Truth Be Told (Rogue Justice Novella Book 2)

by Kendra Elliot

  Walter told the dog to sit and it promptly sat, but it wiggled its butt, eager to rocket into the dark, wet forest.

  “Duncan,” he said into his phone.

  “Hank here. I have a question about the floater from yesterday.”

  An image of the Santa-esque medical examiner’s bushy eyebrows immediately popped into Zane’s head. The brows had a life of their own, with wirelike hairs that nearly climbed up Hank’s forehead.

  “What is it?”

  “He’s got a tattoo. Wondered if it might ring a bell. It’s an anchor on his right deltoid. Poor quality.”

  Zane figured Hank had seen enough tattoos in his career to be a decent judge of quality. “I can’t say that sounds familiar, but I’ll ask around. We’re lucky we got that body to you in time. We lost the west bridge a few hours ago, so Solitude is now completely cut off from the rest of the world.”

  “Sounds like utopia to me.”

  “Except that I’ve got two more customers for you,” added Zane. “Two FBI agents were shot in their heads this morning.”

  Zane jerked the phone away from his ear as Hank swore like a cheated drug dealer.

  “Since county can’t get here,” Zane continued. “I’ll have the vehicle towed without removing the bodies. I know that’s not ideal, but I can’t think of a better solution to preserve the scene.”

  “That’s the best we can expect in an emergency situation like this,” agreed Hank. “If an ark appears later today, use that to ship them to me.”

  “I’ll keep a lookout.” Zane ended the call.

  He gestured for his team to close in. “Keep your eyes open and be ready. Wade Pierce was spotted less than fifty miles from here, but whoever shot those agents is in Solitude somewhere and will probably shoot again if threatened.” Everyone was armed except James, who Zane told to stay in the middle of the group.

  He prayed they weren’t walking into an ambush and gave Walter a thumbs-up. The dog handler gave his dog a command and nearly had his arm yanked off as Whiskey leaped forward.

  The four other team members fell into line behind Zane, Carter bringing up the rear as they followed the dog.

  Whiskey set a good pace, keeping everyone at a fast walk. The ground in the woods was rough with exposed roots, rocks, and ferns. Multiple wet branches slapped Zane in the face as they pushed through the brush. He kept watch for any sign that someone else had followed the same path—broken branches or footprints. But he spotted nothing due to Whiskey’s speed, so he had to trust the dog’s sense of smell.

  Behind him, Stevie swore, and Zane turned around to see her yank her boot out of a deep mudhole. She gave him a rueful grin and kept moving.

  The terrain started to slope downward and the crashing rush of the river grew louder.

  Shit.

  Don’t be in the water.

  The Rogue River had risen several feet over the last few days. It was eating away at the banks and eroding the ground-holding roots of tall firs, sweeping them downstream. The water was a muddy, churned-up brown instead of its usual semiclear blue or green. Zane typically thought of it as a friendly river, but now it was deadly.

  Not always friendly.

  Lives were lost every year to the river. He shoved aside a memory that swarmed to the front of his brain and concentrated on his foot placement instead, not wanting to slip and land on his ass.

  He glanced back at the sound of an exclamation and saw that Bruce had done exactly that. James helped haul him up, but the deputy’s pants and gloves were covered in mud. Bruce stared at his filthy gloves for a long second, shrugged, and pressed on.

  Good man.

  Stevie’s brother had been struggling for several years, living in his mother’s basement, floating from dead-end job to nonpaying job, determined to make a living from his music. The death of his girlfriend and a life-threatening injury had brought him to his lowest point, but he’d turned himself around, surprising everyone by attending the state’s police academy. He’d emerged dependable and mature. Two words Zane had never associated with Bruce.

  Between the trees, Zane caught glimpses of the angry river. The terrain abruptly dropped, and everyone stepped sideways down the slope in the direction of the water. A fir tree sped through the water, a deadly battering ram to anything in its way. Zane pictured it crashing into Solitude’s west bridge. Which would shatter, the tree or the bridge?

