by Kate White
“Kardashian. I thought you only reported crime stories when there was a celebrity hook.”
He just couldn’t resist making a dig, could he? It was as natural to him as swallowing.
“Oh, come on, Matt. You know I don’t work for Buzz anymore.”
A few years back I’d covered celebrity crimes for one of those weekly tabloid magazines, the kind that features heart-stopping headlines like “JLo Suffers Spray Tan Tragedy.” I know, what the hell was I thinking? But I needed the paycheck.
Wong gave a playful shrug.
“That’s right, thanks for the correction. You’re an author now. Thinking of turning this little story into your next book?”
“I’d tell you,” I said. “But then I’d have to kill you. How’s your new job going?”
“Great, they love me there.”
“Good to know. Anything you can tell me about the situation here?”
“You mean, do I think the husband did it? Probably. But you’re getting a little bit of a late start on the story, aren’t you, Bailey?”
“Oh, you know what they say, Matt. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.”
Jeez, I was on a roll with the comebacks, wasn’t I? If crime writing fell through, I might be able to find work as a mug writer. At that moment, thankfully, Kelly slipped out of the building and cocked her chin in a gesture that indicated she was ready for me.
“Oops,” I said. “Gotta run. Talk to you later.”
“Just remember, sometimes even the sweetest-looking sisters hate each other’s guts.”
With Matt, it was always hard to tell if a comment like that was a friendly tip from one reporter to another or a red herring meant to throw you off the real scent. I ignored him and hurried toward Dot’s.
As I reached the building, the small bunch of people who’d been inside began to file out. The last, a middle-aged, barrel-chested man with shiny black hair, held the door for us.
“I’m gonna grab a sandwich,” he told Kelly. “Be back in about twenty.”
“Thanks, Hank.” She motioned for me to enter ahead of her.
“I didn’t mean for you to have to chase everyone out,” I told her. “But I appreciate the chance to talk.”
“I actually have no clue what anyone besides Hank is doing hanging in here,” she said, quickly tugging the elastic from her ponytail. She smoothed her hair tightly in place and then wound the elastic back around it. “They’re supposed to be finding Shannon, not gossiping like a bunch of ninth graders. Sit wherever you want, okay?”
At first glance, Dot’s looked to me like it’d been designed during the JFK administration and not touched since. As Kelly and I both slid into seats at a metal table strewn with flyers and used cardboard coffee cups, I took a better look at her. She was a fairly attractive woman, sharing some key features with Shannon—the green eyes, strong straight nose, and high cheekbones—but they hadn’t come together in the same stunning way. It made me think of shots I’d seen in Buzz of celebrity brothers and sisters who bore a strong resemblance to their famous siblings but had not been tapped by the remarkable-beauty fairy themselves.
“I know the police have an intense search going on,” I began. “Anything turn up today?”
She quickly shook her head. “Not yet, no. And that’s why we need to get the word out further. So that if anyone spots Shannon, they’ll call the tip line. You can run the number in your story, correct?”
“Of course. When was the last time you spoke to Shannon?”
“I called her Sunday night, around seven o’clock.”
“Did the two of you talk about anything in particular?”
“I was just asking her to drop off dinner for our mother the next day. It’s usually my turn on Mondays, but my husband was out of town, so I was the only one who could go to my daughter’s soccer game that afternoon.”
I couldn’t help but pick up on the odd flatness to Kelly’s tone. Maybe staying detached was helping her cope with her sister’s disappearance. Maybe stress and fear had bled all the emotion out of her voice. Or maybe I was seeing a hint of what Matt Wong had alluded to.
“And there’s still no sign of Shannon’s phone, right?”
“No. And they can’t get a signal because it’s off or out of power.”
“I read there was at least one call on Monday morning but the police haven’t been able to contact the woman.”
“That would be J. J. Rimes. Shannon’s cell phone records show Shannon spoke to her that morning, but apparently J.J. left later in the day for a camping trip in the Adirondacks and no one’s been able to reach her.”
“Does that seem like an odd coincidence?” It sure did to me. “Both of them gone the same day?”
“Not necessarily. J.J.’s ex-husband says she told him about the trip a while ago because she needed him to take the kids. . . . Here’s what my family and I think—that Shannon’s probably injured. That she might have fallen when she was running and hit her head and she’s now walking around in some kind of fugue state.”
That was a possibility, of course, though it seemed like a really slim one.
“If that’s the case, let’s hope the searchers find her soon,” I said, nodding sympathetically. “Shifting gears a little, had Shannon mentioned any concerns to you lately? About someone watching her or following her?”
“Definitely not. Stuff like that doesn’t happen in a place like this.”
“Being a mom can be stressful. Is there any chance that things became overwhelming for her? That she needed to escape for a while?”
The question clearly annoyed Kelly—I could read it in her eyes—but she took a breath, tamping down her irritation.
“I know you’re just doing your job asking that,” she said, “but it’s totally off the mark. Shannon loves her kids and would never abandon them, even for a short time.”
“She’s a stay-at-home mom?”
“Basically, yes. She stopped working full-time when the kids were born. She wanted to take them to school, make unicorn-colored cupcakes for their birthday parties. That sort of thing.”
I wasn’t sure why exactly, but something about the cupcakes comment came off like a tiny dig to me.
“And her marriage—how’s that?”
“It seems fine. Cody runs our family company, and my father—Stan—left it in brilliant shape. They have a nice life.”
Hardly a ringing endorsement of her brother-in-law.
“Do—”
“Like I said, we think Shannon could be injured and requiring immediate medical help. She loves the outdoors, but that doesn’t mean she can cope if she’s broken a leg. Fortunately, I’ve been able to take off work to help, but my family needs as many people as we can get to assist with the search.”
