Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to take on this investigation and should’ve left it to someone more experienced. Sure, Cord was a veteran detective, but his relationship with Eve didn’t make him the best person for the investigation, either. Perhaps he should have recused himself, but she totally understood why he didn’t. He loved Eve and would investigate with or without Kendall. Better he was part of the team than going rogue.
She took a long look at him for the first time since last night. They shouldn’t have kissed, not with everything going on, but goodness, kissing him held a depth she’d never experienced before. Not even with him. An undercurrent in her heart told her he meant far more to her than she was willing to admit. And that made him dangerous. To her heart. To her career. To her dreams. To finding Eve.
And yet, she was drawn to him—inexplicably drawn to him—and felt powerless to stop it. She took a long look at him and she could almost feel the tension rolling off his body as he had a surprisingly calm discussion with Lucas about horses when he must be nearly terrified about Eve by now. And she knew he was also very concerned about protecting her, too, and her heart was full of gratitude for his care.
His phone rang, and he frowned as he answered. “Mr. Jepson.”
Finn. Kendall sat forward to try to listen in, but her phone buzzed, taking her attention.
“Matt,” she answered.
“Eve called the bank again. She sounded panicked. Said her life was on the line, and if she didn’t have the money first thing in the morning, she’d be in big trouble. She said she would call again tomorrow morning.”
“First thing in the morning,” she heard Cord exclaim. Finn had to be sharing the same news with him.
“Were you able to track the call?” Kendall asked Matt.
“She hung up before I could. But I have the number, and I’ll run it down.”
“Likely a burner again, the call coming from somewhere that won’t help us figure out where she is.”
“Likely.” A long sigh flowed through the call. “We’ll need to meet tonight to decide if you all want Finn to release the money.”
Kendall didn’t want to even ponder that yet. Not when she still had a day to locate Eve. “I’ll call you to set up a time.”
“Oh, and before I go, I should mention that your waitress came in to do the sketch today. Turns out she doesn’t really remember the diner as well as she thought. She couldn’t provide enough details to get an accurate drawing.”
After yesterday, Kendall wasn’t surprised, but didn’t think she could handle another piece of bad news. As she disconnected, she noticed she’d received several emails.
When Cord hung up, she stood. “The phone records are here.”
Cord got up, too, and squeezed Lucas’s shoulder. “Listen to Jed, okay?”
Kendall waited for Lucas to snap, but he paused for a moment as if he wanted to say something, then nodded and took another big bite of his third waffle. Kendall didn’t know what she could attribute his cooperation to, but she was glad for it.
In the hallway on the way to her dad’s office, she looked at Cord. “Matt told me about Eve’s call. If we don’t locate her today, we’ll meet tonight to decide how to handle the morning.”
He nodded and didn’t say anything, but his worried gaze did the talking for him.
“You should also know Billie Jo couldn’t give enough details for a solid sketch.” Kendall sat behind the desk and opened the cell-phone records. “I’m sending Eve’s cell-phone logs to the printer. Go ahead and start looking at them while I print the landline files.”
By the time she got those printing, Cord was reviewing the cell records. She grabbed the other sheets and took them to the desk.
“No calls.” He slammed the pages down on the desk. “Not a single one.”
“So, she really did treat it as an emergency phone, then.”
“Looks like it.” He gritted his teeth. “What about her landline?”
“Lots of calls. Most local. A few to Houston, which I assume were to you.”
He gave her his phone number, and she confirmed that. She handed over half the pages and got out her notebook. “Let’s start by crossing off your calls and then Gladys’s and Pauline’s numbers.”
She laid the notebook where he could see the women’s numbers, and she started down the list. It was soon clear that the majority of calls went to them. When she reached the end of her pages, Kendall looked up the church’s and shelter’s numbers online, then jotted them down, too.
“Moving on to the shelter and church.” She tapped on the notepad, and he started striking through calls again.
She slowly but surely eliminated all but a few phone numbers. When she reached the end, she turned to the computer and did a reverse phone lookup on the remaining numbers. One was for the library, one a grocery store and three others for a drugstore.
“I struck out,” she told Cord.
“I have a few.”
“Give me the pages, and I’ll look them up.”
The last two numbers were their pastor Mark’s cell number. “Okay, I’m baffled. Eve was setting up dates with this man, but how?”
“I’d say she phoned from church, but then Gladys or Pauline would have known about that. Maybe she called from the shelter. Or even used a payphone, but why? It’s not like she would’ve expected anyone to look at her call logs.”
“She could’ve messaged him on Facebook,” Kendall said. “We really need the records for her Facebook account. I’m going to have Dad call them. Maybe as the sheriff, he can get them moving faster.”
She dialed her dad, and after getting his confirmation, she stood. “It’s time for another visit to Herman Ball.”
