All but one of the calls had been to Whitehorse, Montana numbers. McCall took the list back to her office, picked up the phone and dialed the out-of-state number first. A rest home? Hadn’t Detective Diaz told her that Josephine’s mother was in a rest home?
After she’d established that Ella had been in that rest home, she hung up, wondering why RJ had called there.
McCall dialed the first Whitehorse number.
“Packy’s,” a woman answered.
Why would RJ call a convenience mart?
McCall hung up and checked the other numbers. A call to the other two convenience marts in town. The rest were to motels in town.
She stared at the list. RJ was looking for someone.
She called the next number and recognized the woman’s voice who answered at the hotel. “Nancy, it’s McCall Winchester. Did you get a call from someone inquiring about a woman?”
Nancy Snider laughed. “Is this a crank call?” she joked.
“I have two missing persons, both considered armed and dangerous, and it seems one of them is searching for the other one. Help me out here. According to my phone log, the call would have come into the motel at eight-forty last night.”
“Sorry. Now that you mention it, I did get a call last night.”
“Man or woman calling?”
“Man. He asked if his girlfriend was staying here.”
“Did he describe her?”
“Long, red-blond hair, curly, carrying nothing more than a backpack. Said they were supposed to meet up, but she got mad at him. Said he was worried about her.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Said I hadn’t seen her. Then he asked about some guy driving a yellow Cadillac convertible. Said she might be with him.”
“A yellow Cadillac convertible?”
“Said it was one of those old ones with the big fins,” Nancy said. “Told him I hadn’t seen it, either.”
But McCall had.
JOSEY CONTINUED TO PACE the bedroom, too nervous and upset to sit still. “When I got to the house, my stepfather was waiting. I could tell at once that he’d been drinking.” She hesitated.
“He made a pass at you.”
She laughed nervously. “How did you—”
“I know people.”
“I slapped him. He became angry. I picked up a bronze statue he had on his desk in his library. He backed off and went to the wall safe, opened it and showed me the stacks of money—my money.”
“How much money are we talking?”
“A little over a million in the safe,” she said, and saw Jack’s eyes widen.
“And the rest of your inheritance?”
She’d known he would realize she had more than that coming. “He had a letter releasing the rest of my inheritance to me. It was...sizable.” She swallowed. “Ray said, ‘Come get it, then get out.’ I was wary. I said, ‘Do you have something I can put it in?’ He’d laughed and called out, ‘RJ, get the lady something to put her money in.’”
“RJ,” Jack repeated.
“Ray Allan Evans Jr.” She swallowed again, her throat dry. “He appeared and I realized he’d been waiting in the next room.”
Jack swore under his breath. “The two of them had set you up.”
“RJ brought in an old backpack. It’s the one I had when you picked me up on the highway. He tossed me the empty backpack and I moved to the safe just wanting to get the money and get out of there.”
Jack listened, holding his breath.
“As I started loading the money into the backpack, I heard Ray Sr. order his son to get him a drink.”
She took a breath and let it out slowly, remembering how everything had happened so fast after that. “I saw RJ. He had gone to the bar but he’d come back with only a bar rag. His father had taken a step toward me, saying something I didn’t hear or just don’t remember because of what happened next.”
She was breathing hard now, the memory making her nauseous. “I had put the bronze statue back on Ray’s desk. RJ walked past the desk, picked up the statue using the bar rag and struck his father in the back of the head. He hit him twice. I felt the spray of blood—” She was crying, remembering the way Ray Sr. had fallen at her feet.
Jack nodded as if he’d seen it coming. So why hadn’t she? She’d known they were up to something, but she’d never dreamed...
“I must have been in shock. The rest is a blur. RJ was saying that his father never planned to let me leave with the money—or the legal document freeing up my inheritance. He shoved me aside. I was just standing there, staring down at Ray Sr. I could tell he wasn’t breathing. The bronze statue was lying next to him covered with his blood. There was so much blood. RJ was frantically loading the money into the backpack. I saw it was splattered with Ray’s blood.”
“Let me guess. He wouldn’t let you call the cops,” Jack said.
“No. He said the only prints on the bronze statue were mine and that he would swear I’d killed his father for the money. Everyone knew about the legal battle I had been waging against my stepfather.”
Jack swore. “They set you up and then he double-crossed his father.”
Josey nodded. “I refused to go anywhere with him, but he pulled a gun and dragged me out of the house by gunpoint. When we got outside, he shoved me into the back of a car I had never seen before. That’s when I saw that there was a woman in the car who’d been waiting for him.”
“Celeste.”
Josey nodded slowly. “She drove us to a secluded place while RJ held a gun on me. I thought they were going to kill me right there. I’d seen RJ kill his own father in cold blood. I knew he would shoot me without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Surely this Celeste woman—”
“She was excited, as if this was some great adventure. She didn’t seem to notice the
