Deceptive Truth: Cowboy Justice Association (Serials and Stalkers Book 4)

by Olivia Jaymes

  They arrived in Douglas, a small town that wasn't too small. It had a movie theatre, which was more than the little hamlet that Knox had grown up in. There hadn't been a damn thing to do on a weekend when he was a kid except go out to the woods and have bonfires with his friends. They'd drink beer and raise hell. Looking back, Knox hadn't been so much an asshole teenager as just unbelievably bored.

  "Maybe I should just wait in the car," Jenna said when he pulled up in front of the sheriff's station. "I don't think the detective likes me."

  "Did you do something that would make him dislike you?"

  "Yes. I tried to make him do his job. He didn't like that."

  Frankly, it would be easier for Knox to go in there by himself. Cop to former cop. Especially if Jenna and this guy already had a difficult history. He didn't want to ruffle the guy's feathers right out of the gate. It was usually a good idea to keep on the good side of local law enforcement.

  "You don't have to go in if you don't want to." Knox pointed to a coffee shop across the street. "Why don't you go over there and wait for me? I shouldn't be too long."

  "Sold. Good luck. You're going to need it."

  Knox locked up the vehicle and headed inside while Jenna went to the coffee shop. The sheriff's station looked like so many that he'd visited. Desks crammed into a small space, the smell of burnt coffee, the low hum of telephone conversations.

  "Can I help you?"

  A young officer was sitting at the front counter and he barely looked old enough to drive.

  Damn, I'm getting ancient. They're looking positively adolescent these days.

  "I'm here to see Detective Bauer. I called yesterday. My name is Knox Owens."

  "Uh, right, hold on," the deputy said before scurrying off to a set of double doors at the back of the room. Knox only waited a moment before the young man reappeared, motioning for him to follow. "Mike is back here."

  Detective Mike Bauer was seated at a metal desk shoved into a corner. There was a second desk in the small room as well which Knox assumed was probably for a second investigator who wasn't in the office at the moment.

  "Grab that chair and have a seat," the detective said. "Do you want some coffee?"

  Having drank gallons of crappy coffee while a deputy and then a sheriff, Knox declined immediately. He needed to cut down on the caffeine anyway.

  They shook hands and Knox introduced himself before taking a seat opposite the other man. Dressed in blue slacks and a white button-down shirt, Mike Bauer looked like he might be in his late twenties, early thirties at the most.

  "Are you sure you don't want any coffee?" he asked, taking a drink of his own mug. "It's terrible but it's hot."

  "Really, I'm good." Knox pulled out his phone and held up the photo of Lori that Jenna had sent him earlier. "I'm here about Lori Water's disappearance. I'm told you were the detective on the case."

  "I would hardly call it a case," Bauer laughed. "There really wasn't much to it. Lori Waters left her family and they were concerned. A few days later she sent them a text that she was fine and would be in touch. Case closed."

  "Except that she never has contacted them again," Knox replied. "From what her family says, they were very close and talked or texted every single day."

  "Maybe her family has a different view of how close they are. Maybe Lori Waters wasn't as thrilled with her family as they think she was. Hell, my relatives can drive me up a wall by two o'clock in the afternoon on Thanksgiving. There's no law against someone not wanting to keep in touch."

  "That's true," Knox conceded. "But she didn't take her car. Or her luggage. Or anything from her home. You don't think that's weird?"

  The younger man shifted uncomfortably in his chair as if he didn't like being questioned.

  "Maybe she was in a hurry. Maybe she took a bus or a plane."

  "That's a possibility." Knox tried a different angle. "Did you speak to her boyfriend Callum Owens?"

  The detective's face split into a grin. "I did. Great guy. He answered all of my questions."

  I just bet he did. Charming bastard.

  Clearly, Mike Bauer hadn't put Knox's last name together with Cal's last name. Not yet anyway.

  "He was supposed to meet her for coffee that day. He said he didn't see her but the coffee shop employees say that he did. That they talked and left the shop together."

  Could it be the same shop that Jenna was sitting in right now? Shit, that hadn't even occurred to him. He needed to talk to those workers there. Being in the vehicle, right next to Jenna, was messing with his head. He needed to get in the game and keep his mind where it needed to be. Not on how lovely Jenna looked this morning.

  And she did look good.

  "Well...yeah," Bauer said, squirming in his chair again. "But after talking to them, they couldn't be completely confident that Lori Waters came in that exact day. Apparently, she came in almost every day so they could have easily gotten mixed up."

  It was on the tip of Knox's tongue to ask if the baristas hadn't been confident or if Bauer himself hadn't been confident. Those were two different issues. He didn't ask it, however. He was beginning to see why Jenna had been so desperate. It was easy to see that no one here in law enforcement was going to help her. They'd been snowed by his brother.

  "Do you have any traffic cameras that might have footage from that day?" Knox asked. "We can check that specific day and see if she was there."

  Bauer shook his head. "We only keep the footage for about ten days."

  Knox had known it was a long shot. Most municipalities kept video a very short time, some as little as twenty-four hours.

  "What about the shops along the same street? Do any of them have security cameras?"

