“And even if I could, it doesn’t seem enough.”
“It isn’t.”
“What would be?”
“Nothing.”
“I was an ass.”
Again, she kept her silence, noticed the first flakes of snow drifting from the sky.
“Probably still am, all things considered.”
“No ‘probably’ about it.” Then she brushed the air with her hand, dismissing it. “Maybe we shouldn’t go there right now.”
“When, then?”
“Never,” she said quickly, nodding sharply in agreement when she heard her own words. “Yeah, never would be a good time.”
Even in the half-light from the snow’s reflection, she saw him wince. “Okay,” he finally said. “Listen: I’m trying to apologize here. And it’s not easy.”
“Good.”
“The appropriate thing would be for you to say, ‘It’s okay.’”
“But it’s not. And it never will be. But we still have to find Megan. So either you work with me or you don’t. That’s what I came to tell you, to clear the air—the recent air. I’m just letting you know that I’ll be around here in Riggs Crossing, and I’m not leaving until I know what happened to my sister. I just need to find her. I didn’t want to believe that something bad had happened, wouldn’t even admit it to myself. It was just easier to think that this was one of her stupid stunts. But this feels different. Even if it started out that way, if she intended to fall off the face of the earth for a while to get everyone worried about her—you know, a big act to get attention—somehow something went terribly wrong.” She met his gaze. “I would think you would want that too.”
“I do,” he admitted, his breath smoky in the night air. “Right now, the police seem to think I had something to do with it.”
“Did you?”
“What? Jesus. No! You can’t still think—”
His phone chirped loudly. He checked his cell. “It’s my foreman.” He didn’t answer, but before he could say anything, it rang again. “Bobby again.”
“Take it.”
Frowning, he asked, “What’s up?” then stood stock still. The conversation was one-sided. “Shit. What? . . . Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . slow down.” His eyes found Rebecca’s, and in the half-light she saw the strain on his face, the worry. “Holy Christ,” he finally said, then, “Stay put. I’m on my way.” He ended the call, jammed the phone in his pocket, and grabbed her hand. “Come on.” He’d started jogging, dragging her with him toward the glowing lights of the Christmas tree lot, hurrying along a row of spruce trees laden with snow.
“What?”
“One of my employees. She didn’t show up for work today.”
“And,” she prodded, hurrying to keep up with him.
“I don’t have all the details. Don’t know if it’s true, but . . . what they’re saying is, is that she’s dead.”
“Dead?” She stopped in her tracks, jerking on his arm so that he turned to face her. “Who?”
“Willow Valente. Maid service. Christ, she can’t be twenty-five.” He tugged on her arm again, pulling her behind him, the dog loping beside them.
“What happened?”
“Don’t know.” His jaw was set as they cut through the evergreens. “But we’re damned sure going to find out.”
CHAPTER 43
Rivers and Mendoza were far from the first cops on the scene. By the time they’d arrived at Willow Valente’s out-of-the way apartment, two other department-issued vehicles were parked in the lot, their lights strobing the night. A crowd had started to gather, and one deputy was putting up a barrier of yellow tape, another keeping track of who came and went. Rivers and Mendoza signed in to the crime scene, donned boots to cover their shoes, and hurried up the exterior stairs.
In the sparsely furnished unit, the victim lay in her bed, just as the first cop on the scene had found her, in exactly the same position as Rivers had seen her on Earl Ray Dansen’s phone.
Her television was flickering in the corner, a cup of what looked and smelled like some kind of flowery tea was cold on a nearby table, the gun pointed at her head where a bullet hole was visible just above her temple. Blood had matted her black hair, then trailed onto her pink pillowcase, where it had congealed in a dark pool. “James Cahill’s Glock?” Rivers asked, pointing to the gun in the victim’s hand.
Deputy LaShawn Brown scowled. “Don’t know. But looks like it.” A tall, beefy man who would still regale anyone who would listen about his glory days as a college football star nearly twenty years earlier, Brown was a dedicated cop. He’d settled down with a wife and two teenage daughters, his ball-playing days far behind him. Nearly six and a half feet of muscle, he probably weighed nearly three hundred pounds and was as intimidating as anyone on the force. “Just gotta check the serial number.”
“Who discovered her?”
“A friend who’s also a coworker,” the deputy said, pulling out the notepad from his back pocket. “Zena Wallace. When our girl here”—the deputy nodded at the corpse in the bed—“when she didn’t show up for work and didn’t answer any texts or calls, her boss got worried and sent Ms. Wallace over here.”
From first glance, it appeared as if the victim had committed suicide. But that was a BS theory since Earl Ray Dansen and the Clarion had been sent pictures of the scene, after she’d pulled the trigger.
“Was the door locked?”
“Nah. And according to the friend, that was odd.”
“Forced?”
“Nope.”
Mendoza asked, “What time was that?”
“Not quite an hour ago—you can check with nine-one-one for the exact time. Wallace found the body, freaked the hell out, and called nine-one-one. No, wait, I think she called someone else first.” Another quick scan of his notes. “She couldn’t get through to her boss, so she called Robert Knowlton, who is an overseer where they work.”
“At Cahill Industries,” Rivers said.
Brown was nodding. “Right. Soon as we got the report, Taggert and I, we drove over here, found her—Ms. Wallace—outside. Then we came upstairs and discovered this one”—he hitched his