  “Don’t get too close to the water!” Zane cupped his hands around his mouth to be heard. The din from the river drowned out the possibility of conversation. Walter raised a hand in acknowledgment. Whiskey had slowed about fifteen feet from the bank, pacing in a circle with his nose to the ground. He lunged to the right, moving upstream, parallel to the rapids.

  The team clumsily climbed over rocks and tree stumps, keeping one eye on the dog and the other on the water. Whiskey charged ahead, making Walter scramble up and over a large fallen fir. They vanished on the other side of the trunk, and Zane’s heart stopped for a split second. He climbed up the rotting bark and looked down. Below him, Whiskey sat on the muddy bank, his head held proudly as Walter scratched his ears. Walter looked up at Zane, his gaze defeated.

  At Whiskey’s feet was a small boy’s jacket.

  Zane checked the immediate area. No child was visible. A chill swept up his spine, and he shuddered as he looked at the river.

  Not again.

  His locked-down memory exploded out of its shackles.

  ###

  Five years ago

  It was a blistering-hot day in July, but the trees provided a cooling shade, making Zane thankful the hunt for the young boy wasn’t taking place in a wheat field. “Big” Bill Taylor led the search party through the woods. Zane had been hired by the Solitude Police Department the month before and had decided he wanted to be like Chief Taylor when he grew up. The man was a true cop: compassionate, honest, sharp, and determined to help his community.

  The eight-year-old son of a tourist had been swimming in the Rogue River near a campground when he’d vanished. Chief Taylor had grimly shaken his head when he got the news. “There’s a reason the sign says no swimming in that area. Hidden currents can yank a full-grown man below the surface and keep him down for hours.”

  They’d been following the riverbank, moving downstream from the campground for over an hour. Chief Taylor knew the exact location of all the river’s eddies that could harbor a victim, a testament to the many times he’d performed this type of search. Half the team followed on the opposite bank, hoping to sight a flash of skin or the child’s red swimsuit.

  Zane knew they’d find the child still alive, but Chief Taylor wasn’t as optimistic.

  “Get your heart and mind ready, son,” he told Zane. “You have to be prepared during an event like this. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. You’ll sleep better at night.”

  Zane refused to acknowledge that the child might be dead. “I’m all about positive thinking, Chief. It attracts the good in life.”

  Bill’s weathered face turned toward him, his brown eyes kind. “I like your attitude, but if you don’t start adjusting your expectations, this job is going to rip your heart out. Solitude may be a small town, but we still see the underbelly of man; it can be ugly and mean. Nature is too. One minute it’s glorious, and the next minute it’s a killer.”

  The words were barely out of the chief’s mouth when a shout went up behind them. Bill and Zane reversed direction along the bank, Zane’s heart in his throat.

  Behind a huge rock, a whirlpool spun. Zane and the chief had already checked the pool and moved on. But now they saw a small hand caught in underwater vines deep below the surface. The murky water had hidden it the first time. It vanished as they watched.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. Zane pushed through the group and unbuckled his duty belt, shoving it into the hands of another officer. He’d stepped into the water when a big hand clamped down on his shoulder.

  “Stand down, son.” Zane looked over his
shoulder into sympathetic, dark eyes.

  “I’ve got to get him out!”

  “It’s too late for the boy. And he’s not going anywhere.”

  “You don’t know it’s too late!”

  Fingertips dug into his shoulder, holding him in place. “Yes, I do. I’m real sorry it ended this way. We’re going to rope Officer Jacobs and have him go in for the boy. He knows how to handle himself in a whirlpool.”

  Zane stared back to the water. Again the tiny hand was swallowed up for a moment and then reappeared, showing skin up to the elbow. It swayed back and forth with the current, giving the impression that the boy was waving for help.

  Reality crashed into him, and Zane knew better.

  He brushed at a tickle on his cheek and his hand came away wet. “Dammit. God fucking dammit!” He grabbed back his duty belt, and the group parted to let him escape. He blindly walked into the woods, not caring about his direction. A minute later he stopped, leaned one hand against a tree, and cried.

