“Okay.”
“So.” Lott perched on the corner of his desk. “Business is good, huh? How is it that you already got some cases?”
Kadin moved to stand before him. “They called.”
“You’ve gotten a lot of media coverage.”
Kadin recognized the congratulations. His daughter’s disappearance and murder had attracted a lot of attention. When news broke that he was venturing off on his own to fight similar crimes, the media had swarmed him. But that only masked what was really going on.
“I’m fine, Lott.”
“Are you?”
He really hated talking about this. A thousand knife stabs might as well pierce his chest. Then that heavy weight came next, along with an overwhelming sense of helplessness. “Yes.” Just thinking his wife’s name brought that terrible day back. Finding her already dead. After enduring so much tragedy already. He’d nearly gone insane. The only thing that saved him was moving to Rock Springs, Wyoming, a quiet, wildly beautiful place that asked nothing of him other than to breathe.
“I mean it, Kadin. You have to move on, not close yourself off to the world and immerse yourself in cold case murders.”
“I am moving on.” As much as he could. The only way he knew how.
“Shut off from everyone who cares about you. I don’t mean to sound like a sap, but I miss my friend. He disappeared the day his daughter did.”
Kadin didn’t know how to say he’d never be the same man he once was. He just knew. And that man hadn’t gone until the moment he learned Annabelle’s body had been found.
Body...
Her twelve-year-old body. Not Annabelle. Her body. Such powerful, unfathomable grief had racked him, for days, for months, a slicing machete going to work on his insides. Trapped in his lost and desolate mind with no way out, he hadn’t noticed how far Arielle had slipped into oblivion. Then the day had come when he’d found her. All of that emotion had imploded on him. He’d felt it bleed out of him until only empty darkness remained. Everything had become mechanical after that. Until he’d stumbled across some photographs of Annabelle when they’d lived in Wyoming.
“I was a cop before my daughter went missing,” Kadin said. “I’m doing what I’m meant to do.” His talent was being put to good use. And if he could use it to help others who were going through the same thing he had experienced, then that had to be good. That was his only joy. Every time he caught a murderer, he avenged his wife and daughter.
“You’re alone here,” Lott reminded him.
“No, I’m not. I know practically everyone in town. Besides, I’m hardly ever home. Not every cold case is in Sweetwater County.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to bury yourself in these investigations, Kadin. When is it going to be enough?”
Lott, like everyone else, didn’t understand. Home and family had different meanings to him now. Warm and full of optimistic love before the tragedy, starkly realistic after. That was why he’d opened this agency. This agency was for the people who knew life’s darkest reality. People like him.
“Look,” Lott said in his silence. “I know you hate talking about this. I’m worried about you. Your parents worry about you. I stop in every once in a while to check on you. I’ve done my duty. Now, since I’m staying through the weekend, how about we camp and fish this Friday and Saturday?”
“You’re staying that long?” Lott didn’t usually stay longer than a day or two.
“Yeah, I met a girl the last time I was here. You might be seeing me more often.”
Figured, a woman had drawn him here. Women drew him everywhere he went.
“Are you free this weekend?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Lott angled his head, a quiet demand for more information.
“I might take on another case.” He didn’t feel like explaining the Sara Wolfe case.
The front door jingled. He’d left the old bells there so that he’d know when someone arrived. Whoever had entered couldn’t have chosen better timing.
Kadin started toward his office door to go see who’d arrived.
“Don’t forget you have other things in your life besides hunting down killers,” Lott said as Kadin passed. And then as he followed, “Camping. This weekend. No talk about the past, I promise.”
“Another reason I moved here. To get away from old friends.” Lott would know he was kidding. Sort of.
“You couldn’t go far enough to get away from me.” Lott stopped beside Kadin in the lobby, where a woman stood looking around.
Lott whispered a whistle only Kadin could hear.
Few women caught Kadin’s eye anymore, but this one sure did. He had to agree with Lott. On the tall side, pushing five-nine, she had a thick head of wavy auburn hair that would look great spread out on bed sheets, and wide, long-lashed sea-green eyes that would add to the moment.
“Hi. Which one of you is Kadin Tandy?” she asked.
She wore skinny, distressed jeans, with knee-high, spiky-heeled boots and a fancy top with flashy accessories. She wasn’t afraid to be tall and stand out in a crowd. And she must have a creative streak.
“That would be him.” Lott strode to the door. When he was behind the woman, he waved as though the heat were getting to him and mouthed, She’s hot!
“I’ll see you Friday,” Kadin said gruffly.
Lott left, walking backward and pointing both fingers at the woman’s butt and nodding with a mouthed oh yeah.
The woman glanced back and Lott shut his mouth and turned, heading for his Jaguar.
“Friend of yours?” the woman asked.
“One of the best.” Minus the frat house sexual innuendos and constant meddling. “How can I help you?”
She surveyed his business space—the front entry and the vacant reception desk, the open conference room doors, his office and finally the walls. “Haven’t been here long, huh?”
“You’re the second person who said they didn’t like my decorating.”
