by Karen Fenech
Devoe nodded. “Yeah.”
She snapped off her gloves, then removed her mask and gown and dropped them in the laundry basket by the door. “I’ll have my report out to you in a couple of days, Jake.”
“Thanks, Tina.”
“Hey, my daughter has a piano recital next month,” Devoe said. “Can I twist your arm into buying a ticket?”
“Put me down for two,” Jake said.
Clare added her thanks to Tina Devoe.
As they left the building and stepped into the sunshine and heat, Jake said, “I’m thinking about what Tina said that the fractures were controlled. What if the guy had gotten good enough to know just how hard to hit for his intended result?” Jake’s voice was tight with tension. “If that’s the case, then Sara wasn’t his first victim. How many other women are buried in those woods? Short of digging up every particle of dirt out there, how the hell do we find them?”
Jake was right. At times it was only through the killer that bodies were recovered. It came down to striking a bargain. To offering a reduced sentence or the removal of the death penalty to a murderer in exchange for the location of victim remains. It was obscene to Clare that they may be forced to offer Dannon a plea.
When they returned to Farley, Jake pulled into his driveway and parked, to let Clare off at the house. He’d told her earlier he had a meeting with the Assistant District Attorney about a case that was coming up for trial, and that the meeting would likely run for the rest of the afternoon.
Now, he turned in the seat and faced her. “You haven’t said ten words since we left here this morning. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Clare said, and popped the door latch.
His regard changed, became scrutinizing. He wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t linger to give him an opportunity to question her further.
Inside, Clare resumed her study of Sara’s photos, searching for some clue to finding Beth. In each of the pictures, Sara’s hands were shown—no—that wasn’t accurate—in the picture with the dog only her right hand was shown. Sara wore a ring—silver or silver color on that hand. The same was true of the Christmas photo.
Clare scanned the other pictures. In each one where her right hand appeared, Sara wore a ring on her middle finger. Clare frowned. She’d looked at the photos retrieved from the cabin, but couldn’t recall seeing a ring. Joan Bass, the school teacher who’d seen Sara at the pharmacy, had mentioned a ring. Clare dug out Joan’s statement and confirmed the description.
Clare found the pictures of Sara’s captivity. There were two full-length shots of Sara wearing the thong, bustier and stilettos she’d been buried in. Sara’s arms were at her sides. Clare squinted, but in these, she couldn’t see the hands clearly enough to determine if there was any jewelry.
She was about to take a look in Jake’s desk for a magnifying glass to view the photos of the hands, when she came across two more pictures, taken from the waist up. In them, Sara wore a ring on her right hand.
She reached for the report from the search of Rich Dannon’s cabin. Scanning the list, she read over what had been found. No ring.
Clare shook her head. It hadn’t been found on the skeleton. She thought back to what she’d seen. No, there hadn’t been a ring. Sara had not been wearing a ring. Where was it?
The list of Sara’s effects was here somewhere. Clare looked over the papers, then finding the one she wanted, reviewed it. After a moment she looked up and stared into the distance. No ring.
She tapped the corner of the page against the table. Dannon went to the trouble of recording the crime in photographs and on video. He was into souvenirs. It fit that he would want a trophy to remember Sara by. Keeping her ring for himself fit.
She picked up the photo of Sara taken the day before she disappeared. Her hands were clasped in front of her, the ring visible. She had it the day before she was abducted. Had she lost it in her struggle with Dannon? Did the location of the ring even matter? How would this help to find Beth?
Clare slumped in the chair. She was fresh out of ideas, out of options, and had no thoughts of where to go from there to find her sister.
* * * * *
Jake unlocked his front door, then hung back as Sammie ran inside. Clare was hunched over the files in the Sara McCowan case. She glanced up at their entrance. It was now after six o’clock. Likely, she’d been at it all afternoon. The injuries she’d sustained in the fire and the stress of the investigation were taking a toll on her. She was pale, her eyes haunted. This morning, on the stairs, she’d looked . . . destroyed. It was killing him to see her like that.
Sammie dropped the small purple backpack she was clutching on the carpeting as she dashed to Clare. “Friday is movie night! We’re having popcorn and pizza. I like pineapple pizza. Do you like pineapples, Clare?”
