Cop by Her Side (The Mysteries of Angel Butte) (3 page)

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

* * *

E
VEN
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.

His gaze turned from hers to move restlessly over the woods. “If she’s out there, it’s because she’s scared. My first thought was that she’d gone for help. She’s old enough to think to do that. But surely she’d have headed for one of the houses.”

“Bree is really mature for her age—” She didn’t even want to say this, but had to. “Unless she stopped a car and...and got unlucky. The driver was some kind of creep.”

A pedophile.
Please, God, no. Brianna was a beautiful child. She’d taken after Melissa, who’d always stopped traffic. Melissa, who used her beauty as a way to handle people.

Clay’s gaze had locked on her face again. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Then where is she?” she cried.

His jaw tightened. “I don’t know. If we have to seriously start considering this an abduction, though, we need to look at family first. You know that.”

It took a minute for the implications to sink in. “Me?”

“Of course not you!” he snapped.

“Then
who?
It’s only Jane and me.”

“What happened to your parents?”

She couldn’t
not
answer, but she also couldn’t look at him while she said any of this. Instead she fixed her gaze on the trees across the road. “My mother walked out on us,” she said, ignoring his close scrutiny. “I was eleven, Lissa eight, so it’s ancient history.” She did her best to sound matter-of-fact. “I have no idea if she’s even still alive. My father died when I was twenty.”

Maybe she was wrong in fearing that Clay heard things she wasn’t saying. After all, look what an insensitive jerk he’d turned out to be. But no matter what, she didn’t like telling him stuff that was so personal. She never talked about her childhood. If she had one desperate need in life, it was to be invulnerable. Why else had she gone into a male-dominated profession where
she
could hold the authority?

If she’d made him curious, he didn’t comment. “What about your brother-in-law’s side?”

“His parents are in Florida. They were out here for Christmas. They seem like nice people.” She shrugged. “Drew has a brother and a sister. They came, too, with their families. Um, I think the brother may work for Boeing. His dad did, too, before he retired. That’s where Drew grew up, near Seattle. The sister... I don’t remember where she lives, but not locally. She’s married and has kids, somewhere around the same ages as Bree and Alexis.”

“Your sister get along with his family?”

Lissa had bitched for weeks about having to host Drew’s whole damn family. That was how she’d put it. “The house is going to be stuffed, and we’ll be lucky if any of them even offer to pay for any groceries,” she had groused. “
Or
help with cooking and housework. They’ll probably be happy to have me providing maid service. And I can’t stand Kelsey. You know that.”

Jane did know. Lissa didn’t like Kelsey because she thought Drew’s parents did more for the baby of the family than they did for Drew and his brother. Kelsey’s husband taught English at the middle school level and they’d agreed that Kelsey wouldn’t work outside the home at least until their youngest reached first grade, so they did make a whole lot less money than Drew and Lissa. Or at least, than Drew and Lissa had at the time, when he’d still had a job. Drew’s parents had wanted Kelsey to have a safe vehicle to drive their grandchildren around in, so they’d bought her a Dodge Caravan at about the same time Lissa had insisted on trading in her four-year-old Rav4 for something newer. She had been bitterly resentful that they hadn’t even offered to help with the cost. “Our income doesn’t have anything to do with it!” she’d snapped, when Jane was unwise enough to try to reason with her.

“They didn’t see that much of them,” Jane said now. “Things seemed fine at Christmas.”

He looked at her thoughtfully, and she knew—
knew—
that he had noticed how uncomfortable she was.

“All right, Jane.” His phone rang and he answered it immediately. “Renner here.”

He’d half turned from her as if to shut her out, but he didn’t walk away, so she couldn’t help hearing his side of the conversation.

“No change?” Pause. “Uh-huh.” He frowned, listening. “Yeah, we’re out beating the bushes for the kid. We’re going to feel like idiots if it turns out she’s at the public swimming pool or, I don’t know what little girls do, a toenail-painting party.” A grunt. “Tell him to keep trying.” Whoever had called talked some more. “What about that last clerk at Rite Aid?” Clay asked. Something changed on his face at the answer and he turned to look at Jane. “Okay. Let me know.” He returned his phone to his belt.

