“Doesn’t make sense,” agreed Mendoza.
“We know they had a helluva fight.” He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking he was missing something. Something important. Maybe he needed coffee. “Come on, let’s get a refill,” he said, standing up.
As they walked together to the lunchroom, he said, “On the surface it looks like a fight. She and he get into it, it gets physical, he’s injured, she leaves in a huff, calls her sister, and takes off.” He looked over at his partner as they reached the break room. “And then what?”
“He’s found by Knowlton, who calls nine-one-one.”
Rivers kept the story going as he worked the Keurig machine, putting in a semi-biodegradable pod of coffee. He hit the button, and the coffee maker started gurgling. “Meanwhile,” he said, “Megan Travers and her car disappear into the night. Her cell phone is turned off or dead. All the searches turn up nothing. She’s just vanished.”
“So she’s either dead, her car was run off the road in the mountains and covered in snow, down some precipice, or she’s hiding somewhere and is damned good at it, or she was kidnapped, but no one’s trying to ransom her.”
“So, possibly a prisoner—maybe a sex slave?”
She frowned, lines creasing her smooth brow as the machine steamed and coffee drizzled into his waiting cup. “Or hiding out?”
“Or somehow James Cahill did her in?”
“Even though he was injured—comatose when he was discovered.” She tilted her head to stare at him as if he’d gone off his rocker. “You think he had an accomplice? Someone who would kill her? A paid assassin?”
“Lame,” another voice from a nearby table said.
Rivers looked over and found Arne Nagley, one of the deputies, seated at a round table and huddled over the newspaper, working the daily sudoku.
Nagley looked up from his puzzle, his eyes a crystal blue, his red hair clipped close to his skull. At six-four, he had to be pushing three hundred pounds, most of it muscle. His nose wasn’t straight, had been broken twice in his days as a right tackle for the Washington State Cougars. “This is Riggs Crossing, man,” he pointed out. “Not fuckin’ Chicago.” Then, as if he realized his opinion wasn’t called for, added, “Just my two cents, for what it’s worth, but you two, you’re the detectives.” He went back to the paper, but Rivers noted the edge to his voice and remembered that Nagley had applied for the position Rivers had landed, a perceived slight, as Nagley had worked for Riggs County for over a dozen years, and Rivers, from San Francisco, had been perceived as an outsider.
Rivers picked up his cup, and Mendoza began refilling hers. She said, “I’ve been checking on Cahill. Yeah, he’s a trust-fund baby, but he hasn’t inherited yet. He did borrow from it, though. That’s how he bought all the property up here and started his business.”
“Make that businesses.”
“Right. But he won’t be able to get his hands on the bulk of the money until he turns thirty.”
“So how does that fit in with a girl gone missing?”
“Dunno. Yet. Just spit-balling,” she said as she stirred creamer into her cup.
“We got anything else?”
“The lab came back with the analysis of hair samples found in James Cahill’s bedroom.”
This was news. Rivers looked up. “And?”
“And aside from James Cahill’s and his dog’s, they found a couple of others. One blonde, very light.”
“Sophia Russo?”
“Seems likely.”
“And the other one?”
“Dark. Almost black.”
“Not Megan Travers?”
“Nope, hers is light brown and curly. We’ve got samples from a brush left in her apartment. But this one, dark and straight, was found in his bed. On his pillow.”
“Another woman.”
“Looks like.”
That was a new wrinkle, but maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. His eyes narrowed. “DNA?”
“Not yet, and only if there’s a root. And it won’t help unless it’s in the database.”
“Or we get a sample.”
“Right.”
It wasn’t much, but something, he thought, as they reached his cubicle. He checked his watch just as the phone rang. He picked up and was told by the receptionist that Rebecca Travers had arrived. Good. Maybe she could shed some light on what had happened to her sister.
Then again, maybe not.
He thought about how she’d walked in on him early this morning at her sister’s apartment and felt a rush of heat climb up the back of his neck. Ignoring the sensation, he said to Mendoza, “We’re on.”
“Rebecca Travers?” When he gave her a nod, she grinned. “Good. Let’s go.”
Together, they headed to the interview room.
CHAPTER 17
Phoebe Matrix’s hip was aching again.
In her bathroom medicine cabinet, she pushed aside her backup EpiPen, antacids, and cough syrup to locate her near-empty bottle of Tylenol and pop two into her mouth before bending over the sink and swallowing from the tap, washing down the caplets and hoping they did the job. Then she hobbled to the living room, where she opened the blinds to another wintry day. Snow covered the parking lot of the Cascadia Apartments, her pride and joy, and she frowned, knowing she’d have to rouse that slacker Dabrowski to salt and shovel the lot again. He always grumbled about it, though she gave him a break on his rent for doing some of the tasks around the grounds. Between her bad hip and other ailments, she just couldn’t keep up with the place any longer.
Larry, her fluffy white little sweetheart of a dog, was doing circles at the door, so she found his leash and her jacket hanging in the closet near the front door. As he yapped at her, she slid her arms through the jacket, then snapped the leash to his collar. “I know, I know,” she whispered, scratching his ears. “You need to go out.” Then she unlocked the front door and let him sniff at the frigid shrubbery in front of her unit. “That’s a good boy,”
