Dead in Her Tracks (7 page)

“If you’re trying to find some answers, why aren’t you looking for
who killed Bob
? All anyone cares about is that woman in the hotel room. She wasn’t even from around here. Bob lives in Solitude, and you haven’t said a word about his murder.”

“That investigation is ongoing too, Jake,” said Zane with a small pang of guilt. “We’re looking into both at the same time.”

“It sure doesn’t seem like it. When are you going to arrest someone?”

“When the time is right.”

“Fuck off,” said Jake. “Go eat some doughnuts. You guys don’t care about anything.” He turned his back to them, clearly finished with being cooperative.

Zane was done too.

“Make an appointment with your doctor, Jake. Maybe he’ll prescribe something to help you get over the oxy.” Zane headed out of the bar, ready to breathe some fresh air. “You’re going to be feeling like hell for quite a while.”

They stepped out the door and Zane looked at Stevie. “Does it make me a bad guy that I feel like I’m not searching as hard for Bob’s killer as I am for Vanessa’s?”

Stevie took his hand, smiling sadly. “I think it makes you human. We’re focused just as hard on Bob’s killer.”

“Because Vanessa’s murderer might be dead. Bob’s is not.”

CHAPTER TEN

L
ater that day Zane tapped a pencil on his desk and stared out the window.

Nothing was happening. He didn’t have a suspect for Bob Fletcher’s death, and he didn’t have proof that Bob had killed Vanessa Phillips.

What have I missed?

The multiple long hairs in the back of Bob’s vehicle disturbed him. There was no good reason for hair to be there unless he had hauled the bodies.

Where did he take the other women?

Zane had more questions than answers. His mind kept returning to the cash at Bob’s house. Why would someone break in and not steal the money? Had they run out of time? Or had they been looking for something specific and left as soon as it was found?

He’d searched the house expecting to find oxy. Hank had said he was an abuser, but he and Stevie hadn’t found a single pill of the drug left in the house, and there had been that bottle of Suboxone. Was the lack of oxy a sign he’d cleaned up his act or an indication that someone had emptied his stash?

Zane didn’t know.

At five o’clock Stevie stuck her head in his office. “I’m out of here. I’m going to stop by Charlene Stand’s home first. She called because—”

“She locked herself out of the house again,” Zane finished. “I thought you made her a spare key to stash under a rock or something.”

“I did. She says she used it last week and forgot to put it back.”

“I think she’s the only resident that locks all her doors and windows every time she steps outside.” Zane shook his head. He’d been trying to get Solitude residents to lock up occasionally, but Charlene took it to extremes. She worried someone would steal her collection of porcelain figurines. Zane had been in her home and her prized collection creeped him out. Hundreds of pastel figures of children with huge sad eyes. He’d felt he was in a horror movie where mobs of depressed children stared at him right before they rushed in and killed him.

“Are you going to pick the lock again?” Zane asked.

“Nope.” Stevie held up a key. “Did you think I’d give her all the spare keys?”

He laughed and gave her a quick kiss goodbye. “I’ll be home by seven.”

“I’ll be waiting with Magic. And dinner.”

Zane slumped back into his chair. Knowing Stevie had left made the office feel empty. He could hear Sheila clanking cups as she straightened up the coffee area before she left too.

He opened the autopsy report on Bob Fletcher for the tenth time. There had to be something in it to indicate who’d killed the man. The killer had had a very short window of time to get into the office . . . thirty seconds, according to Kenny. But he would have had plenty of time alone with Bob once Kenny had come back and locked the office door. Zane wondered if their suspect had left the police department unlocked on purpose when he left. A way to show he’d breezed in and out without a sweat. The killer could have sat and talked to Bob for quite a while, knowing the rest of them would be focused on the gruesome discovery of Vanessa Phillips’s body at the motel.

Was that why Vanessa had been left for them to find? As a decoy to empty out the police station? So he could silence Bob? But none of the other missing women had been found. Leaving Vanessa to be discovered had been a big risk . . . a huge risk. Someone must have been very confident the police would believe Bob had killed her. Or else someone was very, very cocky.

Often the smartest criminals believe they’re untouchable, especially when they’ve successfully gotten away with making women vanish, and that’s when they make their first egotistical mistake.

Killing Bob had been this criminal’s second.

Getting into Bob’s cell wouldn’t have been a problem for the killer. A backup set of keys sat in Sheila’s top desk drawer with the other department keys. Trial and error would have taken under a minute.

Everything indicated that Bob had known his killer. He’d given Bob a drug to counteract his withdrawal symptoms—and Bob had accepted it. There were virtually no signs of a struggle in the cell, indicating Bob hadn’t minded that someone had walked behind him at one point.

Zane closed his eyes, imagining the scene. The killer would have stood behind Bob as he sat on the chair in the cell, grabbed his head, clamped it to his own abdomen, and then struck with the knife. One long gash, Hank had said. Someone with no fear or hesitation.

Who’d do that?

Someone with some arm strength. Someone who had a degree of Bob’s trust. Someone with motive. And someone extremely confident he wouldn’t be caught.

Most motives came down to money, sex, or power.

Which would be the winner in Bob’s case?

Jake had Bob’s trust. He’d let Jake run his bar each time he went out of town. He’d supplied the man with oxy for two years . . . out of the goodness of his heart? Could Jake have been fooling everyone with his mourning for his boss? Or maybe the two of them had had an argument. Maybe Bob had cut off Jake’s oxy supply and it’d pushed him over the edge. Jake was physically suffering from his withdrawals. Men had killed for a lot less than the simple need for a fix.