She laughed good-naturedly. “What decorating?”
“I just moved in.” Two months ago, but who was counting?
She walked farther into the office space. “This is a beautiful building. I wasn’t expecting that.”
What was she expecting? He’d never met her before. “I’m sorry. You know my name but I don’t have the pleasure of knowing yours.”
“Oh.” She laughed again, another big smile. “Penny Darden.” She walked over to him.
“Penny.” He shook the hand she extended. “I assume there’s a reason you came to see me?”
There it was, the grim circumstances that had led her here, dimming her beautiful eyes and sweeping away her cheery smile. A victim’s family behaved that way. Or maybe this woman was a friend. Didn’t matter. Murder never made people happy.
“Sara Wolfe’s parents came to see you,” she said at last, daring to look into his eyes.
He managed to cover up the jarring surprise that gave him. “They didn’t come to see me. The lead detective in her case called me.”
“Oh...of course. I’m sorry.” She seemed nervous. What made her nervous? Him as a man or the Sara Wolfe case?
“Are you media?” he asked.
“No.” She clasped her hands in front of her, a vulnerable action for such a dynamic woman. He felt her energy, could see her basic strength. He saw a lot about people he first met. Those first impressions carried weight.
“I drove here from Salt Lake City after I read about you.”
She’d read about him? So her nervousness came from fascination, not the Wolfe case.
“First of all, I’m really sorry about what happened,” she said softly. “About Annabelle. And your wife. It must not be easy. Losing them like that.”
More dreaded talk
. For the second time today, he felt sick to his stomach. He started to get angry. He couldn’t stand sympathy. People offered it when they had no idea what kidnapping did to those who had to live through the torture.
“Just tell me why you’re here,” he bit out.
At the hard clip to his tone, she checked herself. “Right. Sure.” She glanced down and then unclasped her hands and rubbed them on her jeans, shaking off awkwardness. “I actually came to talk to you about Sara Wolfe.”
“Are you related?”
She shook her head. “I heard about her murder on the news.”
“All right...”
She searched his eyes, hesitating but needing something. Without saying anything, she wandered across the small lobby, past a desk to the wall where nothing hung.
“Why don’t we start with who you are?” She’d told him her name but nothing else. “What do you do?”
She faced him. “I’m vice president of Client Services at Avenue One. We’re a big advertising agency, getting bigger each year.”
“How do you know Sara Wolfe?” he asked.
“I—I don’t, I just...read about her murder, and you, after...” She searched his eyes again.
“After what?” he said to help her out.
“One of our biggest clients is Ballard’s Sporting Goods. Have you heard of them?”
“Big sporting goods chain. Yeah.”
“Well, I’ve sort of been seeing the company’s president,” she said. “I met him when we landed the account and started working with him on their ad campaign. Jax Ballard. His older brother founded the company and they run it together.”
“What do they have to do with the Sara Wolfe case?”
Her gaze turned hard and determined, the businesswoman in her coming out. “This is where I have to be very delicate, Mr. Tandy.”
He didn’t have to guess why. “You think Jax Ballard may have something to do with Sara Wolfe’s murder?” No longer sensitive about the case, he felt his detective instincts kicking in. This woman could have a significant lead.
“I need to be sure before...”
“Just tell me what you know.” A little girl had been killed. He’d offer no sympathy to her if she had information that could lead him to the killer.
“I accompanied him to his cabin last Friday night. I walk every day, so I left for one early Saturday morning, before he woke. I followed a dirt road on his property and came upon an abandoned house and barn. I went into the barn and saw a truck parked inside. A white truck with a dent on the driver’s side.”
All Kadin could do was stare at her after she stopped talking, her revelation—and what it could mean—tearing through him, bringing him back to those days and hours when he and the other investigators were closing in on the man who’d abducted and killed his precious little girl.
“I—I’m not saying it’s the same truck. I—I just need to be sure before I go to the police.”
“Did he know you found the truck?” he asked.
“I told him I saw the barn and that’s it.”
Kadin lifted his brow. “He believes you didn’t see it?”
“I’m not sure.”
She’d seen the truck parked—no, hidden—in an abandoned barn and had heard about Sara Wolfe. Then she had taken action. While he didn’t approve of her not going to the police, he did commend her for coming to him.
“I went back.” She began to rummage in her purse.
“Back to the barn?” Kadin stepped toward her as she pulled out a cell phone.
He waited while she navigated.
“I took these pictures.”
He looked at them all and inwardly cheered when he saw the one with the VIN. As he lifted his head, his gaze collided with hers. “What made you decide to risk going back to get these?”
“Evidence,” she said, as though he ought to know.
“You put yourself in danger.”
“I was a little worried Jax might catch me, but what if he moved the truck? When I left the barn, I saw a man in the trees. He was carrying a flashlight. He could have been anyone.”
“A man wandering the woods at night? Alone?”
“I thought it was strange, too. And then he followed me. At least I think he followed me.”
“He followed you? For how long?”
“Until I parked in front of the police station.”