She didn’t like his expression. “What?”

“We’ve now talked to everyone working at Rite Aid today, including the pharmacists. Not one of them remember seeing your sister or the girl. It’s looking a lot like they never went there at all.”

“But—” Jane stuttered “—she told Drew...”

“I know what he claims she told him.” The emphasis on
claims
was subtle, but unmistakable.

“Why would Drew lie? This was an accident!”

“Was it?” Clay’s angular face was hard now, all cop. “I’m starting to wonder.”

CHAPTER THREE

R
ICH
B
ALDWIN
,
A
sergeant in the patrol division, crossed his arms atop the open driver’s-side door of his unit and eyed Clay. “I’ve got to admit, I wondered why you were there early on.”

He paused, eyebrows raised, but Clay didn’t rise to the bait. Damned if he was going to admit to having a thing for a woman who despised him.

The eyebrows flickered, but Baldwin gave up and finished his thought. “I’m glad now you were. It’s looking more like your baby all the time.”

Clay grunted his agreement, although he could not freakin’
believe
he was dealing with the second kidnapping of a child within a matter of weeks. Except for the everyday domestic blow-up variety where Dad didn’t bring the kids home when he should just to spite the ex-wife, kidnapping almost never happened around here. He kept telling himself the girl was going to turn up anytime, that there was a reasonable explanation for her disappearance.

But as the hours passed, the odds that seven-year-old Brianna Wilson would turn out to have spent the afternoon with a friend were looking longer by the minute. At 7:30 in the evening, your average family’s dinnertime had come and gone and the sun was dropping low in the sky. Kids that age did overnights, but according to her dad, Bree hadn’t taken pajamas, toothbrush or anything else with her.

A deputy had stayed at the Wilson house to answer the phone, mostly in hopes some mother would call and say, “Was I confused? Weren’t you going to pick Brianna up by six?”

Clay almost wished he could anticipate a ransom call. That would have been better than the far uglier alternative. But though the Wilsons’ house was nice, even before Drew lost his job, they didn’t have the kind of money that would make a scenario of that kind probable.

Ankles crossed, Clay leaned against the fender of Baldwin’s squad car, parked not far from the emergency room entrance. Clay was arriving, Rich departing from the hospital.

“I don’t like that we couldn’t find Mrs. Wilson’s phone,” Clay said.

“Or that it’s dead to the world.”

Destroyed, he meant. If she’d given it to the kid to take with her, they should have been able to triangulate its location even if Brianna had somehow turned it off.

Yeah, the completely missing phone was a puzzle piece slotting into an increasingly ugly picture in Clay’s mind. He just wished there weren’t so damn many missing pieces still.

A missing
kid
was what he really meant. Clay had seen Brianna Wilson’s first-grade school picture now, as well as a formal family portrait of the whole family taken just before Christmas. Bree, as Jane called her, was a doll, Clay hadn’t been able to help thinking, on her way to being a stunner. Her hair was the same chestnut-brown as Jane’s, highlighted with red, and wavy like hers, too. And, damn, but Clay did love Jane’s hair. Little Bree had just enough freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose to be cute. In both photos her untroubled grin showed missing front teeth. Unlike Jane’s, the kid’s eyes were a warm brown.

Clay was ashamed in retrospect at how closely he had studied that family photo, fascinated to see how the sisters resembled each other and yet...didn’t. He guessed most people would have said Melissa had gotten the looks, but nothing about her face stirred him. Yeah, she had finely sculpted cheekbones, a pouty mouth that made him wonder about collagen and a perfect arch of eyebrows shaped by a master hand, but she looked hard to him. As if she’d summoned that smile when the photographer said, “Cheese!” but didn’t really mean it.

Or maybe he was prejudiced because he liked everything about Jane’s looks, including her round, gentle face and curving forehead that was almost too high, the tiny dimple that formed in one cheek when she was trying to hide amusement, the pretty mouth, the eyebrows that—well, she was a girl, so she probably did some plucking now and again, but not often.

Jane would never believe him if he told her he’d been drawn to her face even before he’d noticed her generous breasts or well-rounded hips. She seemed convinced now that he’d never lifted his eyes above chest level.

