Sean and Jessie watched as he led Buster to his truck and helped him into the cab. He rolled both windows down and gave the dog a good rub before closing the door.
After Chad rejoined them, it seemed like forever before the deputies finished scouring the property. They packed up to move on to Nate’s place without bagging a single item of evidence. Jessie breathed a sigh of relief even though she’d never imagined there could be any sign of wrongdoing since her uncle was completely innocent.
Chad hopped in his truck with Buster, and Sean and Jessie followed in his Ford F-150. Five minutes later, the caravan of vehicles passed the Freeman house and continued down Oakdale a couple miles. When they pulled up to Nate’s house, he stomped out the front door, belligerence reddening his face and resentment seeping from every pore. Jessie prayed he’d taken his meds and not been drinking. Otherwise, the situation could go downhill quickly.
Nate’s rental was smaller, and the property contained no outbuildings, so Jessie had hoped the search would take less time. However, the lack of space must’ve been offset by higher suspicion, for the search took even longer than at Uncle Chad’s. Obviously, the deputies were aware of her brother’s arrest record, even though she’d been benignly oblivious to his law-breaking behavior. They asked question after question about the numerous bottles of pills, but thankfully, the medications were all legally prescribed by doctors and filled by legitimate pharmacies.
As time dragged on, Jessie’s insides coiled tighter and tighter. The future was a double-edged sword: She dreaded with all her heart the search of her parents’ property but also dreamed of the process being over.
Finally, after a few hours, the deputies had confiscated only Nate’s computer, a work glove with a spot of dried blood, and some financial files.
As the caravan headed down the road to the Freeman property, Jessie fought the nausea churning in her stomach. She’d be damned if she’d give the obnoxious sheriff’s detective the satisfaction of knowing he’d upset her to the point of throwing up.
“It’s going to be all right,” Sean said, although the grim look on his face belied his calm reassurance.
“I’m just so afraid they’re going to find the bomb shelter and the…the horrid stuff down there.”
“Granted, it’s ‘horrid stuff.’ But it’s incriminating of Hal, not the three of you.” His tight expression told her there was something he wasn’t saying. She thought she knew what it was.
“Unless his pornography represents another motive for the three of us—in addition to the inheritance.”
He sighed. “There is that.”
“This is just surreal to me. Hal’s the criminal, but we’re the ones being investigated.”
“Most of this is standard MO. Don’t take it personally.”
She snorted. “Don’t take it personally? Are you crazy? Of course it’s personal.”
“Okay, look at it this way. The process will personally eliminate you three as suspects.”
“Only if it works right.”
“O, ye of little faith.”
“Today, yes.”
As they neared the Freeman driveway, Sean slowed the truck and leaned forward, squinting through the windshield. A muscle in his cheek twitched.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He pointed down the road. “See that car on the shoulder?”
“Yeah. I don’t recognize it from here.”
“I do. It’s Drake’s rental. Remember, I saw it the other night when I escorted him away from your front door.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go see.”
As soon as the patrol cars in front of them turned into the driveway, Sean pressed hard on the gas and sped past. If it was Drake in the car, he probably recognized Sean’s truck and decided he didn’t want another confrontation because the sedan executed a fast U-turn and raced away. Sean pulled onto the shoulder instead of chasing the disappearing car.
“Why was he here?” Jessie asked.
“He might’ve been planning to pay you another visit but then spotted the patrol car sitting in your driveway.”
“He knows Mom’s missing so he’d probably think they were here about that. But it’d be great if he thought I’d filed a complaint against him. Or do you think he’s heard about Hal?”
“If he hasn’t yet, it won’t take long in this small town.”
Her throat tightened. “A family murder will just be more ammunition to help him take Callie away from me.”
“We can’t stop the talk, Jess.”
“I know. But seriously, what do you think he’s up to?”
“I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”
Chapter 22
Neither said another word until Sean parked his truck in the Freemans’ driveway.
Jessie stared out the windshield while Detective Cramer approached Deputies Lungreen and Anderson, who were now leaning against their patrol car. “I’m scared, Sean.”
“Understandable.” He reached across and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m here for you.”
For now. She stopped that train of thought before it ran her off the tracks. No sense in going there. It was what it was. “I know.”
When they climbed from the truck, Cramer was already shouting orders to the six additional deputies who had arrived from the other sites. In pairs, they scattered to different parts of the property: the barn, the outbuilding, and the house.
“Let’s do this,” Sean murmured, coming around the front of the truck to take her hand. “We’ll wait inside.”
Uncle Chad’s truck pulled up beside them. Buster bolted out the driver’s door before he could close it. “Come back here, you mangy mutt,” he hollered, and then laughed. “Hell, let him bother them. I don’t care.”
Sean gave Chad a meaningful look. “Wait for Nate. You guys stay out here. I’m taking Jess inside.”
He escorted Jessie through the back door and into a chair at the kitchen table. She was glad she could only hear, not see, the two deputies searching the house. The sense of violation was already strong.
Sean handed her a bottle of water from the fridge and sat down next to her. He ran his fingers up through the hair at her nape and massaged her neck muscles.
