“No problem,” Justin stated, as his body heated instantly.
“I’m sorry to drag you out into the cold, but it’s just easier to tell you what I have than send it all.”
Julian didn't mind. After all, he had Tori to keep him warm. Staring at his brother, he subtly clued him in to the opportunity that was right there in front of him. With just a look and head jerk, his brother got the picture.
Justin moved closer to Vivian and blocked the wind with his side. Without hesitation, she moved into the protection of his frame. It was almost instinctual, and it made him crazy.
The scent of her perfume and the feel of her against his body reminded him of the night that they had spent together. Desperately, he was trying to not go there.
“Okay, we have Tawny James, and she matches the woman in my dream. Her house is exactly like I described it. It’s a one story with dark blue shutters. The house number was correct too.”
“What can you tell us about the layout?” Julian asked.
“It’s surrounded by woods, just like Melissa Lagerfeld’s home. It’s secluded and far enough away from any street traffic to notice anything. He might be picking these women based on that. If he wants to stalk them, then he needs to have a secluded property.”
This made their job easier. “I need to see the layout,” he stated. “If he was stalking her, I can find it.”
Vivian wanted the Littlemoons to stay out of there for now. “You can’t head there today. If you even show up on that scene before anyone makes the correlation, you’re going to be dealing with my partner. He has it in for you three.”
Julian wasn’t happy to hear that his brother and wife were being targeted by the detective.
She continued, “Tomorrow, the boyfriend’s co-workers and associates are going to do a search of the property. They’re hoping she’s lost in the woods. At the paramedic station, they’re getting search parties together. You might want to head over there and sign up. You can play concerned business man, and buy yourself a free pass to walk all over the woods to check it out.”
That would work perfectly and be a terrific cover. Julian was going to use this to his advantage. All of them would be helping out, even Christina and Kane. She had been in the FBI and would be useful as they navigated the forest.
Tori touched her arm. “Are you okay with all this?”
Vivian let out a deep breath. “Not really. I’m scared that I can’t stop it, and I’m worried for the next person.”
Justin wrapped his arms around her body. “It’s okay, baby. You're not alone. We have your back.”
The term of endearment caught her attention, and she looked into his eyes. “I know, Justin.” Delicately, she ran her fingers over his cheek. “Trust me. Having you guys on my side is making this so much easier. It’s hard to carry something of this magnitude alone.”
Justin’s heart was skipping in his chest, and it was making it hard to concentrate. He wondered if she could feel it just by leaning against him.
“We need everyone that knows that we’re working on this, to just think we’re focused on Melissa Lagerfeld. Behind closed doors we’ll start digging into Tawny James’s life.”
Vivian focused on them. “We only have so much time. If anyone finds her body, this is going to be bumped from our missing person squad right to homicide. They play tough, and if they connect it to Melissa, they’re going to want that case too.”
Tori knew what that meant. “Then we’ll be working blind on it.”
“Yes. I can’t access their files. They’ll claim departmental jurisdiction and my boss will hand it over easily, just to get this off our board.”
Justin knew that they couldn’t let that happen.
Vivian pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. On it, she had scribbled all the details. They now had her name, address, and the boyfriend’s information. “I’ll get you more for tonight,” she stated. “For now, I have to go.”
“Where are you going to be?” Justin asked.
“I have to beat my partner back to the office. I’ll be there most of today.”
That helped him relax. Justin wasn’t quite sure how he felt about Vivian running around while someone was abducting and now killing women.
On second thought, he was well aware of how he felt about it. The whole thing pissed him off.
Tori knew that she needed to say what they were probably all thinking. “If he killed this woman out of rage, then he’s going to want to replace her. He’s going to move fast with the next one. We may not have almost a week before victim three goes missing.”
“Yeah, it’s only a matter of time.” Vivian was well aware. She could feel it in her gut.
Julian didn't like the odds. “Then, we better figure this out fast.”
* * *
Fortunately for her, she was able to get back to the precinct before her partner. If she didn't, there would be a lot of explaining to do. It wasn’t like she couldn’t just lie about it and make up some excuse, but really, she liked to save those kinds of things for a dire emergency.
Tom Lester may be an asshole at times, but he was a fairly intuitive cop, and he could smell a rat if there was one present. He’d been doing this far too long to not see what was going on around him.
After he arrived, she offered to stay on the paper trail while her partner did the questioning. While Tom had Josh Devaul in the interrogation room, she ran his alibi and started checking up on him. So far, he was indeed at work and doing his job.
It appeared to be a dead end with him.
Switching her focus, Vivian went on to the missing woman. As she had her pulled up on the screen, she stared into her face. It was very different from the way she’d seen her. Under water, she was a mottled shade of blue and her eyes appeared haunted, as her hair floated out around her.
In death, everything changed.
When a hand touched her shoulder, she nearly jumped out of her seat.
“Holy shit, Tom! You scared the hell out of me!”
