Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (red white royal blue TXT) 📗

“Thank you. That’s very helpful. Would you mind emailing me that footage, then? Just in case we can spot something on it, like a license plate?”

She doesn’t sound happy about it. “Give me your email. Just . . . don’t tell my husband. Okay?”

“We’ll keep it confidential.”

Kez glances my way, and I gather she doesn’t want to give her official contact account, and I know she never gives her personal one. I spell my PI company email out, and make sure the woman repeats it back to me. I thank her again, and there’s nothing left to do but go. As we’re strapping ourselves into our seats, Kez says, “She’s not going to send anything.”

“You’re sure?”

“Ten bucks sure. She’ll be afraid of having her name in the records, testifying, something like that. I’ve never been up here myself, but this address comes back to more than one domestic complaint, and looks like her husband’s deep into the pill business. Bad combination. I’m surprised she said anything at all. Fear runs deep when you’re alone out here.”

She’s right. Women who live this remotely are either under the oppressive control of a partner, or independent as hell. Not a lot of middle ground. And getting out of a bad relationship is tough at the best of times. Out here, in the sticks, with a husband with criminal ties . . . that would be infinitely harder.

“Maybe she’ll call,” I say. “I’m an optimist.”

Kez shakes her head. She knows me better than that.

The last two houses are a bust; one’s a hunting cabin, locked up tight and no sign of inhabitants. The other is a broken-down trailer rusted on the sides, and we raise no response when we knock. Kez sticks her business card in the door, and we head back down the mountain. I have to admit, it feels like relief. I don’t like being up here in Belldene territory. They’ve told me, in no uncertain terms, how unwelcome I am.

“So what did we get out of that?” I ask.

“We got confirmation that there was a second car,” Kez says. “So either our missing woman set it up as her ride away from the crime scene or we have an abductor who might or might not have been stalking her. God, I hope he was. Her little town is just full up on busybodies. Somebody will have seen him. Probably got his damn license number too.”

“So . . . where to now?”

“I should probably join the grid search. Prester’s not up to it right now, tramping around through the woods. I’m taking over from him.”

“You want me to go to her hometown, then? Talk to her neighbors?”

Kez cracks a quick, grim smile. “Better you than me. Doubt I’d get a whole lot of cooperation.” There’s a thread underneath that, one of resentment and resignation. I understand it, at least to a very small extent.

I just say, “Of course, I’m happy to help. Is that going to screw you up with the state boys?”

She shrugs as her whole answer, and I can see she means it. She doesn’t care about the consequences. There’s a sharpness to her expression, the set of her jaw, that makes me think this is one of those cases that will haunt her for the rest of her days. She wants to solve it any way she can. Maybe she wants to do it for the child she’s bearing, the one who will change her life so completely. Maybe she needs to prove something to herself.

I hope that doesn’t put us both in real danger.

8

KEZIA

I have a secret I never tell anybody: I appreciate nature, but I hate the goddamn woods. I like the city, I like the brick and steel and sweat of it, and being out here in the wildest part of the green to me always feels like I’ve been scooped up by aliens and dropped in the middle of a Predator movie. God help me, I spend a damn lot of my time out here too. I pretend I don’t care.

I do. Violently.

Gwen drops me off to get my car, and I hook up with the TBI again, who offer to let me tramp the hills with their grunts; I take the opportunity mainly because I know Detective Prester is already up there, trying to hold up our end. Sure enough, when I pull up, I see Prester coming out of the woods. He’s moving slow. His color—never real good—has an ashy undertone I don’t like. God help me, I love the crusty old bastard; he’s a smart, capable detective, and more than that, he cares about victims, and he’s made me care about them too.

He doesn’t want my worry, but he gets it anyway.

I walk up to him, and he—of course—waves me back like I’m a fly bothering him. “I’m okay,” he says, which he isn’t. “It’s the heat is all.” It isn’t that hot, and we both know it, but I let it go. I’ve been nagging him to see his doctor, but he’s having none of it. He’ll just snap at me if I push, and I can’t really say I’d blame him. If I make it to his age, I’d like to be that independent, not have my bossy young partner ordering me around.

“I’ll finish up for you,” I tell him. “Not a problem.”

“You hate the trees,” he says, which is accurate, and I’ve never told him that, but somehow I’m hardly surprised he knows. “Too much imagination, Claremont. You think bears lurk every-damn-where.”

“What, you mean they don’t?” I flash him a grin, and a corner—just a corner—of his mouth quirks in response. “How long you been out there?”

“Few hours,” he says. Which is bad, given how he looks right now. I try not to tell him that. “You been out with Gwen?”

“I’ve been following up leads,” I say, which isn’t an answer, and he doesn’t take it for one either. “Any luck out there yet? Found anything?”

“Oh, found plenty, all of