Cop by Her Side (The Mysteries of Angel Butte)

by Janice Kay Johnson - Cop by Her Side (The Mysteries of Angel Butte)

  Breath shuddered in and out a few times before he resumed his story. He’d tried calling his wife back, but the phone rang and rang and then went to voice mail. He tried again; same thing. Although alarmed, he figured she’d pull in any minute. Melissa had probably dropped the phone and couldn’t reach it.

  Only, she hadn’t shown up. He’d waited for a bit, although it wasn’t clear whether that was ten minutes or thirty. Finally, he got his younger kid up, put her in the family’s second car and took her to the neighbor’s. “We’re on an acreage,” he explained. Clay knew, pretty close, where the address he gave was. It was an area of nice, modern homes that were each on two-and-a-half or five-acre lots. Clay couldn’t have afforded any of them on his salary from the county. He tried to remember what Jane had said the brother-in-law did for a living, but failed and didn’t want to interrupt him now.

  Drew went on to explain he’d then gone home again to be sure Melissa hadn’t showed up, after which he’d driven her logical route to the outskirts of Angel Butte where the Rite Aid was located. He didn’t spot her Toyota Venza anywhere.

  Clay made another mental note. If he wasn’t mistaken, the Venza, a crossover, had been new in 2013. It wasn’t the most expensive vehicle on the road, but it didn’t come cheap, either. The Wilsons must have money. He wondered what Drew drove.

  Drew had called his wife’s mobile phone half a dozen more times. He’d driven alternate routes. He’d gone home again to find she still hadn’t returned. Scared, he’d come to the sheriff’s department, from which, ironically, the Rite Aid could be seen.

  “Let’s back up here,” Atwood said. “Any chance your wife is prone to impulse shopping expeditions? Say she remembered Target is having a back-to-school sale, and since she had your daughter with you she decided to stop?”

  “What about the last thing I heard on the phone?”

  “Maybe another driver cut her off.”

  Drew shook his head and kept shaking it. He seemed to have forgotten Clay had propped himself against a nearby vacant desk and was listening without intruding himself. He didn’t kid himself that Atwood had also forgotten he was there.

  “Maybe she didn’t call you back because she was annoyed at you,” the detective suggested in a tone of “it happens to all of us.” “She as good at sulking as my wife is?”

  “No!” Drew scowled. “She’s—” He seemed to fumble with how to describe his wife. “She’s...”

  “Fiery, huh?” Atwood’s eyebrows rose. “Say, you didn’t have an argument before she left, did you? Maybe she’s pissed because you expected her to buy something like athlete’s foot powder? Or because you pressed her to take the kid when she didn’t want to?”

  An expression crossed Wilson’s face so fast, Clay couldn’t quite pin it down. “She didn’t want to take her,” he admitted, sounding as if he wished he didn’t have to. “I told you. But...it wasn’t like that. Anyway, she wouldn’t disappear if she was mad at me. Especially not with Brianna.”

  Clay was getting a bad feeling about this. He excused himself to check on recently reported vehicular accidents, abandoned cars and the like while Atwood nailed down more details, especially a more precise time frame. Exactly when had Melissa called? Three hours ago or forty-five minutes ago?

  The bad feeling got a hell of a lot worse when he reached the desk officer, who immediately said, “Yeah, there’s been one possible fatality accident.”

  Jane’s sister, dead? Shaken, Clay learned that Melissa Wilson had suffered a head injury and had been transported to the hospital in critical condition. Deputies were investigating the cause of the accident.

  Clay called a deputy who was actually at the accident site.

  “A kid?” He sounded appalled. “There was no kid in the vehicle when it was spotted.” He swore. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Clay said grimly. “Unless there’s another explanation—or we’re being fed a line of bull by the father.”

  He strode across the squad room to where Drew Wilson sat with his head buried in his hands.

  “Mr. Wilson,” Clay said formally, “do you have a home phone?”