Not relevant,
he told himself for about the dozenth time today. This wasn’t about Jane. It especially wasn’t about Jane and him.

“Baldwin, I’m keeping you from leaving,” he said, slapping a hand on the hood of the car and pushed himself away from it.

Baldwin nodded and lowered himself behind the wheel, but didn’t immediately pull the door closed. “Lieutenant Vahalik says search and rescue was called off?”

“An hour ago. I take it she isn’t happy?”

“I think she’s mostly scared. Doesn’t matter that she’s a cop. This is her family.”

“Can’t blame her,” Clay agreed, lifted a hand and strode toward the hospital entrance.

He knew his way to the ICU. From well down the hall, he saw Jane alone in the small waiting area outside it. She was staring fixedly at the double doors that kept her out. It struck him that he’d never seen her so absolutely still before. Jane was too full of life to waste time sitting still.

Whether she heard his footsteps or not, she didn’t react. He had almost reached her when her head finally turned. He was shocked at the sight of her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her mane of curly hair slipping from its usual ponytail and, for one unguarded moment, he saw all her stress and fear before she managed to mostly blank her expression.

She rose to her feet in a single jerky motion. “Have you found—?” The answer must have been apparent on his face, because she dropped back down as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry.” He took the chair next to her and reached for her hand. It felt so small, too delicate to hold a heavy handgun, never mind to fire it. To kill.

Damn it. If he couldn’t get past thinking things like that— Oh, who was he kidding? He’d had his chance and blown it. And...did he
want
to change his thinking so drastically?

Yeah. For Jane, he did.

“Any word on your sister?” he asked.

Her eyes, puffy and desperate, never left his. Her hand held tight to his, too. “There’s no change. They’re letting Drew sit with her. Every so often he comes out to give me a report, or...or he takes a break and I go in. They’re calling it a coma now, Clay. They drilled a hole in her skull to relieve the pressure. The doctor isn’t saying what he thinks the prognosis is. Or else he told Drew, who is lying to me.”

“She’s your only family.”

“Her and the kids.” Her shoulders moved a little. “And Drew.”

“Damn, Jane.” He cleared his throat. “I wish you weren’t having to go through this.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she blinked furiously, not letting them fall. “Shit happens, right? Who knows that better than we do?”

He couldn’t argue.

“Where’s Bree?”

The way she looked at him, as if he was capable of miracles, made his sinuses burn. Produce the kid and redeem himself.

He’d give damn near anything to be up to this particular miracle.

“I don’t like what I’m thinking,” he said gruffly. He couldn’t lie to her. Jane wasn’t most women. She was tough. He knew that. “Did Sergeant Baldwin tell you Melissa’s cell phone is missing?”

“He says it might have been destroyed.”

Clay’s thumb circled on the back of her hand. “Yeah. And we both know that’s not good.”

Her head bobbed. Either she hadn’t noticed they were still holding hands or she needed the contact too much to let go no matter how much she detested him.

“The phone at your sister’s place hasn’t rang once. Home phone numbers are on those lists handed out by the day camp and the school, so we know the odds are any of her friends’ parents would have it, not just Melissa’s cell number.

“We’ve got an Amber Alert up,” he told her. “That may or may not lead to FBI involvement. At this point, with no unexpected dents or scrapes on the vehicle, we don’t have any evidence to suggest your sister was forced off the road. It’s still entirely possible Brianna is with a friend, and has maybe spent the night before so the mom or dad figures Melissa had some crisis but will call tomorrow.”

Despite the fear in her eyes, a tiny hint of hope sparked. “It is possible, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He wished he believed it, but didn’t see how it would hurt if she did, at least for a little while.

“Okay.” She ducked her head suddenly, probably to hide tears. “Thank you.”

He bent over her and kissed the top of her head, letting himself inhale the scent that was uniquely Jane. For a moment she seemed to sway toward him, as if she was going to let herself lean, but then she squared her shoulders and straightened, tugging her hand free at the same time.

“You probably have things you need to be doing—”

“I wanted to talk to you some more, and then to your brother-in-law.”

She visibly armored up. “To me?” she said, polite but surprised.

“Yeah. You. You know your sister. You know your niece.”

A cautious nod.