He didn’t live far from Trails End, so they were pulling down his long driveway in less than ten minutes. And he was there, leaning against a fence post. He looked exactly like his driver’s license picture, but Kendall didn’t think he was distinguished looking as Billie Jo had claimed. He wore faded jeans, ratty boots and a faded plaid shirt. Maybe if he was dressed nicely instead of in work clothes, he could pass for her description.
Kendall opened her car door. Herman stood to his full height, his eyes narrowing in a dark and dangerous expression that put Kendall on edge.
“I don’t like the look of this guy,” Cord said. “So stay close, okay?”
She really didn’t need Cord’s protection from Herman, as he was unlikely to kill her in front of Cord, but she didn’t want to argue, so she nodded and climbed out.
“Mr. Ball,” she said when she arrived in front of him.
He gave a single nod. “What can I do for you, deputy?”
Kendall introduced herself. “Do you know Eve and Oliver Smalley?”
“Did,” he said. “Ollie passed away, though, right? A few years ago.”
She nodded, and she could swear she saw his lips turn up in a grin before he wiped it away.
“You used to date Eve,” Kendall stated and waited for his explanation of the relationship.
His hand tightened on the post. “Did, until Ollie stole her and my oil leases. He was a real snake in the grass, that one was.”
Kendall couldn’t believe this belligerent man could have sat across the table from Eve and looked like he was in love with her. “Tell us about that.”
“Whatever for? That was years ago. Water under the bridge.”
“So you aren’t still mad at Ollie?” Cord asked.
“Mad, yeah, sure.” He locked gazes with Cord. “’Course I am. Won’t ever let it go. But the guy’s dead, so what’s the point in thinking about it?”
Kendall took a step closer to draw his attention again. “Maybe with Ollie gone you decided to pursue Eve again.”
He snorted. “No way that would ever happen. Not with how Ollie poisoned her mind against me.”
“Look, I don’t know what this is all about,” he finally said. “But I haven’t seen Eve in ten, fifteen years. And only then it was at the grocery store, when I was with my wife.”
Kendall took out her notepad and flipped to the page where she’d jotted down the dates Eve dined at Buddy’s.
“Where were you on the following nights?” She started down the list.
He arched a silver brow and widened his stance. “Can’t rightly remember off the top of my head. I have to keep everything written on a calendar nowadays. ’Sides, I don’t see how it’s rightly any of your business.”
“Eve’s missing,” Kendall stated plainly. “We think you had something to do with that.”
“Me?” He clapped a hand on his chest. “Me? No. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Like I said, I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Then you won’t mind taking a walk up to the house and showing me your calendar,” Kendall said.
“Mind, yes. But I’ll do it just to get you off my back.” He stomped off, and she followed behind, Cord nearly glued to her side like a bear with a honey pot.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “He could grab a gun or weapon of some sort.”
“Doubtful,” she said. “I really think we surprised him.”
“He could be a good actor.”
“Or you could be too close to this to see the truth.”
“Maybe.”
Her phone chimed, and she glanced at the text. “Dad says Facebook promised the data by the end of the day.”
“They must know your dad’s reputation and decided not to put him to the test.” Cord grinned.
“He does have one, doesn’t he?” Though it would never happen, she smiled as she thought of her intimidating dad staring down the Facebook CEO and demanding Eve’s files.
Her smile evaporated when she heard Herman’s boots coming their way. Herman pushed open the screen door and joined them on the porch. He held out a large paper calendar. “What dates were those again?”
She gave him the first one.
“Was visiting my youngest in Houston that whole week.”
“I’ll need the name and phone number to confirm.”
He rattled it off, and she noted it on her pad, then provided the next date. “Bingo at the VFW hall. Tons of people who can vouch for me.”
“Give me the names of a few.” After she recorded the names he provided, she gave the last date.
He frowned. “Don’t rightly know where I was that night.”
“May I look at your calendar?” She didn’t trust his word and also wanted to see his handwriting to determine if it had the same swirly s that was on Eve’s note.
He shoved it at her. She took her time looking at each page, but the man’s s’s were squared off, not soft and swirly. And, as he said, the dates checked out. All except the last one. But square letters or not, he could still be holding Eve on his property.
She returned the calendar to him. “Mind if we have a look around the place?”
“Yeah, I mind.”
“Then, Mr. Ball, I’m going to have to ask you not to leave the area until further notice, as I’ll need to get a warrant to search your property.” She didn’t have enough probable cause, but he didn’t know that.
“I got a trip planned.”
“I’m sorry, sir. But you’re a person of interest in the disappearance of Eve Smalley.”
“Fine. Look around all you want. I got nothing to hide.”
“Let’s start with the house.”
He spun like a soldier beating a hasty retreat and led them inside. The place was a mess, newspapers and magazines everywhere and dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.
He crossed his arms and eyed her. “And before you say anything, a messy house isn’t a crime.”