  ###

  “One minute it’s glorious and the next minute it’s a killer.”

  “What’d you say?” Stevie asked, startling Zane out of his memory as she reached the top of the rotting downed tree trunk. “Oh no,” she whispered as she spotted the yellow coat.

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Zane. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she turned tear-filled eyes toward him.

  He’d forgotten she had her father’s eyes.

  She reminded him of Bill Taylor in several ways. Tall, rangy, and stubborn but with a compassionate heart of gold. Her brother James joined them on Stevie’s other side, panting and out of breath. He leaned his hands on his thighs and swore quietly at the sight of the coat.

  “That was my son’s coat,” James said, rubbing a hand across his mouth. “We loaned Mom some clothes for Liam.” His face had turned a sickly pale shade.

  “Are you sure?” asked Zane.

  “Positive. I’d know it anywhere. See the Transformers’ Bumblebee on the sleeve?”

  Zane realized what he had thought was mud on the coat was the black-and-yellow Autobot.

  Now what?

  “Can he pick up any other scents?” he hollered at Walter.

  The handler led the dog in expanding circles, giving vocal commands that Zane couldn’t quite hear. The dog kept returning to the jacket. He finally sat next to it and refused to circle again, keeping his face turned toward the water.

  “Dammit.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Stevie jogged up the steps to the Tall Tree Inn, holding her hat brim low over her face against the rain. According to Sheila, the police department’s receptionist, Miss Penny was worried about a customer who was missing from her bed-and-breakfast.

  The search for Liam and his uncle Marcus had been unsuccessful, and Stevie had struggled to get on with her day, unable to push the sight of the lonely coat out of her mind. Zane had bagged the yellow coat, and they’d spent another hour searching the immediate area. No footprints, no nothing.

  Did he fall into the river?

  It made no sense. Why would a child take off a coat in the pouring rain? Clearly the water was dangerous, and no adult would let him near it. Unless he got separated from his uncle.

  Where does the sighting of Wade Pierce fit in?

  Too many unanswered questions.

  Dragging the river was out of the question. Any investigation of the water was unsafe at the moment. Zane said they’d regroup and choose their next course of action back at the police department in a few hours. Stevie didn’t know what action that would be. They had no leads on the shooter or Liam and his uncle. Walter and Whiskey had tried to pick up more scents back at the crime scene and had been unsuccessful.

  They’d agreed to assume Liam was still alive and hadn’t gone into the water. They would continue their search for the boy and his uncle.

  The tow truck had been loading the FBI’s black vehicle when their search group had emerged from the woods, soaked and depressed. Zane wanted to supervise the remainder of the process and had stayed behind. Carter had told Stevie that the police department was getting multiple calls, including one about Miss Penny’s missing customer. They couldn’t ignore their community during the heart of a weather emergency.

  Stevie stepped inside the B&B’s charming lobby and removed her hat. She’d cleaned off her boots the best she could, but she didn’t dare wear them on the lobby’s antique rugs. She slipped off the boots and set them on the convenient shoe tray by the door, happy to see that her socks were still dry after hours in the muck.

  “Hello, dearie.” Miss Penny appeared from her kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

  Only Miss Penny could get away with calling her dearie.

  A former schoolteacher, the tall and sturdy spinster ran her business with the firm hand and gentle smile Stevie remembered from her school years.

  “Thank you for removing your boots. You wouldn’t believe the cleanup I’ve had to do on these rugs with the crazy days of rain.”

  “We’ve all been battling it,” answered Stevie, noticing the woman still wore her hair in her decades-old gray, braided bun. She and Bruce had a fifty-dollar bet on when Miss Penny would finally wear a different style. Stevie believed never; Bruce still held out hope. “Sheila said you have a missing person?”

  Miss Penny frowned. “Yes. I wondered if I should bother the police with something that might be trivial, but with the last few days of ruckus and the storm, I figured someone should know.” She lowered her voice. “He’s a tourist, and we all know how they are with these storms. They just don’t take them seriously enough. They want to get as close to the danger as possible and take a photo to show all their friends on that Picturebook.”

