by WL Knightly
“I do trust you, Lana. But you can’t blame me for being a little uneasy when you start sleeping with the enemy.”
Thomas hadn’t realized he was the enemy but knew why the man might see it that way. As for Lana, she was going to say and do whatever it took to have her way for as long as she wanted.
He was shocked Lana had made such a plea to keep him around but glad that he was having that kind of effect on her.
“I want you to keep digging,” said Roald. “Look to anyone who deals with us and might have an issue. If this was done to send a message, I want to know what it’s about before the cops do.”
“If it was meant to send a message,” said Lana, “I’d think they would have made things a lot clearer. The video was sent out on the internet as if to shock everyone who saw it.”
“It’s clearly some sicko,” said Bryan. “But I’ll keep on it. Anything else you want me to take care of? What about that girl who was here tonight?”
“Sarah Green,” said Lana as if saying her name left a bad taste in her mouth. “She might be a bigger problem than the FBI.”
“Who is she?” asked Roald.
“She’s that reporter. She’s the one who wrote that piece on Starr, remember? The one that called her out for her lifestyle and drug habit. The one that didn’t paint a very shiny picture of the life she had here with us before she went missing.”
“I don’t like that,” said Roald. “I don’t want her back in this house either.”
“Well, she’s with the agent working the case, and he claims he’s sending someone else over to do a much more thorough dive on Cassie’s room. I didn’t let little miss reporter search it, but she’s going to have access to the information he took.”
“Do you think it will tell her anything?” asked Roald.
“I’m not sure. I don’t know what was in them.”
“I could get someone out to scare her,” said Bryan, causing Thomas to clench his jaw even tighter. “Maybe that would teach her to keep her nose out of places it doesn’t belong.”
“Don’t do anything yet,” said Roald. “But I’ll let you know if my mind changes.”
“Yeah,” said Lana. “As much as I’d like for someone to knock her on her ass, it’s not a good idea. She’s got ties with the cops. Her dad was one.”
“How do you know so much about her?” Howler sneered.
“She used to be engaged to Thomas.”
“Jesus, Lana. And you still think it’s a good idea to have that man hanging around the house? See him if you must but do it away from me.”
“Not a problem,” she said coolly. “Besides, Max is dealing to him. So, if he tries to get anything over on us, I have that over him. He isn’t going to jeopardize his career over this. And especially not over some ex that doesn’t mean shit to him anymore.”
“You had better hope you’re right for all of our sakes.”
“Trust me,” she said. “When it comes to Thomas Asher, I have it all under control.”
Thomas listened as her heels clicked across the tile and faded in the background.
“Do you think we should be worried about her?” asked Bryan once Thomas couldn’t hear Lana’s steps anymore.
“Nah,” said Roald. “Lana is always going to be on my side of things. She knows who takes care of her.”
Thomas listened as the two men left the room. He cut off the device and wondered what was so important about this lodge Roald had mentioned. And more importantly, what did it have to do with the conversation? He couldn’t help but wonder if that was where his sister was.
Chapter 18
Sarah
Sarah was never so glad to be home than she was that night. As Ethan drove up to her house to drop her off, she let out a deep, cleansing breath. “That was nerve-racking.”
“You did great. I know it had to be awkward for you.”
“You certainly had your fun with it,” she said with a scolding tone.
“He is an ass. You can do a hell of a lot better.”
“I can’t believe he went back to her,” she said, feeling the sting of disappointment for a man who she once thought hung the moon.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be so sure he’s as lovestruck as you think he is. Lana doesn’t look like the kind of woman who wants to settle down. And I don’t think she’s the kind of woman men want to settle down with.”
“I don’t really care what either of them does,” she said. “They can get bent. My only focus now is my sister and sending her to college if I can get her to go.” She looked up at the house. “Do you want to come inside?”
It was a little late, but she still had so many questions and wanted to get a look at the evidence they’d uncovered.
He smiled. “I thought you’d never ask. Do you have any coffee?”
“You do realize that I’m a writer, right? I mean, it’s kind of prerequisite that we all have a coffee addiction.”
He chuckled. “I had no idea.”
She got out of the car, and he followed her to the door as his car chirped out a sound from being locked.
She wasn’t sure if Alice was home or not and hoped that she had the sense to not bring Cash over again without permission.
She went to the kitchen where she found the cookies opened on the counter without being put up and an empty frozen pizza box left beside it. The leftovers were on the counter, and there were only three small pieces missing, which meant she probably didn’t have any help eating them.
Sarah went back out to find Ethan still standing in the middle of the room. “So, what’s going to happen next?” she asked, slipping out of her heels.
“Do you mind?” asked Ethan as he took off his coat.
“Not at all. By all means, get comfortable.” She offered him a seat on the couch.
