by Jamie Begley
Waiting until the road cleared, Dustin jogged across it to take Greer’s back. If Knox was going to arrest Greer, he would have to be the one to call Diamond. The lawyer had sworn she would never represent Greer again when he had made an idiot of himself in front of the commonwealth attorney at her office.
“It’s not like Jessie to not show up at work without calling me.”
Dustin could hear the worry in Bliss’s voice as he drew closer.
“She’s not answering her phone either. I’m really worried.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Greer assured her while writing on his notepad. “Have you called Holt or Asher?”
“Yes, they’re on their way to her apartment. She didn’t call them this weekend. They thought she was just ignoring their calls, but when I told them she didn’t open the daycare this morning, they became just as worried as I am.”
“Let’s not get too concerned until Holt and Asher call you back. She could have overslept. When is the last time you saw her?” Greer asked, meeting his eyes.
They both held their breaths as they waited for Bliss’s answer.
“Friday at work.”
“When she wasn’t at church on Sunday, I should have called. She never misses church,” Holly added before Greer could ask another question.
Dustin looked at the bright yellow façade of Jessie’s daycare. It was eye-catching with the “Happy Friends” letters on the door, pretty much summing up the way she made anyone who entered feel. Even when she was away from her business, her natural friendliness had everyone stopping to talk to her, even though she would talk your ear off if she wasn’t in a hurry. She was that way with everyone but him.
He had broken that bridge, and once she had gotten his message, she never tried to cross it again.
“Greer and I will drive over there now.” Knox’s demeanor didn’t suggest the women shouldn’t be worried, but that he wanted to drive to Jessie’s apartment said more than words. “Diamond will stay home with Brink until Jessie shows.”
“I can go home with Rosie,” Holly added.
Bliss confidently took Rosie from her cousin-in-law. “That won’t be necessary. I asked Rain’s sister if she could help out today. She’ll be here any minute. Jessie would be furious if anyone missed work because of her.”
As Bliss reached for the diaper bag, her cell phone rang. “Just a sec, Holly.” As she put her phone to her ear, Dustin waited, feeling the cold clutch of fear at her expression. “You don’t have to call. Knox is here. I’ll tell him.” Bliss disconnected the call, her face ashen. “Holt used his spare key to open the door. She’s not there, and her car’s in the parking lot.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” Knox promised, motioning to Greer. Then the two men took off for the squad car.
Bliss’s hand shook as she took the diaper bag from Holly.
“Are you sure, Bliss?” Holly relinquished it, just as troubled about Jessie as the other woman.
“I’m sure. The kids will keep me busy.”
Dustin left when Bliss went back inside the daycare and Holly got back in her car, crossing the road and returning to his own vehicle. Darting out into the traffic, he drove toward Jessie’s apartment, feeling ice cold despite the temperature being in the seventies.
He tightened his fingers on the steering wheel. That Jessie could have been the one he had dreamt being killed tormented him.
They had shared a playpen when their mothers had been friends and had only stopped playing together when his and Jessie’s fathers started competing for weed customers. The night Duke had been shot made the Hayeses enemies. They kept to their side of the mountain ever since.
When Holly had enrolled Logan in Jessie’s daycare, Greer raised a fit. It was the only time Dustin put his foot down and agreed with Holly that Jessie was the only person they would trust to care for Logan while they were at work.
Finding a parking space next to Holt’s truck, he got out of his car, seeing Holt and Asher standing outside Jessie’s apartment on the second floor. Taking the steps two at a time, he walked along the landing, seeing the brothers turn at his approach.
“Whatcha doing here?” Asher clenched his jaw aggressively as Dustin drew nearer.
“I wanted to see if I could help.” Dustin stopped inches away, not wanting to start a fight when he could see how worried they were about their sister.
“We don’t need any help from a Porter.”
Holt put a restraining hand on Asher’s chest, cutting him off. “Shut up. I’d take the help of Satan himself to find Jessie. If you can’t be quiet, go sit in the truck.”
Asher obeyed his older brother, closing his mouth as Knox and Greer came out of the apartment.
“Did anything look out of place when you went in?” Knox asked the brothers.
“No, it looks the same as it always does.” Holt went pale, looking down at the plastic bag that had a cell phone inside. “Where’d you find that?”
“On the end table, next to the couch. It was sitting next to the remote.”
“I didn’t see it.” Holt’s skin went grayer.
“You were wanting to find Jessie. It was easy to overlook. My deputies are here.”
Dustin looked over the railing to see four police cruisers pulling into the parking lot as Knox continued to talk to Holt and Asher.
“I’d tell you to go home and let me handle this, but I know you won’t. And to tell you the truth, we don’t know how long Jessie’s been missing, so I can use all the help I can get.
“Greer, tell the deputies to spread out, search the grounds, and start knocking on the first-floor apartments’ doors. Asher and Holt can take this floor. Dustin, you want to chip in and help, you can take the third floor. Most of the tenants will be at work, so make a note of each apartment you talk to, so we can check the list off that Ned is driving here to give me.
“You all get started. I’ll call the state police and get them to send some lab technicians to dust her apartment. Holt? You have a recent picture of Jessie?”
