“Did he drive to the party?” Matt asked.
“No. He always uses one of the apps to get a ride.” Mrs. Whitney shook her head. “A drunk driver killed his parents. Eli would never drink and drive.”
“Mrs. Whitney is worried the police aren’t doing enough.” Cady wrapped her arm around the older woman’s shoulders.
Mrs. Whitney bowed her head and closed her eyes for a few seconds. Her pink scalp shone through her white hair.
Raising her chin, she opened her eyes and sniffed. “The officer kept saying, ‘He’s an adult. He doesn’t need to check in with his grandmother.’” She paused for a long, shaky inhalation. “But I know my grandson. Something has happened to him. Please tell me you’ll help find him.”
“Where does he live?” Matt slid a sticky-note pad and a pen from the center of the table.
“Scarlet Falls.” Mrs. Whitney gave an address in the neighboring town.
Matt wrote it down. “Which police department is handling the case? Scarlet Falls is under town, county, and state jurisdictions.”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Whitney’s eyes creased. She stopped, stifling a sob with her tissue.
“Do you know the original officer’s name?” Matt asked.
“No,” Mrs. Whitney said. “I’m sorry. I can’t always hear. He gave me a card, but I lost it.” Mrs. Whitney patted the pockets of her jacket. “I’m so worried. I can’t concentrate.”
“No worries. I can call around and find out who’s in charge of the case.” Matt could not turn down this little old lady who, despite her own frailties, never said no to an animal in need.
“I was up all night. This morning I turned on the news, and I saw—” She inhaled, her breath shaky. “The reporters said the police were organizing a search of the riverbank this morning. They’re looking for a missing university student.” She stifled a sob. “It must be Eli.”
“You don’t know that.” Cady touched Mrs. Whitney’s forearm, then turned to Matt. “I went to Mrs. Whitney’s house early to pick up a dog for a vet surgery appointment. She was in tears.”
“Did the officer give you any more information when he took your report?” Matt asked.
Mrs. Whitney sniffed. “He said he would talk to Eli’s friends and ask around the neighborhood where the party was held. He was going to find out if Eli used a rideshare app after the party too. But I haven’t heard anything from him since. At the time, he didn’t act very worried.”
“Matt will find out what’s happening with the investigation.” Cady’s eyes silently pleaded with her brother.
Mrs. Whitney blew her nose. “Please help me find him.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Matt said.
Most missing persons turned up on their own. Cops didn’t usually launch full-scale investigations for adults without signs of foul play or unusual circumstances.
A grateful tear slid down Mrs. Whitney’s cheek. “Bless you.”
“Can you give me a list of Eli’s friends?” Matt asked. “And a picture of him.”
“I’ll text you a photo,” Mrs. Whitney said. “His best friend is Christian Crone. They live with two other boys in an off-campus apartment.” She opened her purse and took out a small notebook. She slid it across the table to Matt. “Here is the address and all their cell phone numbers. Eli made sure I could reach any of them in case I needed something and he wasn’t available. They’re good boys. They’ve all been to my house for Sunday dinner.”
Unease nagged at Matt. Eli seemed like too good of a kid to let his grandma worry.
Cady stood and escorted Mrs. Whitney out the door. On the bright side, the case would give Matt a reason to call Bree again, one that didn’t smell of desperation. He lifted his phone and checked the time. Six thirty. Too early to call her personal number. He reached for the remote and turned on the TV to check the local news. A meteorologist was giving the weather report.
He called the sheriff’s department, but Bree wasn’t in her office. He left her a message. As he debated who to call at the Scarlet Falls PD, he thought about all the things that could have happened to a drunk student in the middle of the night.
Eli could have stumbled into the park, slipped, and hit his head. He could have fallen into the river and drowned. If Eli was too responsible to stand up his grandma, then none of the remaining scenarios in Matt’s head had good outcomes.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bree studied the trees but saw no one. She turned to Todd. “Get your rifle and cover us.”
When she’d first taken over the department, she’d reviewed all her deputies’ files to get a sense of their skill sets. Todd was the top marksman with a long gun.
In order to reach the woods, they’d have to cross fifty feet of open ground. The morning sky had brightened to pale shades of pink and orange. A few evergreens clustered at the edge of the woods. The shooter could be hiding behind them. Todd brought his AR-15 from the trunk of his patrol vehicle and took up a position behind a boulder. He knelt and aimed his rifle across the top of the rock.
Bree and Rogers ran across the snow. Once they reached the trees, she pressed her shoulder to a tree, then peered around the trunk. She saw nothing but snow and woods. She met Rogers’s gaze and circled her finger in the air. Rogers’s flushed face had gone pale and clammy. They separated and went around the evergreens from opposite sides.
The snow was heavily trampled behind the pines, but no one was there.
Bree turned in a circle. She could see no additional hiding places in the stark woods, but the hairs on the back of her neck refused to relax. Though she’d been raised by a cousin in the city after the deaths of her parents, she’d been born in Grey’s Hollow. Her family had owned a rural chunk of land. The first eight years of her life had been spent running half-wild in woods like these. But this morning, the forest was creeping her out.