Clare’s lips curved. She touched Sammie’s button nose gently. “Love ’em.”
Sammie gave Jake a radiant smile. “See, Uncle Jake!”
He held up both hands in surrender. “The women win. Pineapples it is.”
“Lots!” Sammie declared.
He winked at his niece. “You got it. While I call in the order, go wash up, sweetie.”
Sammie took off at a run. Jake took his cell phone from his pocket, and called the pizza place in town. The order would be ready for pickup in twenty minutes.
He ended the call then glanced back at Clare. She averted her gaze, rubbed her brow with what looked like enough force to remove skin. He went to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and began to knead knots of tension.
“Easy, honey,” he said.
She stepped back from him.
“Clare?”
“I’m finished!” Sammie called out from the stairs.
* * * * *
When Jake got back from picking up dinner, Clare and Sammie were setting the kitchen table.
“. . . and Heather’s brother Willie ate all the cookies in the cookie jar,” Sammie said, “. . . and then he threw up! Yuck!”
Clare winced and placed a glass on the table. “Sounds like Willie won’t want to eat cookies for a while.”
Jake entered the room. He set the pizza on the counter. Steam rose from the box, carrying the aroma of ham and cheese, and the sweet scent of pineapple.
“Uncle Jake!” Sammie whirled around to face him. “I just told Clare that Willie threw up!”
Jake had heard about Willie earlier when he’d brought Sammie home from the Norths. “Did you?”
She nodded. “I told Clare how he got it on his shoes and everything!”
Jake rubbed his hands together. “On that note, let’s eat.”
After dinner, with a huge bowl of popped corn on the coffee table, and a Disney DVD in the player, Jake dropped down onto the thick cushions of the sofa. Sammie scooped up a handful of popcorn. She fed him a kernel, then another. The musical score for the animated flick began and she crawled into his lap, munching and humming.
He looked to Clare. Instead of sitting beside him, she chose to sit in an arm chair. Jake frowned.
Halfway through the movie, Sammie began to snore softly.
“She’s worn out,” Clare said.
The first words Clare had spoken since dinner. Jake welcomed them. “Big day over at the Norths. I’ll take her up.”
In Sammie’s room, Jake draped a sheet over her arms and legs. Breathing in the scents of baby shampoo and popcorn, he kissed the top of her head. He closed the bedroom door softly behind himself and returned to Clare. She’d moved to the dining room and was looking at a photograph.
“We need to talk with Dannon again,” Clare said.
Jake hadn’t planned to get into the investigation with her tonight. He planned to take her to bed and wipe all thoughts of it from her mind.
“I intend to talk with Dannon again,” Jake said.
Clare looked up from the photo. “We need to push him about Beth.”
Jake rubbed his forefinger back and forth beneath his chin. “I’m not s
ure about that. Something doesn’t feel right about this case. I’m wondering if everything is just a little too neat.”
“What do you mean?”
Jake frowned and rolled his shoulder. “I’m wondering if the case against Dannon came together too easily.”
“You’re questioning if we have the right guy?”
“Yeah.”
Clare lowered her gaze. She seemed to be mulling that over. “I want to be at the interview.”
Jake took in the bruising at her neck. This time Dannon would be chained to a table. Jake nodded to Clare. “Of course.”
He blew out a long breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m calling it a night. You ready for bed?”
“Yes.”
But she remained in the chair, stacking photographs she was holding, and tapping them on the table to align the edges.
He watched her fuss with them for a time, then said softly, “Those edges couldn’t be any straighter.”
She nodded and set them down. She got to her feet and made her way to his bedroom. Jake trailed her, mindful of her injured leg. He took a detour to check on Sammie, then joined Clare where she stood at the window. It was a clear night, the sky alight with the moon and the stars. Cool air rose from the floor vent nearby and carried Clare’s fragrance. His body warmed and hardened.
Jake reached out and pushed a strand of hair back from her cheek, his fingers lingering on her skin. He leaned in and brushed his lips across hers in a long, slow kiss. She didn’t return it. Rather, she tensed. Her gaze narrowed. The look in her eyes wasn’t the welcome he’d hoped for.
Jake drew back. “Clare?”
“I want to go to sleep.”
She looked beat.
“Sure.” His voice was soft.
He went to the bed, stripping off his T-shirt, then unbuttoning his jeans.