“You’ve got knots the size of golf balls.”
She shrugged. “They feel like baseballs.”
His strong fingers tunneled through her hair, sending tingles through her body. Memories of tingles he’d produced in other parts filled her mind. She surrendered to the sensations, wanting, needing to escape for just a few minutes. Sean would be gone soon, and who knew when she’d feel tingles again.
He was still massaging her scalp when Detective Cramer entered the kitchen. The man took one look at the intimate activity and grunted.
Sean’s eyes narrowed, his fingers stilled for only a second before he turned her face toward him and claimed her lips in a passionate kiss. She clung to his shoulders, irrationally grateful that he cared more for her than he cared about Cramer’s belief in his objectivity.
“Detective Cramer, I found something…odd,” a deputy said, walking into the kitchen with a large shoebox in his hands.
“Odd?” Cramer gave him an exasperated look. “What is it?”
“Found this in Hal Freeman’s part of the closet.” He flipped the lid open. With his gloved hands, he moved the shoes aside and lifted out a wad of twenty-dollar bills. “I counted two hundred dollars.”
Jessie gasped.
Cramer shrugged. “Could be his gambling money. Or rainy day stash.”
“But I also found these.” The deputy reached into one of the shoes and then turned his hand over. A pair of gold earrings rested in his palm.
“Damn him,” Jessie muttered.
Cramer scowled at her. “Care to share, Ms. Hargrove?”
She huffed. “The day after Mom went missing, Hal told me those earrings had disappeared off her dresser. And the money
is probably my parents’ ‘quick cash’ fund. It’s normally kept in Mom’s underwear drawer, but it wasn’t there when I…I looked for it last Saturday night.”
“Why would your father hide this stuff?”
“I think he was planning to accuse Nate of stealing it. We all knew my brother needed money. I’m ashamed to admit that the thought had crossed my mind,” she said.
“Jess is right. Hal wanted to point suspicion at Nate for Molly’s disappearance by making theft the motive. They’d argued about money Friday morning.”
Cramer’s gaze shifted between them. “Money’s a damn good motive.”
She tensed. From his tone, Jessie knew he wasn’t referring to the two hundred dollars but to the inheritance, regardless of how meager.
“It stinks in here,” Sean growled. “Even the smell of manure would be better.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her out the back door.
The garage door was up, and she spotted two deputies diligently searching through the stacks of cardboard boxes and plastic bins. Her breath caught.
Sean nudged her to a patio chair. “Sit,” he ordered, and gently pushed her down. After pulling another chair alongside, he dropped into it.
Spotting them from where they’d been leaning against the shady side of the barn, Nate and Chad started toward the patio. The double doors stood open, noise coming from within proof that deputies were busy inside.
“For the last time, Buster, get out of that goddamn bullshit,” Chad yelled at his bloodhound, who was digging furiously at the base of the mountain of manure. Buster raised his head and howled. “Come, boy. Or you’re gonna need a bath.” As if understanding the threat, the dog bounded after his master, although he took one last, longing look at the pile.
“How ya doing, sis?” Nate asked, sitting down on the patio at her feet. With drawn cheeks and dark circles under his eyes, he looked like death warmed over, but she appreciated him trying to act calm.
“I’ve had better days. Have they, uh, searched the…rest of the outbuilding?” Her eyes flicked to the darkroom end of the structure.
“Nope. Started with the garage.”
Chad swung a chair up next to Sean. “What do ya think?”
“I think we hope and pray.”
“Yup, me too.”
Two deputies emerged from the garage and headed for the workshop door. A fist closed around Jessie’s throat.
One of them jerked the handle a few times before calling to their audience. “Door’s locked. We need to borrow your key again.”
Nate stood up and fished his keys out of his pocket. He separated the proper key and held it out to the deputy. The guy jogged over.
“Sorry about this, folks.” He shook his head. “Real sad about your mom, Jessica. She was a nice lady.”
Jessie nodded but couldn’t speak. Wasn’t it bad enough to lose your mother to an evil killer? To be suspected of the murder was just too much.
The deputy accepted the keys and returned to his partner. After unlocking the door, they disappeared inside.
Jessie counted each passing second with the hammering of her heart. Breathing became almost impossible. She blinked away the black spots dotting her vision. She would not faint.
The thirty-minute search of the workshop felt like an eternity. But when the deputies exited and closed the door, she wished it had lasted longer.
As they turned toward the darkroom door, she whimpered. Her whole body trembled.
Sean scooted his chair closer and rubbed her back. “Breathe, Jess. Slow, deep breaths.”
“C’mere, dog. What’ve you got? Grab him,” a deputy shouted.
“You go that way. I’ll take the backside,” answered another.
The yelling redirected everyone’s attention to the two deputies at the barn entrance. One circled behind the manure, and the other darted toward the front. Buster raced into sight from around the manure mountain with something white hanging from his mouth. The dog’s long ears swung wildly as he ran toward the side of the house.
Everyone scrambled to their feet.
“Damn, how’d he sneak back over there?” Chad snorted. “Hell, I didn’t think he could move that fast anymore.”
