by Janice Kay Johnson - Cop by Her Side (The Mysteries of Angel Butte)
The vacant cabin on Bear Creek was even more run-down than Lissa had described it. Uninhabitable, in Jane’s opinion. She and Clay had left his Jeep at the county park and made their way along the creek, then through the woods, until they reached the clearing where it stood.
“Cover me,” he said finally, despite the sagging roof that made it unlikely anyone would try to hold a captive inside. Nodding, Jane gripped her weapon while he moved swiftly across the open ground to flatten himself on the back wall of the ramshackle cabin. Watching him, she was struck again by the grace and athletic ease of his stride. If she’d gone instead, she’d probably have stepped on half a dozen dry branches that would have cracked loudly, but Clay managed to move silently. Like the soldier he’d been, she remembered, accustomed to ghosting through enemy territory.
When she realized suddenly that he’d edged up to a window, glanced in and was shaking his head at her as he walked openly back in her direction, Jane was embarrassed to realize how wholly she’d let herself be distracted.
She holstered her weapon and raised her eyebrows when he got near, hoping her cheeks hadn’t flushed.
“One room,” he reported. “Floor’s rotting.”
“I wonder how they knew it was a good place to meet,” Jane said thoughtfully.
His brows drew together. “Good question. I didn’t recognize the property owner’s name, but I’ll dig deeper.”
The sun was setting when, hungry and discouraged, they bought a pizza and took it back to Clay’s cabin in the woods. While he got out plates and drinks, she escaped to his bathroom to clean up. She’d acquired a long scratch across her upper arm from a careless encounter with a branch that wasn’t as flexible as she’d thought it would be. She gently washed it and used antiseptic she found in his medicine cabinet to bathe it, wincing at the sting. Then she took her hair out of the ponytail, brushed it with her fingers and put it back. Not a whole lot of improvement, she was afraid, inspecting herself in the mirror, but there was only so much she could do.
Clay’s gaze went straight to the scratch. “Got you good,” he observed.
She made a face at him as she sat down at the table and reached for a soda. “It’s not fair. You’re way bigger than I am, and no vegetation got in your way.”
He grinned. “I had some serious training, you know. I told you I was an army ranger, didn’t I?”
She nodded. She’d found the idea he had been special forces disturbing on a lot of levels.
“I grew up hiking, fishing, hunting, too,” he added. “Even did some mountain climbing.”
“Do you still hunt?” she asked, not sure she approved. Hypocritical though that was, when she was reaching for a slice of pizza with Canadian bacon on it.
And, oh, wow, it tasted good.
“No, that was Dad’s thing. I prefer to buy my meat at the supermarket.” Clay’s mouth quirked. “I must have gotten that from my mother. I could see the dread in her eyes when we showed up with a dead deer in the bed of the pickup truck. I don’t know if she was thinking about Bambi, or merely trying to figure out what she’d do with all those strange cuts of meat, but she wasn’t enthusiastic. I don’t think Dad ever noticed,” he added reflectively.
“My father was not an outdoorsman,” Jane said, wiping her fingers on a napkin. “I got excited when I biked to the park in town.”
Clay nudged the pizza toward her. “That’s actually as nice a stand of old-growth trees as you’ll find anywhere.”
“I thought it was spooky when I was a kid.”
He polished off a slice of pizza. “Isn’t that where Captain McAllister’s wife was abducted when she was a teenager?”
“Yes. Did you hear about the bones that turned up last fall when a crew took down some of the trees infested with beetles?”
“Yeah. Hey.” He looked interested. “Was it your investigation that early on?”
As they ate, she told him about it—finding a backpack with a pitiful store of belongings that turned out to be all a boy had owned in the world. A picture of himself with his mother, the Purple Heart his father had earned in Vietnam before dying over there. The poor kid had been killed the same night Maddie Dubeau had been attacked and disappeared so completely, it was as if she’d vanished from the face of the earth.
Like Bree, Jane thought with a shiver.
With his sharp gaze, Clay noticed. “You okay?”
“I was thinking of the parallel with Bree.”
“Not the same,” he said, in the gentle voice that broke down her defenses. “Maddie—she’s Nell now, isn’t she?—came upon a genuine psychopath.”
“My boss,” she reminded him. Lieutenant Brewer had headed Investigative Services for the ABPD until the investigation she and Colin McAllister conducted closed in on him. Colin had shot the man he’d considered friend and mentor while she had braced herself and gripped Colin by the belt to keep him from falling out of the open door of the helicopter as he lined up the shot.
Clay’s face darkened. “It’s the worst when our own goes bad.”
She couldn’t argue. Finding out this past year how many cops, both city and county, had been on the payroll of drug traffickers had sent a shock wave through the local law enforcement community.
Clay pushed his plate away with an abrupt, almost angry movement. “Damn. I wish we didn’t have to let up tonight.”
Jane’s meal suddenly felt indigestible. “Where do we go next?” she said.
“We keep looking. Other employees. Relatives. Friends.”
“Because friends or relatives are eager to lend their ski cabin to hold a kidnapped child.”
He looked sardonic. “Some people’s friends might not be.”