They made their way through the place, room by room, and then the outbuildings, as well. No sign of Eve and no sign of disturbed soil that might indicate he’d buried a body. It still didn’t mean he didn’t kill her and dump her body elsewhere after she called this morning.
“See.” He held out his hands, palms up. “Nothing to hide, like I said.”
“Thank you for cooperating, but unless you can come up with an alibi for that final night, I’m still going to have to ask you not to leave town.”
“You played me.” He took a step toward her.
Cord slid in between them so quickly, she didn’t even have time to react. “Go ahead. Give me a reason to haul you in.”
Herman eased away, and they backed toward the car.
Cord kept gazing out the window in Herman’s direction. “You still think he’s innocent?”
“He sure seems capable of violence, but I don’t know. I bought his story.”
“So, what next?” he asked.
“The computer-recovery program should be finished running, so I’d like to stop back by the office to check that out. And also check on this guy’s alibis.”
“I can make the calls and look for any connections with Eve to the other men on the trophy while you do that.”
“Perfect.” She cranked the engine and got them on the road.
“We work pretty well together, don’t we?” he asked out of the blue.
Surprised at his change in subject, she glanced at him.
He blinked a few times. “What’s that look mean?”
“Look?”
“Come on, you know you were giving me a look. Be man enough to tell me what it was.”
“Man enough, huh?” She chuckled.
“I didn’t want to come across as sexist, so I thought I’d treat you as I would any other deputy.”
“But I’m not, am I? Any other deputy, I mean.”
“No. And is that what the look was for?”
She shook her head. “We do work well together, but I don’t like it.”
“You lost me there.”
“I figured you’d be all pushy and bossy like you used to be. Maybe even worse. But you’re not. You’ve let me take the lead most of the time, and other than being concerned for my safety, you haven’t been bossy at all.”
He arched an eyebrow. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“It is when I was counting on it to keep me from falling for you again.” She met his gaze and held it for a moment. “Is that man enough for you?”
He nodded and looked away. She didn’t know why he couldn’t look at her any longer, but she wasn’t going to question his decision. She would leave it alone and hopefully be woman enough not to bring it back up later.
FOURTEEN
Facebook made good on its word, but eight o’clock at night was cutting it close to the end-of-the-day promise. Still, as Cord sat down with Eve’s private messages in Walt’s office, with Kendall at the computer, he was thankful they’d come through at all. And it was a good thing they had, as the interviews that afternoon hadn’t turned up any new leads, and they had only fourteen hours until the deadline Eve had set for receiving the money.
As Kendall scanned Eve’s account on the computer, Cord started reading the printout and came to a stop when he spotted the name Phillip Reese several times on the page. Cord flipped through the messages and saw that the guy was a frequent flyer in her Facebook messaging app. “Eve’s been messaging with a guy named Phillip Reese for some time.”
“I’ll look up his DMV records.” Kendall started typing. “No records for a Phillip Reese, so he never registered a vehicle in the area.”
Cord continued down the page and couldn’t believe what he was reading. “The messages say they connected over their passion for church and dogs. He uses social media as a way to ease his loneliness, he
claims. Guy says he lives in Alaska but is from Texas and misses his home state. He wanted to move back but had some health issues. Claims he spent all of his retirement fund on doctors and has no money.”
Kendall looked up, her forehead knotted. “I don’t like the direction this is going.”
“Me, neither.” Cord kept reading. “This goes on for about a month, and then he claims their Facebook friendship has blossomed into something more than friendship. Says he really loves Eve and wants to marry her. But he can’t afford to come to Texas. So she wired him money for travel.”
“But how?” Kendall asked. “Her bank accounts didn’t show any electronic-fund transfers.”
“Reese said he didn’t have a bank account, so she took cash to Western Union.”
“This is bad, Cord. Looks like he’s catfishing her.”
Cord was fully aware of the term that meant a person pretending to be someone else to lure another person into a relationship, often for financial gain.
“This is a classic con, called a sweetheart scam, to befriend an elderly woman or lonely woman online,” Kendall continued. “We’ve seen an uptick in this kind of scam on the cybercrimes task force I mentioned, but none of it ever manifested on a local level. It was all done online and no one met up in our area.”
“Maybe he didn’t move here. He claims he had a few additional setbacks along the way, needing money, so she wired him even more.” He turned the page. “Oh, you go, Eve.”
“What?”
“She became suspicious of Reese’s money needs and asked him point-blank if he was using her. Of course, he said no and then claimed he’d arrived in town and used the money she wired to rent an apartment. They agreed to meet at a restaurant.”
“Let me guess. Buddy’s.”
“Yes.” Cord started to look up but something caught his eye. “Wait, this is interesting. He says that the picture he used for his profile was his brother’s. Reese apologized for misleading her. He said he’s not as handsome as his brother.”
Taken in Texas Page 14