So the suspect might think she went inside and told the police about the truck. That might compel the criminal to do something.
“Good thinking, getting these pictures,” Kadin said. “I’ll get the wheels moving to get a search warrant. We need to look for DNA or fiber evidence. And from the sound of it, we need to move fast.”
“A search warrant?”
“There’s no other way.” Her boyfriend would know someone had told the police about the truck, and that someone was Penny.
She sighed. “How long will the search warrant take?”
“Hard to say. The location is remote and outside Park City. I’ll have to coordinate with the county sheriff.”
“Days?”
“Hopefully not more than two. Tomorrow or the next day. Will you have to work with Jax?”
“Yes, possibly.”
She had a couple of days to prepare. “Just act like nothing happened.”
“It’s more than that. If I’m wrong about this, I could lose my job.”
That seemed rather drastic to him. “How so? You’re doing what has to be done by reporting what you saw.”
“My boss will probably fire me.” She folded her arms, her purse swinging at her side as she bent one slender knee, a picture of vexation. “He’s been acting strange lately, putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on me ever since I landed a few big accounts.”
“He’s threatened by you?” Kadin took in her stance and felt the nervous energy bouncing off her. “There are laws he has to follow.”
“He’ll find some legal way of doing it.”
“Would you let him get away with that?”
She huffed out a laugh and lowered her arms. “No.”
He liked strong women like her. She had a heart but didn’t waste much time on sympathy. He found people—women—like her easier to be with than those who expressed their feelings too much.
“Are you going to take the case?” she asked.
Solving murders of adults differed greatly from violent crimes against children. Kadin felt the encroachment of dark memories and didn’t answer. Would he? How could he not? An innocent young girl had been killed. How could he stand back and let others work the case without helping?
Her clever green eyes took in his face, reading him well enough. “A man who doesn’t easily commit.” Then, as though on their own, her gaze lowered into a quick and flirty once-over. “We have that in common.”
She offered a diversion and he took it. “You don’t commit?” Biting down on her lush lower lip, she shrugged. Clearly neither of them was talking about Sara Wolfe’s murder investigation. And his gut was telling him she liked to play too much to be the type of woman to commit easily. The man to win her heart would need to hit all the marks on her demanding score sheet.
“So...do I need to go to the police directly?” she asked, breaking the awkward silence.
“Jax Ballard will know he’s a person of interest no matter who gets the warrant,” he replied.
“I’ll handle Jax Ballard.”
He gave her a slight bow. “I have no doubt you will.”
She smiled, the flirt in her popping out again. He found that rather irresistible, her lightness of heart, her lack of hesitation to engage with a man. Him.
“Do you have a card so I can call you?” he asked.
Those eyes blinked and that sm
iled continued to dazzle, until she realized he wasn’t trying to hit on her. He only needed a way to contact her. After the search warrant was issued and a crime scene unit was sent to search the truck.
“Oh.” Flustered, she dug into her purse.
Flirting with men must be almost a second nature to her. Easy. Natural. He remembered when he’d been the same way. Now there was no light left in him for that. He had no desire at all to pursue anyone. Although he had to admit, Penny was the first woman he’d encountered since his wife passed who stirred the hint of interest. Not enough to make him act.
She handed him a card, eyeing him guardedly.
He took it. “I’ll be in touch.”
She nodded, very businesslike. “Thank you.”
“Have a nice day.”
She looked at him as though checking to make sure he was serious, smile gone, a soundless oh on her lips.
He’d tried to sound casual and professional. Maybe he’d tried too hard. Have a nice day? Jeez.
“You as well, Mr. Tandy. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” With that, she turned to go, sauntering out the door without looking back. A woman like her didn’t need to. She carried confidence like a politician, except with her, it came naturally.
Kadin went to the window, drawn by the trail only a fascinating woman could leave in her wake. Her long, slender legs glided in the high-heeled boots, butt firm and fit, thick red locks bouncing. He watched her get into her white BMW Z4 convertible on the street in front of his office. His building was on a corner, and the only parking lot was in the back and shared with other businesses. As she drove away, another car pulled away from the curb across the intersecting street, a black Jeep Wrangler with darkly tinted windows that followed her departure.
* * *
The next morning, Penny got out of her car and walked through the parking garage beneath Avenue One. Her shoes clicked against the concrete on her way to the elevator. She rode to her floor and stepped out. People bustled around, talked on phones and typed away on their keyboards. Her boss was in a meeting inside a glass-front conference room. He saw her and scowled. She’d taken yesterday off and was late getting here this morning.
Heading for her office, she went inside and closed the door. All the way back to Salt Lake City and long into the night, she hadn’t been able to shake thoughts of Kadin. The man in person didn’t disappoint. He looked exactly like the photo she’d seen, minus the cowboy hat, his eyes brighter without the shade. Magnetizing. What had he meant when he said they didn’t easily commit? After she’d had time to mull it over, she didn’t think he meant going to the police. He’d meant personally. What had she done to make him say that?
A Wanted Man (Cold Case Detectives Book 1) Page 3