He started laughing. “Well, in my defense, you were staring off into space when I called your name. How else was I supposed to get your attention?”
She saw his point. “Did he confess to her abduction?”
“No way. He swears upside down, inside out, and to hell and back that he had nothing to do with it. I actually believe him.”
She handed him the paper. “You should. He was at work. Then I called the ER, and they logged him bringing in a cardiac arrest patient just after three in the morning. The admitting clerk vouches that he was there until almost four thirty, taking care of paperwork and helping out with the man’s family.”
“Well, shit.”
“It’s not him. He’s alibied solid, and we haven’t even talked to his ride along partner yet. That’s basically a technicality at this point.”
Tom took a seat and looked over at her. “Okay, then tell me that our missing woman was a wild one, and maybe just headed to Tijuana for a drug bender.”
She shook her head, unable to give him his wish. “Tawny James was squeaky clean. In fact, she’s borderline pure as the driven snow. From the honors list in college to being the high school homecoming queen, there are no records of a tickets, arrest, or even a single mar to her name.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, her home was owned by her parents until they retired to Arizona last year, and she bought it from them. I checked into that art class that she was taking. Her and her best friend took different classes through the year. Now, they were working on nude art.”
He stared at her. “Like naked people?”
Vivian started laughing. “Yeah, they hire a male model to come in, and the people in the class sketch his form.”
Tom Lester would rather drop dead than subject himself to that kind of bullshit.
“There’s a class about to end shortly, and I’m heading there to talk to the instructor and model. Want to come?”
“Yeah, if you drag me there behind
the vehicle as I kick and scream like a madman.”
She got the hint. He didn't want to scope out the nude male models. “Okay, how about we switch? I’ll take the best friend, who she also works with, and the art class and you can do paperwork.”
“Thank you, God!”
She pulled on her coat and grinned at him. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with nudity and art.”
“Yeah, we’ll revisit this when it’s some woman who’s modeling. I’m not going somewhere to stare at a man’s junk. I can head down to the locker room if I want to be horrified.”
She patted him on the back. “Okay, Tom. I’ll check in later.”
As she headed out the door, Vivian remembered how she had just told Justin that she’d be in the office all day. Although she knew that he wouldn’t just show up, there was this overwhelming feeling to check in with him, just in case.
Dialing his number, she left him a voicemail that she was heading back out. When she heard his voice on his recorded message, her heart began to pitter pat in her chest. God, his voice made her all warm and fuzzy.
It was soothing like warm tea and honey.
It had felt like ages since she had been at his side.
Vivian couldn’t wait until later.
Justin was sitting, at the counter, in the bar with a coke in front of him. The place had just opened for the day, and he was waiting for the bartender. The man was setting everything up and directing the staff to their nightly jobs.
When he was finished, he wandered over to the counter.
“I’m sorry. This is our only time to organize the evening before the music starts. By happy hour, it’s chaos in here.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Coltrane. I completely understand. I hate bothering you about this, but the agency I work for was hired to find a missing woman.”
“Was it the one I saw on the news today?” he asked.
Justin must have looked a little surprised.
“There were some guys on talking about a volunteer search and rescue.”
He shook his head. “No, I was hired to find a Melissa Lagerfeld.” Justin slid the photo across the counter towards him. The man stared down at it.
“Yeah, I know her. We call her ‘hands’.”
Again, he was confused. “Why?”
“It’s because she doesn’t have the ability to keep hers to herself, and off other people. If you’re a man and she’s drunk, you’re going to get felt up.”
This was new. “So, she was…”
“Yeah, if she had a few drinks, she was trying to scope out the men with the best assets.”
Justin wanted to laugh at that, but he managed to hold it in. “I see.” He was a little befuddled that men in a bar cared if a beautiful woman checked out the goods. Men, drinking beer, who were looking for an easy babe, generally didn't mind.
Well, he never did. Then that thought horrified him. If another woman put her hands on him, he’d be upset too. Vivian was the only woman he wanted all over him.
Wow, how things could change in a heartbeat.
This was a whole new thing for him.
The bartender leaned on the counter. “Hey, I’m all about a hot babe trying to pat me down, but at work, it causes issues. A guy who comes in here with his date, and another woman is getting handsy, well before you know it, there’s a cat fight.”
“So, she’s been in a fight here?”
“Yeah. You should talk to my waitress Devon. She had to pull some redhead off her. The woman was going to kill her.”
That set off alarms in his head. “Thank you, Mr. Coltrane. I’ll be back after I talk to Devon.”
“Stephen is my name, and I’ll be right here.”
Justin headed across the bar to a group of women who were getting ready to start working. The one with way too much makeup saw him approaching. She must have said something, since all four women looked over at the same time.
“Ladies, can I speak to Devon?”
They all started giggling and winking at the one with the excessive hair and makeup.
“Yeah? You want me?”