  Jane’s brother-in-law straightened, having aged even in the past five minutes. “Sure, but Lissa wouldn’t have called it.”

  “I’m afraid,” Clay told him, “there was an accident involving a Toyota Venza registered to you and your wife. The woman driver has been taken to the hospital. Last we know, she was unconscious. A police deputy has been trying to reach you, but unfortunately would have used your home phone rather than a cell number.”

  “The hospital?” Drew repeated numbly. But then his face changed and he lunged to his feet. “Bree. Is she okay?”

  Clay didn’t like saying this, but there was no alternative. “Your daughter wasn’t in the vehicle, Mr. Wilson.” Seeing the horror in a father’s eyes, he raised his hand. “It’s likeliest that your wife dropped her off somewhere before the accident. At a friend’s house, perhaps?” He hesitated. “Especially given that the Venza wasn’t found between your home and Rite Aid.”

  “But...I heard Bree when she called.” His wild glance swung between Clay and Detective Atwood. “I know I heard her!”

  * * *

  JANE WAS CHEWING the hide off two detectives who had allowed half the citizens of Angel Butte to tromp through a crime scene when her desk phone rang. She gave it an irritated glance. She’d asked not to be interrupted and decided to let it go.

  “And what about the log?” She stabbed the document in question with her forefinger. “I know for a fact that patrol officer Gwen Schneider walked through the house. Perhaps you can explain what she contributed to the investigation.”

  Kyle Griffin’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times.

  She leaned forward. They’d get back to the reason why a pretty young patrol officer had been given a tour of a nasty home-invasion scene. Now, though, she turned the log around so they could see the list of names with times of arrival and departure. Both sets of eyes were drawn irresistibly to it. “Perhaps,” she said with silky menace, “you can point out to me where her name is.”

  “How did you know—?” Phil Henry was stupid enough to blurt.

  Her cell phone began to ring. She shot it an exasperated glance, having already ignored a call from her brother-in-law, then felt a weird clench in her chest when she saw the displayed name. Clay Renner. Somehow she’d never deleted his phone number from her address book. Why would he be calling in the middle of the afternoon?

  She wanted to mute the damn phone and ignore him—but he was one of her counterparts at the sheriff’s department.

  Jane blistered the two detectives sitting across from her with a stare, said, “Excuse me, I need to take this,” and picked up the phone. “Vahalik.”

  “Jane, Clay Renner here.”

  Conscious of her audience, she said stiffly, “Sergeant.”

  “This is about your sister.” He hesitated. “Your brother-in-law came in to report her and their daughter Brianna missing. Melissa’s vehicle was located in a ditch. I’m at the scene. She suffered a head injury, Jane. She’s in ICU, still unconscious. I’m afraid I don’t know more. I’m focusing on another problem. The girl is missing.”

  “Oh, dear God,” she whispered. “Drew... Is he all right? What about Alexis?”

  “Alexis is safe with a neighbor.”

  “Did anyone see the accident?”

  “No. A young couple on a day hike popped out of the woods just down the road from the SUV. They say another car had stopped. When the man called, ‘Hey, is anybody hurt?’ they heard a car door slam and the vehicle sped off. Fortunately, they were carrying a cell phone. They didn’t try to move your sister once they realized she was unresponsive.”

  “If the other car caused the accident and the driver freaked...?” Even in sho
ck, she knew that was stupid.

  “A logical assumption, except that we’ve so far been unable to locate Brianna. Your brother-in-law went home to get his wife’s address book and lists of names and phone numbers for Brianna’s summer day camp and her first-grade classroom. Mr. Wilson started with the kids he thought she might be friends with, but so far no one has heard from her or Melissa today. We still haven’t given up hope that your sister dropped her off somewhere—a friend’s mother might have called to see if they could take her on a picnic or something that means they’re not answering their phone. But at this point—”

  “You have no idea where she is.” Oh, God. She sounded so harsh.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Lieutenant.”