Ethan sat down and angled toward her as she sat beside him. He loosened his tie. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to see him take it all off.
“I talked to a local chapter of a search team who are willing to come and do a search at a moment’s notice. But first, I have to figure out how to narrow that down. I was going to go home and look over everything to see if I could figure out where she might be.”
“Oh!” she said, remembering what she had uncovered the night before. “That reminds me. I have something to show you. I meant to mention it earlier, but you kind of threw me off with that curveball visit to the party.” She went over to the desk across the room, took a key from a vase, and unlocked the top drawer of her desk before returning it. She didn’t mind him seeing her hiding place. It was only Alice she was trying to keep out of things.
She retrieved some papers and went back over to the couch. “When I looked over Cassie’s social media, I also took some time to still-frame the images from the video.”
“This is amazing. But I have someone doing this in a lab across town.”
“Yeah, of course, but I thought this would make it easier for us to look at together.”
“Ah, of course.”
“There’s a lot of dust and sand blowing. I was thinking somewhere in the desert. Look at these frames. And then there are some plants here. Maybe if we look at them and figure out what they are, we could figure out where she is.”
Ethan moved to the edge of his seat, where he looked at the photos. “What’s this?” he pointed.
“It looks like a pipe sticking up from the ground,” she said.
“No, this.” He pointed to a plant. “Is that a vine?”
“You know, it looks like a grapevine to me. And if this is an irrigation pipe, maybe that’s where he left her.”
“I’d think someone would have found her at a vineyard by now,” said Ethan. “Unless it was abandoned.”
Sarah nodded. “There are a few that are no longer tended. I did a story on it once. There are several that fell victim to the drought, and the families who ran them had to throw in the towel.”
“It’s possible someone who knew about tha
t could have brought her there.”
“Which means they may have left her there. What do you think? Is it worth checking into?”
“I think so. I think you have something here. Good job.”
“I only printed the photos.”
“Well, we make a good team regardless. But we need to see which vineyard would be the most likely candidate for a body dump.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” she said. “I have a whole notebook full of notes, names, and numbers.”
“And it’s too late to call any of them tonight.”
“We could go online and see what we can learn. If you’re up for it?”
“I guess I could stay. This is pretty uncomfortable, though.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about that. I’m sure there’s something of my dad’s if you want to change. I have never cleaned out the master closet.”
She could tell by the look on his face that he was surprised to hear it.
“You know, I have a pair of shorts in my car. I keep a gym bag in there in case I ever want to go work out. I think I could put that on if you don’t mind giving me a minute to get it.”
“Go ahead. You can change in the bathroom down the hall, and I’ll just go and make a pot of coffee and change. We can make a late night of it.”
“Sounds good.” He got up and took his keys out of his pocket before heading to the door. When he reached it, he stopped and turned around with a worried look. “What about Alice?”
“It’s not like you’re sneaking into my bedroom, Ethan. She’ll be fine. It’s only work. Right?”
“Yeah, okay.” He gave her a reassuring smile and headed out.
Sarah hurried to the kitchen and got a pot of coffee brewing. Once she had that going, she took to the stairs and headed up to her room to change.
She was excited that she had something going on in her life again, more than the usual grind, and hoped that their lead would take them somewhere.
When she came back down, Ethan had just left the bathroom and walked down the hall with a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt that showed off his amazing physique.
“You look so casual when you’re not all buttoned up,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said, looking her up and down, letting his eyes linger.
She cleared her throat, and Ethan seemed to snap out of wherever his mind had taken him.
“Shall we?” She gestured to the couch.
“Yeah. I was thinking actually. We might use a satellite photo to see if any look promising.”
“That’s a great idea.” She wished she’d thought of it. “Do you think the forensic team will try that?”
“As slow as they are, probably not anytime soon. All of that kind of research takes so much time. It’s not like it is on TV where one little thing takes a few hours. In the real world, there is so much evidence to so many crimes, it’s all clogged up.”
She smiled. “I think you forget I was raised by a cop. I used to hate watching television with my father because he would tell me the real way it was done.”
“Yeah, I guess I do keep forgetting that. Have you ever thought about going back?”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” she said, giving him an apologetic look. “But yeah, it has crossed my mind.” She had tortured herself with that decision for far too long. She had finally had to release herself of that guilt.
“Sorry. I just think you’d be good at it. And I’d be willing to put in a word if you ever change your mind.”
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s nice to know I still have friends.” She excused herself to check on the coffee.
When she returned with two steaming mugs, he was already hard at work, and after she found her notes, she settled beside him at the laptop, where he was looking up vineyards in the area.
“This is the list I made,” she said, putting it down beside him. “I think we could probably search for listings and see if any of them have been sold recently.”
“Good idea. If I had the addresses, I could look them up.”
