if I can face him.”

  “Don’t you
think he’s as upset as you are?”

  Rosemary nodded. “He just buries himself in work to get through it, whereas I bury myself in looking after Rachel.” Her eyes welled with fresh tears. “I’ve been so awful to him. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me.”

  And yet he was sitting in his car, waiting.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Erin told her firmly.

  Rosemary dragged the blanket from her shoulders and tossed it on the back seat. “I’m not giving up on her, Detective.”

  “I’m not giving up on her either, Dr. Knight.”

  Erin stood back as the woman climbed gingerly down and waded through the thick snow to reach her husband’s car. She got in and closed the door. Nothing happened immediately, but after a few minutes they drove away.

  Most of the other vehicles had already left.

  Erin’s phone rang. Darsh had been calling her on and off all day, telling her to get her ass into the police station. But she couldn’t abandon Rachel. She’d promised the girl she’d help her and not being here felt like the ultimate betrayal.

  She snapped herself out of her funk. There was nothing she could do here now. It was time to get back to work. She had no idea if Rachel’s disappearance was in any way connected to the case or just a depressing coincidence. Her phone stopped ringing as she was about to answer the call. She figured she’d see him in person soon enough.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she pulled out of the parking lot and up onto the highway, driving slowly. Her headlights met a wall of white, and she could barely see ten feet in front of her grill. She dropped her speed until she was crawling down the mountainside.

  Today had started badly and gone downhill from there. She thought about what she’d done with Darsh—okay, maybe it hadn’t started so badly if you counted multiple orgasms.

  A pair of headlights appeared behind her. The snow cleared enough so she put her foot down, speeding up, the back wheels losing a little traction and then regaining it, making her heart race. A few seconds later, she realized she was approaching a dangerous curve that she needed to slow down for. She tapped the brakes gently. The lights in her rear view went full beam, and she swore as they blinded her. Then the vehicle zoomed around to overtake her on the sharp bend. Her heart skittered at the insanity of the move. “Jackass.”