They watched as the deputies darted after him, separating in opposite directions when they reached the house. More shouting and swearing reached the patio before Buster reappeared in the driveway still carrying his prize. He dropped it to bark loudly for several moments.
“Stop the damn dog,” one deputy hollered before coming into view.
“Name’s Buster, and he doesn’t like bein’ called ‘damn,’” Uncle Chad said, bristling.
As Buster disappeared behind the manure again with the item, the deputies lumbered to the patio. Bracing their hands on their knees, they panted for air.
“I don’t care what you call him, just get what’s in his mouth,” the older one said.
“He take somethin’ of yours?” Chad asked indignantly.
“No. He dug a big hole under the manure. I think he found it there.”
Jessie grasped Sean’s arm. “What would be under there that’s…white?”
He shrugged. “Dead rabbit. Bird. Light gray squirrel. I don’t know.”
“Aw, hell,” Uncle Chad grumbled. “He’s gonna need a bath for sure.”
Scowling at the old man’s lack of cooperation, the deputies took off after Buster again. More barking came from behind the manure. More yelling came from the deputies.
Jessie chanced a glance toward the darkroom. The deputies, who’d been about to enter, were now at the corner of the open garage, laughing at Buster’s escapades. They showed no signs of joining the fray.
Sean angled his head toward Uncle Chad. “Call the dog before you piss those guys off.”
“Yeah, okay,” he muttered. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted, “Buster, c’mere, boy. Come to Daddy.”
The dog appeared beside the manure, dropped the object, and barked.
Chad motioned with his hand. “Bring…bring it to me.”
Buster snatched the item as the two deputies raced up behind him. After a quick look over his shoulder, he bounded across the yard to the patio. His ears flapped like he was about to take flight.
Jessie’s gaze zeroed in, as if through the tunnel vision of binoculars, on the white object in his mouth. Recognition hit like a freight train.
She let out an anguished cry and buried her face in Sean’s chest. Her hands clutched fistfuls of his T-shirt as her mind clutched at the fraying thread of reality.
* * *
The back door slammed, and three sets of heavy footsteps stomped across the patio.
“What the hell is all the commotion?” Detective Cramer demanded.
No one answered.
Sean tightened his arms around Jess as he watched Buster stop in front of Chad and drop the dirty white object on the ground.
“What the…?” Chad muttered, and frowned.
Nate stepped around his sister so he could see better and then stared at the object.
“Well?” Cramer snapped.
Sean stabbed him with a surly scowl. It didn’t feel as good as calling the detective an insensitive fucking asshole, but it’d have to do. He struggled to rein in his anger. “It’s Molly’s shoe. One she was wearing Friday.”
Jess sobbed against his chest.
“Shit,” Chad and Nate said together.
The detective moved closer. Buster growled, and his hackles rose. Cramer stopped and backed up a step. The two winded deputies trudged to where they could see, and the deputies from the outbuilding trotted over. Everyone except Jess stared at the solitary shoe.
“How do you know?” Cramer pressed.
Sean counted to ten. The jerk really needed to work on his bedside manner. Of course, working in LA had a way of making a cop less than compassionate. And confronting Cramer wouldn’t help anything. “Read the goddamn file. Molly had a pair like the ones Jess is wearing. The tread will ma
tch the pictures of the shoeprints I found that night.”
A minute of heavy silence passed.
Detective Cramer cleared his throat. “Bag the shoe. Then secure this whole place. I’ll get a team of CSI techs and the medical examiner out here ASAP,” he said to the deputies, and then turned. “You folks should go inside.”
“C’mon, babe. There’s nothing you can do out here,” Sean said soothingly.
She nodded and let him lead her across the patio and into the kitchen. Nate and Chad followed silently. Inside, he settled her in a chair at the table. She laid her head on her arms.
He found a bottle of chardonnay in the fridge, poured her a large glass, and set it in front of her. She raised her head and slowly pushed herself upright.
“You okay, baby girl?” Chad asked, his face a picture of sadness and concern.
After sipping the wine, she said, “Okay? I don’t even know what the word means anymore.”
Sean handed beers to the men who’d claimed two other chairs and then sat down next to Jess with his own. “We’re all here for you, Jess. We’ll do whatever you need us to.”
“I want Hal…dead…for everything the bastard’s done. I won’t be able to live with myself if he gets away with all this.” Her determined expression matched the intensity of her words.
“He’ll pay,” Sean stated firmly.
She turned disbelieving eyes on him. “You can’t promise that. They may never even find him. And even if they do, I’ve read that it’s really hard to extradite people from Mexico.”
“We…we’ll…deal with him,” Nate growled.
She shook her head. “We don’t have the resources.”
“But my friend Jake Stone does,” Sean interjected. “We’ll find him.” God, he hoped he was telling her the truth.
As he took a long drag of beer, he glanced around the table. Everyone looked beaten, emotionally exhausted. Understandably so. He wasn’t related to Molly Freeman, hadn’t seen her in eight years, but he felt the loss. Even though he’d seen a lot of death since joining the LAPD, the significance of a life ended too soon still affected him. In this case, not only because of his past connection with the victim but also because of his rekindling relationship with Jess.
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