  There was a small chance that a vendor might have accidentally picked Lori up on one of their cameras and that film was sitting in a database somewhere.

  "Some of them do," Bauer confirmed. "We don't have a lot of crime in our town but we do get the occasional break-in or kids playing pranks."

  "Did you check with any of them?"

  Knox already knew the answer.

  "No." Bauer cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Listen, I realize that you've been hired to look into this but I think you're going to find that there's nothing there. When I talked to Lori Waters’ boyfriend, he said that she was a little flaky, kinda nuts. That it wouldn't be out of character for her to just up and leave. You know the type...sexy but a little crazy?"

  "I'm not sure that I do. Her sisters say that this wasn't something that she would do at all. Lori Waters had a responsible and professional job at a local marketing firm. She didn't even have a parking ticket from what I could find. I'm not seeing the flakiness that you are."

  "I met one of her sisters. Jennie...Jennifer...not sure but it was something like that." Bauer's brows shot up. "She was a hot one. She sure as hell had a temper on her too. Probably just like her sister."

  Misogyny was alive and well, living inside of Mike Bauer. It was all Knox could do not to lift the asshole out of his chair and shove him up against the wall. Maybe even try and talk some damn sense into him, but it would be a waste of time. Knox had worked with guys like this. They weren't going to change.

  Knox stood, ready to leave. He wasn't going to learn anything useful here.

  "I think I have all that I need. Thank you for your time, Detective Bauer."

  After exiting the sheriff's station, he headed straight for the coffee shop across the street. She'd been right. He had wasted his time.

  She'd been desperate for a good reason.

  He owed Jenna an apology.

  "Are you okay? You're acting like someone spit in your food."

  Jenna and Knox were walking along the sidewalk towards a second coffee shop. This one would be where Lori had met Cal that last day. On the way, however, Knox had barely said a word and had glowered the entire time. Clearly, his mood had gone downhill in the space of thirty minutes.

  "That detective is a douchebag," Knox g
rowled. "He was no help at all."

  A better person would have simply agreed and moved on.

  But when have I been the better person?

  "I told you that he was a jerk. He treated me like garbage when I would go in there to talk to him. Smug asshole."

  "I know exactly what you mean now," Knox replied. "It seems like he fell under my brother's spell. Cal can be charming as hell when he wants to be. It didn't help that Bauer was already a misogynistic piece of shit. I bet they were two peas in a pod laughing about how emotional and crazy women are. Fuck."

  "He didn't tell you anything helpful at all?"

  "After talking to Cal, he didn't think he needed to do much. Then when the text came in, he washed his hands of the entire investigation." Knox paused his steps, turning toward Jenna. "I'm sorry."

  An apology. She hadn't expected that. For a moment, she wasn't quite sure how to respond.

  "Thank you," she finally said. "It helps that you understand why I came to you."

  "I remember Lori telling us that your family would brag about what a great cop you were. How you always caught the bad guy. There wasn't a case you couldn't solve. She also told us how you didn't take you father's side when he wanted to be paroled. That made me feel like you could be trusted to not take sides. At the very least, I thought you might be interested in proving that your brother didn't have anything to do with it."

  "You could have hired any private investigator."

  "We did hire one in the early days, right after the detective said that there was no case. The investigator looked into a few things, he worked for a couple of weeks, and then said that he agreed with the police. We were devastated and it colored our outlook for awhile. Looking back now, I should have hired another one immediately, but he sort of convinced us we were overreacting. Then as the weeks and months went by, I became more determined than ever that they were both wrong. We weren't overreacting at all."

  "Do you know what he did?" Knox asked. "Did he give you a file of his results?"

  "He said that he came up empty. He talked to everyone and that he agreed that Lori left of her own free will."

  "It sounds like he took your money and did nothing," Knox scoffed. "You should have been given any work products from his investigation."

  All Jenna could remember from those first few months was an overwhelming feeling of fear. She hadn't slept or ate well. She could barely think about anything but Lori. Perhaps if she had been thinking straight, she would have responded better.

  "We haven't had good luck. I interviewed a new investigator that day that you came to see me. He was shady as hell."

  "We're doing this now," he said. "We'll get to the bottom of it. Somewhere out there is the clue that we need. I always say that we need just one little break in the case. Just one."

  "I hope you're right."

  They'd arrived at the other coffee shop and Knox opened the door for them. "I'm going to ask that you let me do most of the talking. I promise I'll give you a chance before we leave."

  "You're the professional."

  She didn't mind. She was kind of looking forward to seeing him in cop-slash-investigator mode. This was going to be fascinating.

  The shop wasn't super busy, only a few tables occupied at this time of the day. Knox asked the young female barista how long she'd been working there and that started the conversation rolling. Within a few minutes, he had three of the workers there that remembered Lori.

  "She was always really sweet and nice," the young man said, nodding his head. "Never upset or short if there was a long wait. Always polite."

  "She had the same order every day," the redhead told them. "We'd see her walk in and she'd wave, always wearing a big smile. She'd ask about us and always seemed to really care what was going on in our lives."

  "How sure are you that Lori came in that exact date? You said she came in here pretty much every day," Knox said.