“We don’t need flyers. Everyone in town knows Jessie.”
“The picture is for me to put out a BOLO and for the state police.”
“I’ve got one on my phone,” he rasped out before gathering his composure. “I’ll call the family and get them here looking, too.”
“Do that. But keep in the mind that Greer is my deputy, and I asked Dustin for his help. I won’t have any fighting going on when I’m trying to do my job,” Knox warned.
“I’ll take any help I can get to find Jessie, even if it’s a Porter,” Holt said, going to the apartment next to Jessie’s and knocking.
“Me, too,” Asher reluctantly agreed when Knox shot him a hard look.
Dustin left them knocking on doors, running up the steps to the third floor. He knocked on three doors before he could get someone to answer, moving on to the next one when the older woman couldn’t remember when she had last seen Jessie. Only one other person answered his knock, a woman he had gone to high school with before he dropped out. She said she hadn’t seen Jessie since she passed her on the steps as she was going out to Mick’s bar.
“Kaley, was she going up the steps to her apartment or down to the parking lot?” Dustin’s voice rose when he realized she was the last one to see Jessie.
“Down. We both took the steps down. I went to my car, and she went around the corner toward the office and laundry room.”
“What time was that?” Dustin pulled his notes up on his cell phone, wanting to keep track of Jessie last movements before she disappeared.
“Had to be around nine thirty or a quarter till ten. I know for sure it had to be before ten because Mick’s happy hour is from ten to eleven, and I had to wait ten minutes before he would give me the dollar beer.”
“Do you remember what she was wearing?”
“Not particularly. Knowing Jessie, sweatpants and a T-shirt. You want to come in? I can fix us some coffee and try to remember better,” she coaxed, o
pening her door wider.
“No thanks. I’m in a hurry.”
Dustin walked away, hurriedly texting Willa that he wouldn’t be able to keep their appointment. Going down the steps, he saw Knox talking to the lab techs and the state police outside Jessie’s apartment. Going down the next flight of stairs, he made a beeline for the sign that was out front, pointing toward the office and laundry room.
Stopping at the office door, he saw the hours that were stenciled onto the door. It would have been closed at the time Kaley said she had seen Jessie, so he followed the arrow underneath the laundry room sign, opening the closed door and going inside.
His hand gripped the door handle as a wave of dizziness struck him like a sledge hammer. Falling against the door, it took him a couple of seconds to regain his equilibrium. He felt as if he had been plunged into an ice bath.
Each step took him farther inside the room. Fumbling for his phone, he called Greer.
“Yeah?”
“Both you and Knox come to the laundry room.”
“On my way.”
Dustin stared around the spotless, clean room, catching a faint hint of bleach. “And, Greer, tell Knox to bring the lab techs.”
7
Dustin went outside to wait for Greer and Knox. Leaning against the brick wall, he watched the two men go inside after giving him a searching glance. Greer immediately came back outside.
“You felt it, too?”
Greer nodded grimly. “Hard to miss.”
Knox came back out, giving them confused looks. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Somebody died in that room.”
As Holt, Asher, and the techs came around the corner, Knox had to grab Holt when he would have run into the empty room after hearing Greer’s assertion.
“My sister is not dead!” Holt snarled.
Knox let the techs through while taking Asher and Holt by the arm, forcibly moving them out of the way.
Dustin felt for them as the brothers tried to contain their emotions. He was having trouble with that himself.
“You can feel it.” Greer ducked when Asher swung his fist at him.
“Don’t spew your horseshit at my sister’s expense!” Asher tried to hit Greer again, but Dustin moved Greer to the other side of him.
“Listen to me! I know you’re upset, but if you try to hit Greer again, I’ll stomp your fucking ass. Greer and I felt this before. I don’t care if you believe it or not. Someone died in that room.”
Holt was able to gather himself quicker than Asher. “So, fucking tell me why you think someone died in there?”
“It’s ice cold,” Dustin tried to explain the unexplainable. “When someone dies, you can feel that death has come and gone. It’s a feeling. Greer and I felt it when our grandmother died. We wouldn’t sleep in our granny’s room for three years afterward.” Dustin took a deep breath, seeing they still didn’t believe him. “Even if you think it’s hogwash, I smelled bleach. Someone cleaned up in there. And I talked to Kaley. She said she was coming down the steps on Friday at the same time as Jessie, around nine thirty, and that she had gone around the corner.”
Asher scowled. “She could have been going to the office.”
“The office would have been closed at that time of day.”
Holt shrunk as if the air had been knocked out of him.
“Let’s wait to see what the techs say before we jump to conclusions. It’s a laundry room—the bleach can be explained, and the air conditioner could be on high because of the dryers.” Knox’s matter-of-fact demeanor calmed Holt and Asher.
“Greer,” he continued. “Ned’s here. He’s going to meet me at the office. I’ll be right back. I want to get that list of tenants. Can I trust you to keep everyone back until I return?”
“Go ahead. I’m not the one trying to pick a fight.” He shrugged.
Knox gave the Hayeses a warning look before leaving.
The four men stood mutely, staring at the closed laundry room door. No one made a move until Knox came back with a sheet of paper.