He couldn’t very well say your friends or relatives might not be. Because they now knew what her closest relative was capable of doing.
“But these mostly look like such ordinary people,” she argued, determined to prove her original point. “I mean, take Glenn Arnett. His daughter is at one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation. He’s a CPA. When I went online, I found a newspaper article about his wife chairing a fund-raiser for the senior center. Do you really think she knows how her husband is paying that college tuition?”
“Probably not,” Clay admitted. “You’re right. You have to wonder if people like Stillwell and his pet accountant even think of themselves as criminals. Maybe to them it’s just business.”
“Shouldn’t we have someone following Stillwell and Arnett?” she asked abruptly.
“We’re monitoring the comings and goings at the trucking company right now, including theirs.” He sounded cautious. “Outside that... My guess is they’re both keeping a healthy distance from a kidnapped child.”
“Maybe.” She’d been thinking, though. “Drug running is one thing, murder and kidnapping another.”
His eyebrows rose. “They do tend to go hand in hand.”
“That’s true, but we don’t have any reason to think Stillwell has ever had to commit either crime before.”
“Granted,” Clay said after a moment.
“So he’s not likely to keep a strongman on the payroll.”
His mouth twitched, as though he was amused by her description. “If our suspicions are right, he’s in an ugly business. My bet is that he’s had to do some intimidating or worse by now. A trucker who wants a raise or else, say. There might well be someone on the payroll who has arranged accidents for him.”
“But this is different,” she argued. “Closer to home. And a little girl.” Was it really him she was trying to convince? Or herself.
“I’ll give you that,” he said. “I’ve met some major scumbags who wouldn’t consider killing a cute seven-year-old kid.”
“So what if it’s only the two of them who knew about Lissa’s blackmail? How many people wou
ld they want to know that they’d screwed up and let some bookkeeper see information that jeopardized the whole enterprise? If they’re transporting illegal drugs, they’re working with some rough people who expect discretion and competence. Stillwell and Arnett could have been desperate enough to decide to kill Lissa themselves. Keep the whole thing quiet. Maybe they intended it to look like an accident. When that didn’t work out...well, plan B went into effect, but they’re still trying to handle it on their own.”
She half expected Clay to instantly discount her theory, but instead she could see him clicking through the possibilities, weighing them against what he knew about the two men.
“Yeah,” he said at last. “I can see it. All right. You know there’s some risk they’ll spot a tail.” He paused, watching her.
He was right—they’d been going to great lengths to avoid doing anything that would panic either Stillwell or Arnett. Even so...they couldn’t let Bree go. If they hadn’t already realized that kidnapping a kid had been really dumb, they were going to have an epiphany any minute. Being caught with Bree in their hands was the worst thing that could happen to them right now.
She gave a mental gulp but nodded.
Clay gave a small nod, warmth and sympathy in his eyes. “I’ll put someone on them tomorrow. You and I can take over when they cut out of work.”
She smiled at him. “Good.”
“In the meantime,” he stood and came around the table to pull her to her feet, “I’d like to kiss you.” His voice had become husky.
“I can’t stay,” she said hastily. “Drew really does need someone he can talk to.” Seeing Clay’s frown, she laid a finger over her lips. “But I think I can spare another hour.”
He groaned and rested his forehead against hers. “I guess I can settle for that.”
“I feel guilty.”
He lifted his head. “Because your niece is still missing and you don’t feel like you should grab even a few minutes of happiness?”
She nodded.
“You know there’s nothing more we can do tonight.”
“I do know.”
“Damn, Jane,” he muttered, bending to press soft kisses on her forehead. “Do you know how much I want to wake up in the morning with you?”
Her heart gave a quick, hard squeeze. “No. But...I’d like that, too.”
“Soon,” he said against her lips.
“Yes,” she whispered, just before his mouth claimed hers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE DRIVE-THROUGH at McDonald’s? Really?
Nothing Jane had heard about Glenn Arnett made her think he was a fast-food kind of guy, but who knew? According to the deputies who’d spent the day in visual distance of Stillwell Trucking, neither he nor Stillwell had left the building since their arrivals that day at 8:12 a.m. and 7:43 a.m., respectively. Maybe Glenn had forgotten his lunch and was starved. Maybe his wife was planning a dinner party and he detested the entrée she’d insisted on.
Seeing that a couple of bags were being passed to him, Jane amended her speculation. Maybe he was taking dinner home.
Jane bent her head and pretended to be digging in her purse when the Escalade started forward almost directly toward where she was parked at the curb, signaled and made a left then accelerated away from her.
Her phone rang. Clay.
“Stillwell went by the hospital,” he said tersely. “He’s in there right now.”
“Even if he gets in to Lissa...”
“What about Drew?”
“I primed him to tell anyone who asks that she doesn’t remember what happened,” Jane said.
“What’s really worrying me are the nurses. We could have been overheard talking to your sister.”
Oh, God. Jane didn’t remember paying attention at all to whether anyone else was near. “Surely they’re expected to be discreet.”
His grunt echoed what she knew to be true—people liked to talk, and they especially liked to talk when they knew something no one else did.
“You got anything?” he asked.