He ignored the innuendo. He liked raven haired women a great deal, but this one had nothing compared to the one he was seeing later.
“Tell me about Melissa Lagerfeld getting the shit kicked out of her by some redhead.” He held up the picture for her to see it.
The woman thought about it. “I was serving drinks to this couple. The date went to the powder room, and the second she was gone, that woman in the picture was trying to get in the guy’s pants, literally. She was all over him. I felt bad for the dude, because he had this look of panic on his face. You know, it was somewhere between guilt from enjoying it and sheer terror that his date was going to catch him getting the goods groped.”
Yeah, he pictured Vivian catching him, and he sympathized with the man’s pain.
“Well, she was all over the front of him when the little redhead returned, and she wailed on ‘hands’.”
“So, Melissa took a beating?”
“Oh, yeah, she did. Finally, I had to pull the little one off her. I can’t say I blame her. If anyone’s trying to make out with a man I’m with or dating, I’d do her like that too.”
Justin smiled as he tucked the picture back in his pocket. “Thank you, Devon, for your help.”
“I’ll help you out anytime,” she practically purred, as she batted her eyelashes.
“Thanks, but I’m not available.”
“Damn, that’s too bad.” She watched him walk away in his well-fitting jeans and couldn’t help but admire the goods herself. “Yeah, it certainly is.”
Back at the bar, he sat and continued interviewing Stephen. “On Saturday night, did you see Melissa leave?”
He shook his head. “No, she was here with a woman. I served them some shots, and they paid up front. While I was working the other end of the bar, they must have split, or went to dance. Then, I was out of here by ten.”
“So you left early?”
“I open the bar up at two in the afternoon. The next bartender comes in, and then and I head home.”
He understood. “When you were leaving, did you see anything outside that was suspicious?”
Stephen shook his head. “Not a thing.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime.”
Leaving the bar, he could feel the speculative gazes as he crossed the room to the door. Yeah, he got the feeling that Melissa wasn’t the only handsy one in that place.
Call it instinct.
Suddenly, he wanted out of that game.
Forever…
Chapter Ten
Back at the office, the team was working on getting a better idea of what Tawny James was really like. Between random internet searches and social media, once more, they were putting together a pretty comprehensive picture.
They had found that she had gone with a girlfriend to an art class, prior to her abduction. Using her online profile, they ferreted out the time and the name of the place. Before she left to go, they found random postings to her boyfriend Josh Devaul.
She had left little messages of love and affection for the world to see, and unfortunately, she also gave whoever was watching a timeline of her evening too.
Inadvertently, Tawny James gave a stalker the tools to make her life come to an end.
“Holy shit,” muttered Kane. “This woman posted just about everything online.”
Christina was reading over his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s probably not a good thing. It’s like people that post that they’re going away for a week and come home to find that they’ve been robbed. Common sense seems to have gone out the window here.”
Kane typed Tawny’s name into the search engine, hoping to find something else out there.
When he didn't find anything, he stared up at Christina. “Well, other than what we have, we’re stuck.”
“Maybe the detective will have something more for us to use,” she offered, hopefully.
>
Kane looked around before speaking. “What do you think about all this dream stuff?” he asked. Even though he was full blood Native, much like the Littlemoons, he wasn’t feeling it.
Christina rubbed the tip of her nose against his lovingly. “I think it’s total bullshit, but that’s not my call. I’m used to being a drone in the hive. I’m not here to analyze Julian and Tori’s decisions. I’m here to help you out.”
“You can tell that you were a Fed.”
She grinned. “Yeah, and I still have Elizabeth’s boot marks on my ass from when I crossed a line.”
Kane was crazy about her. “I’ve seen your ass more than a few times. It’s mark free.”
“You’re a pervert,” she muttered, as she dropped a few kisses across his lips.
“You love me that way.”
Hell yeah, she did.
Vivian stood in the back of the art class, trying to not stand out. The room was filled with women with sketch pads, as they were drawing the male model.
And boy was he something.
It was easy to see that he was deriving great happiness from all the attention from the women in the room. He was really enjoying it, maybe a little too much.
Just at that moment, her phone beeped, and she prayed no one would turn and stare at her. That included the naked man with the discus, artfully being held in front of his more private bits.
Reading the display, it was Justin, and he was checking in with her. She read the words over and over, before typing a message back. Her heart warmed over the fact that he was cognizant of her worrying too.
It was very couple like, and that made her heart both pound and flutter with nerves. She could only hope that what she believed was coming was meant to be.
She could feel it to her soul.
As the class began to break up for the afternoon, she finished up the text, telling him she had a nude model to interview. Turning off her phone, she dropped it back in her purse.
It was time to get more information.
The model pulled a robe on and stood there, talking to a few straggling students. From where Vivian stood, the man was eating it up. Yeah, this man had some serious ego issues.
Blood Red Rage (LIttlemoon Investigations Book 1) Page 16