Stevie pulled out of Charlene’s driveway and wondered how long Zane would stay at the office. Clearly the missing women were weighing heavily on his mind. She understood. Ever since they’d taken a step back and realized that Vanessa Phillips might be a small piece of a very large puzzle, Zane had been determined to solve it; she was too.

Her phone rang. Bruce. She pulled onto the shoulder of the road to answer.

“Can you pick up my prescription for me? It’s ready and I can’t track down Mom.”

“Bruce, it’s after five. The pharmacy will be closed.”

“I’m out of pills, Stevie. Donald said he’d keep it open a few extra minutes if I could send Mom over, but I can’t reach her.”

Stevie sighed. “You shouldn’t have waited until your medication was gone. Why didn’t you follow up on it sooner?”

“Oh wait. Apparently I
did
reach Mom on the phone.” Sarcasm dripped from Bruce’s voice.

“Very funny. I’ll swing by, but if he’s already closed you’re out of luck.”

“Thanks, Sis.”

Stevie grumbled the whole drive back to town. They all babied Bruce instead of making him take responsibility for himself. Her mom did it the most, which explained why he still lived in her house.

She stopped in front of the pharmacy and breathed a sigh of relief that a light was still on inside. She dashed up the steps and in the door. “Donald?”

The pharmacist appeared in the doorway to a back room, wiping his hands on a towel. “Hey, Stevie, did Bruce send you? I was expecting Patsy.”

“He couldn’t locate her.”

Donald grinned. “Well, I guess this is my lucky day.”

Zane stepped inside his dark cabin, frowning as he flipped on a light switch. At his feet Magic squirmed and leaped, barking a greeting, thrilled to see him but clearly needing to go outside. He held the door open for the small dog. “Hurry up,” he told her. Magic vanished into the dark of the yard.

“Stevie?”

Silence greeted him.

He waited for the dog to come back and then closed the door. He checked his small garage, where Stevie parked her vehicle. Empty.

No messages or texts on his phone. He sent her a text, waited thirty seconds, and then called her number. The call went immediately to voice mail.

“Call me,” he requested. He sent another text saying the same thing.

He went to the fridge and stared at the contents, his stomach rolling. He was starving, but looking at the food made him queasy.

This isn’t right.

He called Patsy’s home and Bruce answered. “Have you heard from Stevie?” Zane asked.

“No. I talked to her a few hours ago, and she was going to pick up a prescription for me, but she never dropped it off. I’ve tried calling her a few times.”

Stevie hadn’t told Zane she was running that errand. “When did you talk to her?”

“It was just after five,” Bruce said. “Donald said he’d hold the pharmacy open if I could get someone down there right away to pick up my meds. Mom wasn’t home, so I asked Stevie. She gave me some shit about it, but I thought she was going to do it.”

“Did you call the pharmacy to see if she picked it up?”

“I did. It’s closed. I just got their machine.”

Zane ended the call. His mind spinning, he did a quick search for Charlene Stand’s number and called.

Charlene said Stevie had unlocked her front door and left hours ago.

Magic rubbed against his legs, expecting the head scratch and tummy rub she usually received when he got home from work. He squatted next to the dog and went through the motions as his mind spun.

You’re overthinking this. She’s probably at Carly’s house.

He looked at his screen, about to dial Stevie’s sister. Instead he opened an app to locate Stevie’s phone.

It couldn’t find her.

Dread filled his lungs. Her phone had to be completely powered down not to show on the app. He knew she never powered down her phone nor let the battery run out.

He called Carly. She hadn’t heard from her sister.

He called Patsy’s number again and talked with Stevie’s mother.

“You’re worried,” Patsy stated.

“I’m getting there,” Zane admitted. “This isn’t like her.”

“I agree.”

There was a long silence on the phone between them. “Umm . . . Patsy?” Zane held his breath, hoping Stevie’s mother would give him some direction.

“I can’t feel her,” she said faintly. “I don’t understand. There’s nothing . . .”

Now he was worried.

Her head hurt like a bitch.

Stevie blinked and struggled to focus on her surroundings. Walls made of stacked concrete blocks filled her vision. She jerked her arms and tried to sit up. She couldn’t move; her hands were secured above her head. She kicked her legs and chains rattled. Looking down, she realized her legs were shackled to a bed. She craned her neck and saw her hands were secured with the same type of chains.

Dear Lord.

Panic rushed through her limbs and she fought the chains, thrashing, kicking, and yanking with all her strength.

Nothing happened.

Panting, she scoured the room. She was secured in a large area with a low ceiling and no windows. Instinctively she felt she was being held in a basement, where the earth pressed against the walls. She shouted and her voice echoed through the room, bouncing off the rectangles of concrete that lined every wall. Soundproof.

How . . . ?

Donald.

A sharp pain spiked through her skull, and she knew he’d hit her on the head. Stevie closed her eyes, searching for her last memory. Donald had greeted her at the pharmacy and chatted a bit about Bruce’s recovery from his car accident. He’d stopped midconversation and looked past her, a startled expression on his face, and she’d turned to see what had surprised him.

And she remembered nothing else.

Is this Donald’s basement?

He had that big empty house his mother had left him . . .

He killed Vanessa Phillips.

Stevie knew it with every cell in her body. She studied the room, knowing Vanessa must have been chained exactly as she now was. Had the other missing women been here too? How many?