“Each of you check off the apartments you talked to. I’ve already circled Kaley’s number so the state police can interview her.”
Dustin went first, taking the paper and pen from Knox. When he was finished, he handed it to Greer.
Asher was checking his list off when one of techs came outside.
“Sheriff, can you come inside?”
Knox went in, closing the door behind him.
Holt looked like he was going to follow, but Greer stopped him. “Let’s wait.”
“You don’t know what it’s like—”
“Actually, I do. Remember when Rachel went missing? When Logan did?” Greer left it unspoken that they had considered them responsible for when Logan had gone missing.
Holt nearly lost his mind. Grabbing Greer by the front of his shirt, he shoved him against the wall. “If you hurt my sister because you still blame us for Logan getting lost, I’ll fucking kill every Porter breathing.”
Dustin pulled Holt away from Greer. “No Porter would harm a woman. I told you that when I came to your house to tell you that one of your puppies was used to lure Logan away into the woods. I told you that then, and I’m telling you now, I wouldn’t hurt a hair on Jessie’s head. I knew she would have killed you herself before she would let you jeopardize Logan’s safety. But if I ever find firm proof that you or Asher were responsible, I will kill you both.”
“The only thing you could kill are defenseless women and fucking raccoons,” Asher spat out.
Dustin threw Holt away from him, going for Asher. “I’m going to kill you where you’re standing if you ever say that again. You doubt me? Say it and see what happens.”
Knox came outside, turning their attention to his sudden appearance. “Asher and Holt, go stand by my car.”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me why they wanted to talk to you.” Holt jutted his jaw out stubbornly. From Knox’s anguished expression, he already knew it was going to be bad.
Knox relented. “They sprayed the room with luminol. It shows blood that isn’t visible to the naked eye.”
“So …?”
“The floor and walls show the presence of blood.”
“Show me.” Holt started to go around Knox, but Knox jerked him back.
“You don’t want to go in there.” Knox stared down at him meaningfully.
Groaning, Asher went to his knees, and Holt brought his hands to his shoulders, then sank down next to him.
Knox cleared his throat. “I hate to ask, but do you recognize this?” Raising his hand, Knox lifted a plastic sleeve for Asher and Holt to see.
Holt looked up, his face twisting in agony. “It’s Jessie’s. She has a necklace that she wears every day that has beads like those.”
Dustin pressed his face against the brick wall, unable to deal with the grief he was experiencing. “She wears it every day?” he managed to ask.
“Yes. I gave her the beads when we were just kids.” Holt rose like a broken, old man, helping Asher to his feet. “Knox, my sister is not dead. I want her found.”
“The state police are bringing a canine unit. One of the deputies found some clothes along the side of the road toward Jamestown. Drake is organizing a search party in that area. The whole town will be looking for her. It could have been just some clothes that were thrown out. The deputy already looked around and didn’t see anything, so I want to concentrate my men here until we see if the canines get a hit.”
Dustin straightened himself from the wall when a deputy came around the corner with a woman.
“Sheriff, this is Victoria Carsen. She’s a tenant on the same floor as Jessie and said she saw Jessie in the laundry room on Friday night.”
The woman stepped forward at the deputy’s urging, her eyes going to the group of men. “She was drying her clothes when I left.”
“Do you know what time it was?” Knox asked.
“About eleven. The news was just coming on.”
“Do you remember what she was wearing?”
“A pale blue T-shirt and gray sweatpants.”
“You remember that from a few days ago?” Knox raised a brow at her as he made notes.
“Only because she joked about my clothes. She thought I looked too dressy for washing clothes on a Friday night. She invited me over for iced tea.”
“Did you go?”
“Not that night. I knocked on her door Saturday and Sunday around three p,m., but she never answered.”
“You see anyone hanging around after you left the laundry room?”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t. If that’s all, I need to get back to school. My planning period is almost over. I only ran home to get a book I want to lend to one of the students.”
“Go ahead. We have your name and number that Ned gave me. If you remember anything else, call the sheriff’s office.”
“I will,” she assured him. “I hope she’s all right. She seemed nice, and I’m looking forward to getting to know her.” Her lips lifted in a smile at Holt and Asher, who were obviously upset. “I told her to call me Tori. I usually only let my friends call me that. I don’t know why I did that with her.”
“I do,” Holt said gruffly. “Jessie has a heart of pure gold. Only an idiot wouldn’t see it.”
Dustin looked away when he saw Holt staring at him. Putting his hands in his suit pocket, he walked off the concrete walkway to stare out at the grassy field behind the apartment building. He knew the officers thought that was where they were going to find Jessie’s body, but Dustin didn’t think so. Whenever Jessie was nearby, he always sensed her, even when she was across the street or in the grocery store. Even when he was with Samantha and Jessie had come anywhere near, he had known. It was like he was a lightning rod and could feel her current passing through his body.
“They left,” Greer said, coming up behind him. “If I hadn’t been wearing this uniform, I would have shot Asher for saying that to you.”
“I should have left.” Dustin turned to face his brother. “It’s hard enough with what they’re going through without having to see us. There’s no love lost between us.”