“I expected Drew to have a better idea who his daughter’s best friends are.”

Tiny lines puckered that high forehead. “I think that’s because Bree’s two best friends are both gone. The summer hasn’t been a very good one for her.”

“Gone,” Clay echoed. It had to be a reflection of his job that he equated
gone
with
dead.

“Moved. Well, Poppy’s family moved, and to Texas, no less, which means no visits. They’d been friends since preschool. And then Bree’s other best friend, Schuyler, was in a foster home, but Lissa said the courts finally terminated the mother’s parental rights and they’re trying Schuyler in a potential adoptive home. Which unfortunately is in... I forget. Bend or someplace. Close enough for sleepovers, but not to be in the same school, which means they’ll forget each other by October, probably.”

“Sleepovers,” he repeated.

Her hope brightened. “Schuyler would have been on that class list, but the phone number would have been for the foster parents who don’t have her anymore. It could have been impulsive....”

He was already shaking his head, even though he hated to dim the light in her eyes. “I’ll check. You can count on that. But if your sister was going to take Brianna to a friend’s house, why wouldn’t she have stopped at home first to let her pack a bag? Plus, it doesn’t explain why the accident happened where it did.”

Her shoulders sagged. “You’re right.” Then she cried, “Oh, why doesn’t she wake up and
tell
us what happened?”

She sounded as if she was angry at her sister, which might be natural, or might not.

“Melissa,” he said, pursuing the thought. “The two of you close?”

Jane’s gaze slid from his in what he recognized as evasion. “Yes.” She hesitated. “I mean, we have our moments. Don’t most siblings?”

“Sure,” Clay said easily. “My brother and I beat the crap out of each other every now and again just for the hell of it.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “I can safely say that Lissa and I never get violent. We just, um, have stretches where we don’t talk very often. You know.”

No, he didn’t, but he wanted to. “What about lately? Have you been talking? Would you know if anything was going on with her?”

“Anything?”

“Say, trouble with her husband.”

Some anger fired up on her face. “The husband who is in ICU right now holding her hand and praying for all he’s worth?”

“Two people can fight and still care about each other.”

“But you’re suggesting something a lot worse than fighting.”

Yeah, now that she mentioned it, he was. He couldn’t help thinking of a couple of moments where something had been really
off
with Drew Wilson. It was a gut feeling more than anything else, but Clay trusted his gut.

“I’m trying to get a complete picture, that’s all. You’d be doing the same if you were in my shoes.”

She slanted a suddenly suspicious look at him. “Why
were
you at the accident site so early on? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Clay shook his head. “Nothing like that.”

“Then why?”

He moved his shoulders, trying without success to ease the new tension. “I’d come in for a few hours to catch up on reading reports.”

She nodded. She’d been at work on a sunny Saturday, too.

“One of my detectives was taking a report from Drew. He’d given his name, and then I heard him talking about Melissa and Brianna. It clicked that he had to be your brother-in-law and that it was your sister who was missing.” He grimaced. “I was curious.”

Jane studied him, long enough for it to become uncomfortable. Her pupils dilated slightly, as if...he didn’t know. Finally she gave a funny little nod. “Thank you.”

Which meant she knew he’d stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong because he was worried about
her.
“If it had been the other way around...”

“You’re right.” Now she didn’t want to meet his eyes. “I’d have been curious, too.”

There was a bump in his chest, as if his heart had maybe skipped a beat. Was she implying...? Something else he didn’t know.

Damn.
Focus. Do your goddamn job.

“You didn’t really answer my question.
Was
Melissa speaking to you lately? For some reason you want me to think everything was sweetness and light between her and Drew, but I need to know if it wasn’t.”

She averted her face. He sat through the silence while she struggled with herself. When she finally looked back at him, her expression was guarded.

“No, we haven’t been getting along well lately. Like I said, we have...tensions. There’s three years between us, and after Mom took off I sort of stepped in as a mother figure. Then Lissa was only seventeen when Dad died and she lived with me until she graduated from high school. Especially once she hit about thirteen, she resented me having any authority over her. Her favorite line was, ‘You’re not my mother and you can’t tell me what to do.’” Jane shrugged. No biggie, she was trying to convince him. What had she said?
Ancient history.