  The other young woman who hadn't said much jumped in. "I know for a fact that it was that day. It was the day I had to take my cat to the vet because she was so sick. I thought she wasn't going to make it. She's okay now but I wouldn't forget a day like that. Lori was definitely here."

  "Did you tell the detective that?" Knox asked.

  The girl shook her head. "No, he never asked me. I never saw him."

  "Kelly wasn't scheduled the day that the cop came to ask questions," the young man explained. "He said that he was going to come back to talk to Kelly but he never did."

  "I left a message for him at his office," Kelly said. "I told whoever answered the phone what I just told you."

  Jenna had already been frustrated with Detective Bauer but now she was just plain mad. He'd ignored an eyewitness. What an asshole.

  Knox didn't look any happier than she felt. His lips were pressed together in a thin line and his blue eyes were icy cold.

  "When Lori was here with her ex-boyfriend, did you hear what they were talking about?"

  "No, but...” the young man's voice trailed off for a moment. "It looked like she didn't want to be here if you know what I mean. She wasn't her usual smiling self. She kept shaking her head no, over and over. Eventually, the two of them stood up and walked out. The guy kept trying to take Lori's hand but she kept shaking him off and pulling it away. That's the last time I saw her. Or him. He hasn't been in either."

  This. Right here. This was why she suspected Cal Owens. A peek at Knox's expression didn't tell her what he was thinking, however. He wasn't giving anything away.

  "Do you have any security cameras?" Knox asked, his gaze scanning the shop. "Inside or outside?"

  "We do but they don't hold the footage for more than twenty-four hours," the redhead said. "The detective asked us that, too."

  At least Bauer had done that much.

  Knox pulled a business card from his shirt pocket. "If you think of anything else, even if it doesn't seem all that important, give me a call. Day or night. You never know what small details might mean to an investigation."

  The baristas promised that they would get in contact if they thought of anything else before Jenna and Knox took their leave, walking back to their vehicle.

  "I'm not sure what I expected, but I'm a little disappointed," Jenna confessed. "We didn't learn much of anything that we didn't know before."

  "That's how this works. We have nothing and then hopefully we finally find something. Then we follow that something until we find something else."

  "What happens if we don't find something else?"

  Jenna was afraid to ask the question but she needed the answer.

  "We'll find something." Knox's tone was upbeat. Determined. "I'm not going to give up easily."

  Neither would she.

  13

  The words of the workers at the coffee shop kept echoing in Knox's head. His brother Cal had been there with Lori that day. Lori hadn't been happy, had kept saying no, and Cal, as usual, had been trying to talk her into something. He'd probably been pissed off that he couldn't charm her anymore. She'd finally figured out Cal's game and wasn't falling for it again.

  But she had walked out with him. Shit. Had Cal offered to walk her to her car? Had she tried to get rid of him but he'd insisted? Damn, Knox didn't like this. After hearing their stories, Jenna had to be thinking the same thing as well.

  Cal had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. Knox wasn't going to be nearly as nice as Detective Bauer had been. His brother may have been the last person to see Lori Waters alive and well. Even if he didn't do anything wrong, he still might have important information that could help the investigation.

  "I know, I know. Let you do the talking and asking questions," Jenna said with an eye roll when they entered Lori's former workplace. Knox wanted to talk to her co-workers and see what they knew about her life, friends, and yes, Cal.

  "It doesn't mean you can't say anything. You're allowed to ask questions too."

  Jenna wasn't one that absolutely had to say something though. She was
more of a listener.

  That would be good because later they could discuss everything they'd learned today.

  The people on Lori's "team" at the marketing firm had agreed to sit down with Jenna and Knox and answer questions. According to Jenna, Lori had been well-liked at her workplace and everyone was upset about her disappearance. They wanted to help if they could.

  Jenna, Knox, and the four other members of Lori's team gathered in a conference room at the back of the building that overlooked a lake.

  "I feel like an animal in the zoo," Jenna said as they walked through the busy office.

  Knox had the same feeling. All the activity had come to a halt and the room was hushed, several sets of eyes watching them intently. He wondered if they had many visitors or if they knew exactly why he was here.

  They settled around the oval table and Knox didn't waste any time. There were two males and two females, all them somewhere between twenty-five and forty. In fact, from what he'd seen in the office, the demographics definitely skewed young. Not a gray hair in sight.

  "I have some questions about Lori Waters," he began, placing his phone on the table between them. "Are you okay with me recording this? I have a terrible memory."

  He didn't but he wanted to be able to remember their conversations in detail. He'd neglected to do the same at the coffee shop as the place had been loud and they'd had more than a few disruptions. The conference room, on the other hand, was quiet.

  "How about we start with the other co-workers here? I'm told that there was someone that had an interest in Lori, but maybe she didn't return their feelings. Does any of this sound familiar?"

  A woman, possibly the youngest in the group, raised her hand shyly. "I think I know who you are referring to."

  "Good. Go ahead."

  She looked at her co-workers before continuing. "We've all been feeling guilty. We feel like we should have said something before now, but we didn't want to get anyone in trouble."

  Jenna stiffened in the chair next to him. He could almost feel her holding her breath.