  She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”

  “Working on the assumption that she was a passenger when the accident occurred, we’re organizing a search. Volunteers are already arriving.”

  “I don’t know whether to help or to go to the hospital.”

  “Your brother-in-law is now at the hospital.”

  She swallowed, trying to think. “Then I’ll come help search. If Bree’s hurt or hiding for some reason, she’d recognize my voice.”

  “All right,” Clay said. He told her where the SUV had gone off the road, and when she asked what Melissa could have been doing there, he said only, “At this point, we don’t know. You okay to drive?”

  “Of course I am!”

  “Then I’ll look for you.” He disconnected.

  Jane pushed her chair back and rose, looking at the two men in front of her. “You disgraced your shields today. Straight out of the academy, you should have known how to secure a crime scene. You are both on suspension until we can discuss this further.”

  They argued. She told them to go home, then detoured by Captain McAllister’s office, found him there—another workaholic—and told him what she’d done and why, and where she was going.

  He listened and shook his head. “Family comes first,” he said, and asked if she should be driving.

  She stared at him. He was serious. Colin McAllister was more like Clay Renner than she’d wanted to admit. She couldn’t imagine either man would have asked that question if she’d been male.

  “I’m fine,” she said shortly, and left.

  * * *

  EVEN AS SHE DROVE, Jane puzzled over what Lissa had been doing out on 253rd, a little-traveled back road that would, heading west as Lissa had apparently been, have ultimately bisected a somewhat busier road that meandered between Angel Butte and Sun River far to the north. If she’d wanted to go to Sun River, though, it would have made a lot more sense to backtrack east to Highway 97, the major north-south route. And there were way more logical ways to return home or even to go into Angel Butte.

  Okay, people did live along 253rd, so she might have taken Bree to some friend’s house out there. But then, if she’d already dropped Bree off, why wasn’t she heading back toward home? And—there weren’t that many houses out here. Probably fortunately, as Jane was ignoring posted speed limits.

  Bear Creek ran on the right of the road, which was several miles outside the Angel Butte city limits; she vaguely recalled a picnic area that shut down in the winter. She passed the decrepit sign for a long-since-closed resort and recalled a shooting that had happened there last December involving Colin’s wife, Nell. Maybe this stretch of woods had some kind of bad karma.

  Slowing at the sight of a dozen vehicles ahead parked along the shoulder, she shook off thoughts of Lissa’s motives. Lissa would open her eyes anytime and tell them what she was doing here. Jane loved her sister fiercely even though she didn’t always like her. She refused to even consider the possibility the head injury was severe enough that Lissa wouldn’t be opening her eyes.

  She parked at the end of the long line of cars, pickups and SUVs, then locked her vehicle and hurried forward. The burble of the creek, running low in late summer, and voices calling from the woods drifted to her ears as she rushed along the pavement toward the closer sound of other voices ahead.

  Several men stood just outside the yellow tape surrounding her sister’s red Toyota. Aware one of those men was Clay and that he’d turned when he heard her hurried footsteps, Jane initially ignored them to gape at her sister’s Venza, a sporty crossover. Ditch had been a misnomer. Really, it was more of a bank that dropped toward the creek. It appeared as if a cluster of small alders and shrubbery was all that had kept the Venza from plunging another ten feet down into Bear Creek.

  Clay separated himself from the group and approached her, his blue eyes intent on her face. He wore chinos and a polo shirt. She wondered if he’d been working today anyway, or if he had been called in. But no, she realized right away—that made no sense. Like her, he worked major crimes, not traffic accidents. In fact...what was he doing here?

  “Jane,” he said with a nod.

  As always, she reacted to his physical presence in a way that aggravated her. Even his stride was so blasted male.

  “Have you learned anything?” she asked, although she knew better. He’d have called if her sister had regained consciousness or a search-and-rescue volunteer had found her niece.