“I meant I want to sleep alone,” she said.
Her tone was ice cold. The woman with him now bore no resemblance to the one who’d burned with passion in his arms two nights ago. This wasn’t about the investigation. No, this was something else.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
She turned on him. Her look was as cold as her voice. “I don’t care for your presumption that because we had sex once that’s the way it would be from now on.”
“As I recall, it was more than once,” he said with a smile.
She held his gaze.
He tried again. “Not presumption. Hope.” Again, she ignored his humor. He regarded the rigid set of her shoulders and wondered about them. “Your call, Clare.”
He could feel waves of tension coming off her. Whatever she was thinking had her wound tight. “You want to tell me what’s on your mind?”
“In the morning I’m going to take a hotel room in Columbia.”
“Why?”
“Because I shouldn’t have stayed here in the first place.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“Jake, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if my search for my sister hadn’t brought me here. We went three years without a word. In all likelihood, we would have grown old without our paths ever crossing again.”
“You’re here now.”
“And in a few days, or a week, I’ll be back in New York and you’ll still be here. You didn’t pick up the phone or hop a plane because you want us to be together on any terms than not be together at all. We’ve been down this road. I won’t go down it again.”
Jake struggled to hold onto his temper. “So that’s it? You made the decision and I have nothing to say about it?”
“No more than I had when you ended things.”
“Payback, Clare?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “I’m saying that three years ago, I had to abide by your wishes. I expect you to do the same now.”
He held up a hand. “How the hell did we get here?” He shook his head. “It boggles my mind that we’re having this conversation.”
“I think it’s best we don’t talk about this anymore. We’ll just end up saying things that will stand between us on the job. We still have to work together and we need to be amicable.”
Jake stared at her. “Oh, yeah, absolutely, we need to be amicable!” he said with thick sarcasm. He left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter Twenty Two
Clare was parked in front of what remained of the house she’d once been renting. She’d left Jake’s place before dawn. With no destination in mind, she drove around town for a while, ending up here. The house was crumbling, losing bits and pieces of itself to the elements. The search for Beth and the situation with Jake were tearing chunks out of Clare, and like the house, she was losing pieces of herself.
The sun cleared the horizon, illuminating the skeletal structure and the piles of ash that littered the ground.
Skeletal structure.
The unfortunate choice of words brought Sara McCowan to Clare’s mind. The detail of the missing ring pinched Clare like a sliver under her skin. The ring should have been with the videos and other souvenirs Dannon had saved of Sara. Yet, it wasn’t there.
What did they know for sure?
Dannon picked up Sara McCowan at The Starlight Club. Had sex with her on separate occasions, at different locations, the last at his cabin. Dannon claimed he left the cabin with Sara alive and well. Then Sara had gone missing. Four years later she was found dead.
Jake was rethinking the case against Dannon. If not Dannon, then there was someone else in Farley who’d abducted Sara and buried her in the woods behind Rich Dannon’s cabin. Was the location of the grave to the cabin a coincidence or a deliberate attempt to implicate Dannon in Sara’s murder?
Clare exhaled deeply. Where was she headed with this? They had Dannon neatly wrapped up like a Christmas package. That thought reminded her of the photo of Sara taken at Christmas time, and to the hand that wore the lapis lazuli ring. The ring that was missing. She was back to that.
She leaned back against the car’s headrest. Was she grasping onto the ring and the idea of another unsub because if it were Dannon, and he didn’t tell them where he was keeping Beth, then Clare had nothing to find her sister? The promise of someone else involved gave her new hope: Find the unsub. Find Beth.
Clare didn’t deny her desperation in finding her sister, and that she could not be objective when it came to Beth. It was possible that she was making something out of nothing to resurrect her flagging hope.
Sara had allegedly been kept at the cabin. The cabin was remote, but it was not unknown. Could Dannon have concealed a woman there for the length of time needed to kill her as Coroner Devoe had described, slowly by starving her to death? Others knew the place existed, which risked detection.
If the cabin was Dannon’s secret hideaway and he’d taken Beth, she hadn’t been there when they’d gone in. So where was she?
Jake was considering that the case against Dannon had come together too neatly. Was he right and the reason they hadn’t found Beth at the cabin was because someone else was holding her?