She turned back to Rogers. He was studying the ground. Lines creased around his eyes as he concentrated. He was reportedly the best tracker in the department. Bree was all about letting people do what they did best. She kept one eye on the woods and watched him read the tracks.
Rogers cleared his throat and pointed to the snowy clearing. “Someone used this spot as a latrine.”
“Makes sense,” Bree said. “There’s no water in the cabin, and the evergreens create privacy.”
Back in his element, Rogers seemed to calm. “Most of the tracks just go back and forth to the cabin, except these.” He gestured to footprints that led away from the latrine area and ran in a track parallel to the lake.
“Too bad the snow is too powdery to see any real imprints.”
“Can’t even tell the size of the boots,” Rogers agreed.
Bree and Rogers followed the footprints along the shoreline. Behind the next cabin, number nineteen, the tracks led to the back porch. From there, the prints turned toward the lake and disappeared on the ice.
Todd left his position behind the boulder and followed them. His head swiveled as he scanned the woods while he walked.
Rogers said, “The wind blew the snow off the ice.”
Bree brushed some snow dust from her jacket. “Any thoughts on which way the shooter went?”
“Are we sure there really was a shooter?” Rogers shook his head. “If somebody got shot, where’s the body? Where’s the blood?”
Bree stared out over Grey Lake. Long and narrow, it stretched out for miles. It was the beginning of March, and the lake was still frozen over.
Rogers cleared his throat. “There’s also the possibility she’s lying. Maybe she made up the whole story.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Attention.”
Bree raised a brow.
Rogers continued. “Think about it. She has nowhere to go, and it’s fucking cold out. That cabin has no water, and the only source of heat is the fireplace. Surviving out here is rough. Just gathering dry wood every day would take a serious effort, especially for a girl.”
Bree pictu
red the girl clutching her ax. Definitely not the helpless type.
“You think she invented a friend and gunshots?” Bree asked. “Seems like an elaborate plan. Why would she bother?”
Rogers shrugged. “I’ve had people commit crimes to get back into jail, especially in the winter.”
“How does reporting a crime get her a place to stay? By calling us, she admitted to trespassing and lost access to her only shelter.” Bree saw more motivation for Alyssa to remain silent.
“Maybe she didn’t want to stay here,” he said. “Maybe she isn’t stable. Most homeless people are either drug addicts or have mental problems.”
“Plenty of people are homeless for reasons beyond their control,” Bree said.
Rogers scowled and swept an arm out. “I find it hard to believe someone was shot out here, and we haven’t found a single drop of blood on all this white snow and ice. All I’m saying is that it’s one possibility. We don’t have any proof that a second girl exists, let alone a shooter.”
Bree didn’t know what to believe. She had a pretty accurate bullshit meter. The girl had seemed genuinely traumatized. But the circumstances were strange. “It’s our job to figure out what happened.”
The corner of Rogers’s mouth twitched, as if he wanted to say something and was having a hard time holding back the words. A few seconds later, he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. “All I’m saying is that we’re already spread thin.”
“So, you want to walk away from a citizen’s report of a shooting because we’re busy?”
He shifted his weight. “The citizen isn’t very credible.” He mashed his lips together for a second, but again, couldn’t keep them that way. “Sheriff King wouldn’t have wasted resources until he had real proof a crime was committed.”
Bree ground her molars. Her predecessor’s blatant corruption was public knowledge, and it was frustrating that he was still idolized by some people. “We will not walk away from a reported crime until we have conducted a thorough investigation. Is that understood, Deputy?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rogers’s words were as tight as his lips.
As much as Bree hated to put him in his place, she had no choice, not if she wanted to keep the respect of all the people under her.
So many people.
As sheriff, her responsibilities entailed much more than supervising a patrol division. She ran the county jail too. In municipalities without their own PDs, the sheriff’s department was the main law enforcement. They covered every crime from traffic tickets to murder. Her office also issued gun permits, served warrants, and transported prisoners. Hell, animal control was under her jurisdiction. Being sheriff was a massive responsibility.
She rubbed her forehead. The cold stung her face. She wanted to go somewhere warm. She wanted a cup of coffee, a giant breakfast, and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Instead, she was going to walk through the shooting.
Bree turned and started back toward the cabin. She stopped to talk to the chief deputy. “Todd, let’s photograph the tracks in the snow. Then I want the girl to show us exactly how the shooter and victim were positioned. We’ll do a second in-depth interview at the station. Also, get a warrant to search the two cabins.”
They’d shifted from responding to a 911 call and looking for the shooter and victim to searching for evidence. The latter required a warrant.
“What about the scene?” Todd asked. “Do you want to expand the perimeter?”
“Secure the area but hold off on the foot search. If we can get a K-9 out here, extra bodies traipsing around could disturb the scent. Call the state police. See if we can borrow a K-9 unit.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Todd turned and strode toward his vehicle.
Despite her personal issues with canines, she valued their ability to sniff out everything from drugs, explosives, and lost kids to suspects.