“Arnett went through the McDonald’s drive-through.”
A moment of blank silence was followed by, “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. But we’re moving again.”
“All right.” He was gone.
At the moment, the dark blue Escalade appeared to be en route to the Arnetts’ home. Which was probably exactly where he was going, Jane thought, fear swooping toward her, a hawk casting a dark shadow as it descended.
This was going to be a bust. Jane knew it. She would spend the entire evening sitting a block from Arnett’s house waiting for something to happen that never would. Of course a CPA wasn’t checking daily on a kidnapped kid! Assuming he even knew about the kidnapping. Once Lissa had started blackmailing Stillwell, he’d probably made a phone call and said, “Take care of her.” He might be agitated now because whoever was supposed to do the job had failed so abysmally, but that didn’t mean he knew anything about Bree’s whereabouts or what Lissa had seen or not seen.
And Arnett? Drug traffickers hired muscle for the ugly stuff; they didn’t send their accountant, for heaven’s sake.
She and Clay were running out of ideas. Oh, Bree.
She tuned sharply back in when she realized the Escalade had not made the logical turn to take Glenn Arnett to his house a block from the Deschutes River in Old Town Angel Butte. Instead he was continuing sedately toward the outskirts of town.
Taking the burgers and fries to his son at work? She had no idea if the boy—Josh, if memory served her—even had an after-school job.
But they passed the city limits, generously drawn after last year’s annexation, and Jane was forced to drop even farther back as cars she’d been hovering behind turned off. The road narrowed and acquired a yellow line down the middle. There’d been some development out here, but mostly of houses on at least one-acre lots. The land was becoming forested, which meant as the road wound, she lost sight of the Escalade. Plus side was, he would be less likely to notice her behind him.
She came around a bend and her pulse picked up when she saw only open road ahead. No—another road turned off to the right only. A flicker of red brake lights reassured her, and she turned, too. Now there was no other vehicle between them. She told herself he’d have no reason to guess she was working the case or that he was a suspect, and even if he did, he was unlikely to know what she drove. Besides, half the people in central Oregon drove sports utility vehicles of one kind or another.
It was another half a mile before he turned again, this time into a driveway that cut through a stand of ponderosa pines beyond which was a vast swath of lawn. Jane slowed to verify that the Escalade was indeed slowing and stopping in front of a two-story house with a steep pitched roof and a three-car garage. She automatically took in the address on the side of the mailbox before she continued past, debating her next step.
Turn into the next driveway, she decided. With luck, nobody would be home.
At least nobody was outside. Trees screened the house from the neighbor’s, enough that she doubted Glenn would notice a vehicle parked here. She had to get out and walk partway through the narrow band of woods to see him on the porch, the bags from McDonald’s in his hand. She couldn’t tell whether he was using a key to let himself into the house, or whether someone had opened the door. A moment later, he’d disappeared inside and the door closed.
Her phone vibrated. Walking back to her Yukon, she answered. “Clay?”
“Stillwell still hasn’t come out,” he said. “What about Arnett?”
She told him where she was. He promised to call back as soon as he had the owner’s name. Jane took the time to trot up to the front porch of the house she sat in front of and ring the doorbell, manufacturing a cover story as she waited. To her relief, no one ap
peared to be home.
Clay called before anything happened next door. A Gerald and Helen Taylor owned the property in question. With Jane still on the line, Clay looked up DMV records and was able to tell her that Gerald was sixty-nine, his wife a year older. Clean driving records, no criminal history.
“Wait,” she said, interrupting him midword. “The garage door is opening.”
“Jane, can he see you?”
She ignored his alarmed question. “He’s pushing a ride-on lawn mower out.” Arnett disappeared into the recesses of the garage again and reemerged with a red gas can.
He’d changed clothes, she realized belatedly, and was now dressed for yard work.
“Okay, this is really strange.”
“What’s so strange? He gobbled a quick burger and fries and now he’s going to mow the lawn.”
“Gerald Taylor’s lawn. Why would he do that?”
“Friends?”
“This is a really upscale house. People like this hire a lawn service when they’re away, they don’t ask their accountant buddy to stop by and mow.”
“Crap,” Clay said suddenly. “There’s Stillwell. He’s walking fast, and he doesn’t look happy. He’s getting into his Land Rover.” Pause. “Already has his phone to his ear.”
The mower next door started with a roar. Arnett’s back was to her as he steered the mower in a straight line toward the far property line. As smooth as that lawn was, he couldn’t be cutting more than a quarter inch or so. People who didn’t water their lawns weren’t having to bother mowing at all this late in the summer.
“Hold on,” Jane said, set down the phone and grabbed her binoculars. There was definitely a vehicle in the garage. She wanted to see it. If she got a little closer...
“Jane?”
“I’ll call you back,” she said and cut the connection.
She made her way between trees, glad she didn’t have to worry about whether she made noise or not. By the time she got into a better position to see into the garage, the mower was heading her way, and she tried to make herself skinny behind the bole of the largest tree. The roar grew louder as she stayed completely still, her body locked with tension. Then the sound changed subtly and she eased to the side to see that Glenn had started back the way he’d come.