  Facebook. Stevie pulled out a small notepad. “Tell me what you know.”

  According to Miss Penny, Robert Singleton had checked in three days ago and was scheduled to check out that morning. He’d told her he was headed to Medford for Thanksgiving. He’d taken a leisurely drive down the Oregon coast from Astoria and then checked into her B&B for a few nights before going to see family. Yesterday, he hadn’t shown up for any meals, but Miss Penny hadn’t worried about it. When he didn’t check out by the required time this morning, she knocked on his door.

  “I had to get my key,” she admitted. “That’s not something I like to do when a room is occupied . . . you never know what you’ll catch people doing. One time I walked in on a lusty couple who hadn’t heard me knock. I’d heard their noise and knew exactly what they were up to, but I’m firm on my checkout times.” She leaned closer to Stevie. “And they weren’t married anyway. I don’t run that kind of place.”

  Stevie bit her lip and nodded solemnly, making notes.

  “Anyway, Mr. Singleton’s room still had his clothes in the closet and his toothbrush by the sink. You can tell when someone leaves; they always pack their toothbrush. They leave behind shampoo, books, and socks, but never their toothbrush.”

  “Did Mr. Singleton leave his wallet or cell phone behind?”

  “I didn’t see them.”

  “Do you have a home address or phone number for him?”

  “No. The only information I take is their credit card and an e-mail.” She pursed her lips. “E-mails are like gold these days. I always send out notices when I’m running a special on my rooms. It’s greatly improved my return-customer rate.”

  “Can I take a look in his room?”

  Miss Penny led the way to a room on the second floor and opened the door. Stevie noted the bed was unmade, the impression of a head still in the pillow. Some clothing was tossed on the bed, and Miss Penny had been right about the toothbrush. Other toiletries sat on the counter, and Stevie eyed the razor. It was the type that took actual razor blades, and one was still loaded in its head. Suicide was always considered with a missing person, and a razor’s blade would be an effective tool, but she didn’t think he would have told Miss Penny he was going home for Thanksgiving and left his
room such a mess. People who commit suicide often clean their spaces, not wanting anyone to have to clean up behind them. She peeked in drawers and under the bed, but nothing caught her interest.

  They went back downstairs so Miss Penny could retrieve his e-mail address. In the lobby, an expensively dressed blonde woman paced, a cell phone and a tablet in her hands. She stopped as she spotted the two of them. “When will the Wi-Fi be restored?” she asked, a stressed look in her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Miss Penny said. “I’ve called the company and it’s down everywhere. They’re doing the best they can . . . I told you that an hour ago. There’s a storm going on, you know. It’ll be available when it’s available.” Stevie’s posture automatically straightened at the familiar sound of Miss Penny’s emphatic teaching tone. “And the almond milk for your latte hasn’t magically appeared yet either. Stevie, I’ll go get that e-mail for you.”

  Concerned, Stevie held out a hand to the woman. “Stevie Duncan, Solitude Police. Is there anything you need help with?”

  The woman paused a second before shaking Stevie’s hand and plastering a smile on her face. “Dawn Hazelwood. Only if you have Wi-Fi in your holster. The cellular service isn’t consistent at all either.”

  “We’re thankful the town still has electricity,” said Stevie. “That will probably be out before nightfall,” she added. “Is the lack of Wi-Fi causing big issues for you?”

  “I can’t get my work e-mails. And both the cellular service and landlines are down. I need to keep in touch.”

  “Were you planning to stay long? The last bridge is currently underwater. No one will be leaving Solitude until the river goes down.”

  “Are you joking? People can’t get in or out? When did that happen?”

  “Early this morning.”

  Dawn looked at her cell phone, a scowl marring her perfect features.

  “What brings you to Solitude?” Her curiosity was piqued by the woman’s frustration.

  Dawn’s chin raised a notch. “I was passing through on my way to conduct some sales business. I stopped for the night, but I didn’t expect to get stuck. I haven’t been able to contact my customers to say I might not make it.”