Bree turned to Rogers. Resentment buttoned up his expression. She didn’t like him challenging her authority. But she also didn’t want to lose him. She was already shorthanded, and his skills as a tracker were valuable. Despite his negative attitude toward her, his job performance over the past three weeks had been solid. Her overall impression of Rogers’s ability as a deputy was favorable. Was Rogers’s poor attitude today a reflection of his dislike for her or a personal response to this particular case?
She studied him for a few seconds. Dark circles hovered beneath his crow’s-feet. He’d been up all night. His shift had officially ended a while ago, and he’d dealt with a potentially dangerous situation running on nothing but adrenaline. To make matters worse, after he left the scene, he’d have to go back to the station and finish the night’s reports.
Bree said in a low voice, “Look, Rogers. I hope you’re right. I hope she did make the whole thing up. I hope we’re all wasting our time. Because I’d rather be lied to than have a loose shooter or a lost victim potentially bleeding to death at this moment. I could never forgive myself if a young woman died because I didn’t look hard enough for her. Or if other people became victims because I didn’t try to find a killer. Or if I allowed myself to be prejudiced against a witness because she was homeless and discounted her story based on her circumstances rather than a thorough investigation of the case.”
Rogers spoke through a locked jaw. “Yes, ma’am.”
Frustrated, Bree took a deep breath. The truth was, while she had plenty of years as a cop to draw on, she had no leadership experience. She’d worked patrol in the beginning of her career, then progressed quickly to detective. She’d worked in cooperation with teams of people, but she’d never been the boss. Navigating the new role of leadership was like picking her way across a field of cow pies blindfolded. Everywhere she turned, there seemed to be a new pile of crap to step in.
She headed for the front of the cabin. Rogers fell into step beside her, and they walked in uncomfortable silence. By the time they reached the clearing, two more deputies had arrived.
She turned to Rogers. “There are enough uniforms here now. You can go off shift.”
He moved away. Though he hadn’t wanted to work on the investigation, his posture was stiff, as if he was irritated at her dismissal.
She could not win.
From what she’d learned of the previous sheriff, he would have fired anyone who challenged him on the spot. Bree couldn’t afford to fire everyone who was difficult. The department had lost almost a third of its deputies. When she’d accepted the job, she’d known the department was in turmoil. She’d known she’d have to rebuild the whole unit, and that the transition process would be painful. Some people naturally resisted growth and change.
But the reality of transforming the sheriff’s department was proving to be more frustrating than she’d anticipated, and she’d been at it for only three weeks.
The hell with it.
Bree stopped at her SUV for her coffee and took a few fortifying sips. She didn’t have the time or energy to deal with attitudes and egos this morning. She had a shooting to investigate. Having a case to work was almost a relief.
For now, she would put aside her department’s issues and do what she did best. She’d solve a crime. She headed for the vehicle that contained her witness.
Todd jogged toward her. “Sheriff?”
She stopped. The title still felt strange.
“State police K-9 units are tied up searching for a university student who went missing over the weekend. The earliest I can get a team out here is late afternoon.”
Bree glanced at the sky. To the east, the sunrise reddened the morning sky, but thick clouds gathered on the western horizon. She pulled out her phone and checked the weather. “There’s more snow on the way. It’s forecast to start by early afternoon.” She wasn’t sure how new snow would affect a dog’s ability to track, but it would cover any evidence on the ground.
“What about Matt and Brody?” Todd asked.
Matt had been tied to her sister’s murder through his best friend, and he’d helped her solv
e the case. They’d made a good team, but Matt’s history with the sheriff’s department made her hesitate.
“Doesn’t seem like I have any other options,” Bree said.
“Is there a reason you don’t want to call Matt?” Todd asked.
“It would be preferable to use an official team.” Bree didn’t voice her real concerns. One of the deputies who had shot Matt had left the department. The other was Rogers. The incident had officially been declared an accident, but Matt’s interactions with Rogers and the other deputies were understandably awkward. Asking him to work for the sheriff’s department felt like an imposition.
But she’d get to see him again. Despite the fact that she didn’t have the time or energy for a personal commitment outside of her family—as evidenced by her failure to return his messages for the past few weeks—she’d missed him.
Bree massaged her temple. Matt came with departmental complications, but she trusted him. She couldn’t say that about all the men under her command. It would be nice to know someone had her back.
“I’ll call him.” Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she surveyed the uniformed men moving around the scene. She felt confident in her chief deputy. Todd had been one of the people who’d convinced her to accept the position. Most of her deputies seemed glad to have new leadership, but a few resented her appointment to sheriff.
She stepped away for some privacy to make the call. The rising sun reflected off the frozen lake in shades of bloody red. With the exception of Todd, Matt didn’t fully trust her deputies.
Could she?
CHAPTER FIVE
Matt’s phone vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket. Bree.
He might be thirty-five, but seeing her name on his phone screen gave him a rush. He tempered his enthusiasm and cleared his throat. “Hey, how are you?”
“Sorry,” Bree said. She sounded stressed. “I know I should have answered your text weeks ago, but it’s been crazy at work and home.”
See Her Die Page 3