  “I’m afraid not.” He sounded regretful. “We’ve been going over the ground around the vehicle without finding a damn thing.” Lines furrowed his forehead. “We need to find the driver of the other car that stopped. I’d hoped for a tire impression that would give us something to go on to locate it.”

  “Can’t the hikers you said called tell you a make and color?”

  He grimaced. “They think it was a car rather than a pickup or SUV. But it was apparently parked in front of your sister’s SUV, which blocked their view. They were standing—” he turned and pointed back the way she’d come “—probably fifty yards away. They were aiming to come out at the picnic ground where they’d left their car, but they heard the sound of what they thought was a small waterfall and cut through the woods.”

  “Is there a falls here?” Jane asked, puzzled.

  “No. Not enough elevation change. We’re thinking they heard an engine.”

  She nodded. “What can I do?”

  He led her to a man who appeared to be the organizer of the volunteers here to hunt for Bree. They had initially concentrated their efforts on the creek side of the road, in part because a child getting out of the vehicle would have had to scramble up to the road, while sliding down to the creek would have been easier.

  Jane met Clay’s eyes and knew what he was thinking. If Brianna had been scared and running away. But why would she have been?

  Please, please let her be safe with some friend and her family.

  Not hiding for some reason in the woods. Or—worse.

  Her mind slammed shut on even the possibility of worse. No, no. Worse would mean somebody had snatched her, and that was ridiculously unlikely.

  “What about that old resort?” Jane asked. “It has a bunch of cabins.”

  “A couple of deputies went over there,” Clay said. “Talked to the people who own it. They run some kind of group home and use the cabins that are in better repair for teenage boys. Some of the boys helped scour the place. The deputy I talked to said they even got down and checked beneath porches.” He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “I wish there was more I could do,” she said helplessly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you’d rather be here.”

  “Yes.” She made herself say, “Thank you for calling me. I’ll, um...” She gestured toward the search-and-rescue guy.

  “Wait.”

  Surprised, she looked up at him.

  “Your sister and her husband. Were they having any kind of problems?”

  Jane grappled with the question. “You’re not thinking—”

 
“I’m not thinking anything yet. Just asking questions.”

  “They’ve been having to tighten the belt,” she said after a moment. “If that’s what you mean by problems. Drew lost his job, oh, probably four months ago and hasn’t been able to find anything comparable. Being out of work is upsetting for him. I don’t know any man who would like the idea of his wife supporting the family. He’s started looking farther afield, and I know Lissa isn’t happy about that, but I wouldn’t say they were fighting about it or anything.”

  “Would she tell you if they were?”

  “One of them probably would.” She couldn’t say Drew would have, because then she’d have to explain that he was more than just her sister’s husband, that it was because of her he’d met Lissa, and that she and her sister had a tense relationship at the best of times—and that these recent months had not qualified as the best of times.

  If she wasn’t imagining it, Clay’s eyes had narrowed slightly. He’d heard something in her voice, even if it was only restraint.

  “How much do you see of them?”

  She looked away from him, watching as more volunteers arrived and were dispatched across the road into the dry woods. From each direction, she heard voices calling her niece’s name. “Oh, you know. Dinner probably once a week. Sometimes I take the girls somewhere.” She watched a middle-aged man in hiking boots and camo pants accepting instruction, nodding, and starting across the road. “I should be with them.”

  “You can join them if you want, but you’ll do more good helping me understand if there’s anything going on here besides a woman running off the road by accident in broad daylight and a kid either being misplaced or taking off.”

  “Bree wouldn’t.” Despite herself, she couldn’t help looking into Clay’s face again, hoping for... She didn’t know. Reassurance? As angry as she still was at him, she knew he was a smart cop and a strong man. It disturbed her now that she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His expression was kind, but also detached. “Why would she?” she asked him, even knowing she was pleading. She hated how small her voice sounded.