“I have them right here. I went driving out to them when I was doing my research. I got to meet a former tour guide who used to make a good living giving tours of the different vineyards.”
“Do you know her well?” asked Ethan, as if he wanted her to reach out.
“Well enough that I could call her this time of the night? No.”
“But you have the addresses?”
“Yeah, here’s the list.” She pointed to the notes she’d scribbled.
“Your handwriting is horrible,” he said, frowning. “Are you sure you aren’t in medicine?”
“I can read them. What do you want first?”
“Let’s start with the nearest first. Mark out any that are more than an hour away. I don’t think he took her too far.”
She went over the list and found there were two that were fairly close and fit the bill. “Try this,” she said, calling out the first address.
After a minute, Ethan shook his head. “This one doesn’t look right,” he said. “Give me the next.”
She didn’t bother asking him what the difference was and instead gave him the next address.
Ethan typed in the address and found the place. “This looks more promising. Look at that terrain.”
There were clearly rows of vines and pipes sticking up for irrigation. She felt it in her gut that it was the one. “I think you’re right. So, what’s next? We go out and search it tomorrow with the team, or what?”
“I feel pretty good about it. But how would you like to take a drive?”
“Tonight? You mean you want to go there?” She grew excited just thinking about it. Going out on an adventure like that was what she had always wanted to do when she became a cop. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“Yeah, why not? I’ll drive.” He got to his feet and found his keys on the table beside his wallet, which he promptly tucked away in the one pocket he had in the shorts.
“Okay. Let me just leave Alice a note of where I’m going. I don’t want her to wake up in the night and worry.” She put the notes away so they couldn’t be found in case she didn’t make it back by morning. And after she left the note, she grabbed her bag and headed out to the car.
Ethan took his time on the road, and she yawned in the seat next to him when her excitement started to wear off.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to doze off on me,” he said.
“It’s just a lot farther out than I thought.”
“It’s the dark road. It doesn’t help things.” Ethan slowed down. “I think it’s just up ahead.” He had used the GPS, and they were surely closing in on their destination, even though they couldn’t see much farther than the headlights.
The glow of the city shone over the horizon, and Ethan turned onto the road leading to the property.
There was a gate, but the lock on it seemed to be busted, and the latch had seen better days. “Someone definitely could have gotten in,” he said, stopping the car. He got out, went to the gate, and quickly returned.
“Are we trespassing?” she asked.
“If I find a body, no one will care about that, I can assure you.” He drove the car up to the old house and what seemed to be a big warehouse.
Sarah looked around to see if there were any signs of life, but there were none.
Ethan got out with a large flashlight he pulled from his glovebox, and when they got out of the car, she hurried around to the front to stand next to him. “It’s pitch dark out here.”
“No moon tonight,” he said. “Just the glow of the city in the distance. It’s amazing what light pollution can do.”
“Or lack of,” she said, thinking it was dark enough for her.
“The photo showed an area where there were still some vines. This front part looked bare when we came in, so I think it’s going to be back there.”
He pointed out behind the house, where the sprawling hills went on for what looked like miles, espec
ially in the dark.
“She could be anywhere.”
“We’ll have to look around a bit.” He shined his light across the field. “Do you smell that?” He turned his nose up to the wind.
She did the same but didn’t have any luck. She went to take a deeper inhale when all of a sudden, a gentle breeze hit her face, and the smell of something rotten hit her nose.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing her T-shirt sleeve. “Stay close. If there’s a body out here, there could be predators.”
“We should have called someone. We keep going places without backup.”
“We’ll be fine,” he said, pulling her along.
She tried to keep up but tripped over her feet and the lumpy terrain as they went farther out into the field.
He shined the light again and this time kept it pointed on something. “Is that what I think it is?” he said.
“It’s a shoe,” she said, hurrying over to look at it.
“Don’t touch it,” he said, catching up to her.
“It’s a pink hiking boot,” she said. “Alice has some like these.”
Ethan kicked it over with his foot so it would be sitting on its sole. He shined the light down on it. “There’s blood.”
“Do you think it’s hers?”
“It’s a good chance,” he said.
“Why does it smell so bad?” she said as he nudged it again.
All of a sudden, a piece of fleshy foot dislodged and rolled out onto the ground. Most of it appeared to have been eaten, but the toes were still attached to part of the foot, and the toenails were all painted Cassie Ryan’s favorite shade of pink.
Ethan stepped back as Sarah let out a scream of shock.
“Looks like we found her,” he said, taking out his phone.
Chapter 19
Ethan
It had been over half an hour before anyone arrived on the scene, and the darkness had been replaced by flashing lights.
“What is it you’ve found?” asked Captain Bowden, who wasn’t happy he had been woken up in the night.
“There’s a hiking boot I believe belongs to Cassie Ryan. She’s the girl whose death video has been circulating the internet for the past few days.”