“Speaking of your family, it would be great if I could speak with your mother.”
That elicited another hard shake of the head.
“She’s not up to speaking to anyone at the moment.”
I sensed I was starting to press my luck with Kelly and decided to back off for now. After all, I’d want the chance to circle back to her later.
“I’ll let you return to your work here, but before we finish, what’s the best way for people to help?”
“They can check the sheriff’s website each day, or stop by here to see where the searchers are meeting. If searching outside is too strenuous for them, they can pick up flyers here to distribute to restaurants and businesses. They can reach out to me or Hank Coulter, who’s running our volunteer operation. He’s the former chief of police here in town.”
“Great, I’ll definitely include that information in my article. And if anything else occurs to you, I’d love to hear from you.” I reached in my shoulder bag for a business card, and as I slid it across the table to her, I heard the front door swing open with a whoosh.
Cody Blaine had just entered the building.
He was as handsome as his photos suggested, about five ten and well b
uilt. His hair and eyes were dark brown, but his skin was extremely fair, creating an intriguing contrast. He wore his beard and mustache close-cropped, and despite how ragged he looked today, there was a worldly air about him. Maybe that came from serving time in Afghanistan.
I turned back to Kelly and saw her shoulders tensing before my eyes.
“Hi,” she said bluntly. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to check in before I join the next search,” Cody said. “They’re organizing something closer to the lake, starting in about fifteen minutes.”
“Why there?” Kelly demanded. “Do they have a reason?”
“No, simply a next step.” If Kelly’s tone irked him, he wasn’t letting on.
“Where are the kids right now?”
“With your in-laws.”
I’d risen by this point and taken a few steps toward Cody.
“Cody, hello, I’m Bailey Weggins with Crime Beat,” I said, offering him a business card as well. “Can I grab a few minutes with you before you leave? We’re planning to do whatever we can to spread the word.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be part of a search line, and I need to leave at the same time as everyone else.”
“How about later today?”
He sighed wearily. “Okay.”
“I’m staying at the Breezy Point, so it would be easy enough to drop by your house.”
“No, I’ll swing by here after the search is over, sometime around dusk.” His expression darkened. I had the feeling he was going to add a comment like “Unless we hear news,” but decided to skip it.
“Thanks, I’ll wait for you here. And best of luck with the search.”
This was good. I would be able to include quotes from Cody in the post I filed later today. And I’d also be able to work with whatever the sheriff coughed up at the press conference later in the afternoon. Anything else would be gravy.
After the door closed behind him, I pivoted back to Kelly. Her face was a blank, but I could almost feel hostility coming off her, like heat from a stove. I opened my mouth to bid her goodbye when the door opened again and a sandy-haired, fortysomething guy—a volunteer, I assumed—strode in. He immediately fixed his gaze on me.
“Are you about finished?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I’m Dr. Claiborne, Kelly’s husband, and I think she’s done enough press for today.”
“Doug, please, it’s fine,” Kelly said.
“Not a problem,” I said. No point in rocking the boat. As I took him in, I saw that he was nice-looking enough, but nowhere in the same league as his brother-in-law. He had what to me was a Ken-doll blandness, but hey, some women dug that kind of thing. Clearly Barbie did, right? “Thanks for your time, Kelly.”
There were still a few hours until the press conference, so I made a quick trip to the Breezy Point Motel, which I’d booked online last night and was only two miles north of Dot’s. My room had been done in classic Adirondack style—rough-hewn wood furniture, birch-bark lampshades, and mounted deer antlers over the door, a kitschy but refreshing change from the mauve-and-green color schemes and Naugahyde chairs I’m used to in the motels and hotels I usually bunk down in for work. There were even some cute toiletries in the bathroom.
I changed into jeans and wolfed down a sandwich I’d packed in a small cooler. I considered making a fast trip to the local elementary school to see if I could talk to any moms who were there for pickup and might know Shannon, but it seemed smarter to save that for tomorrow morning and instead keep an eye on the action at the volunteer center.
Upon my return, I saw that Hank was back in the building, thumbing through papers on one of the tables. I headed over and introduced myself, handing him a card. As I did, I realized that his jet-black hair, which was either defying age on its own or with some help from Grecian Formula, had led me to assume he was younger than he was. He had to be close to sixty, though overall in good shape.
“You come all the way up here from the city?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
“Well, I bet the networks aren’t far behind, are they?”
“You’re probably right. Do you have any theories about what might have happened to Shannon?”
He smiled but not the kind that fell into the super-friendly department. “I’d like to help you, Ms. Weggins, but I’m just here to supervise volunteers. That’s really a question for the sheriff. Why don’t you ask him at the press conference?”
“Fair enough. Kelly mentioned you’re a retired cop. Has anything remotely similar happened here in recent memory?”
“I haven’t been on the force in five years, so as I said, it’s best to direct those kinds of questions to the sheriff.” His phone buzzed, and he checked the screen. “Sorry, but I’m gonna have to take this. Hank Coulter.”
Okay, so that was a bust. I left him to his phone call and set up shop on the hood of my Jeep. As volunteers came and went, collecting flyers or reporting to Kelly or Coulter, I managed to snag a few dozen of them for comments. They seemed to be a mix of stay-at-home moms, retirees, and employees from Baker Beverage whom Cody had given the day off to help in the search. Almost everyone seemed eager to offer their two cents, but no one I encountered claimed to know Shannon more than casually, though many pointed out that she seemed “perfectly lovely.” It was pretty clear that the situation had most of them seriously alarmed, particularly the women.
Just after four, the action began to heat up, clearly in anticipation of the press conference. Several Albany-area network TV vans rumbled into the parking lot and reporters spilled out, smoothing their clothes and fluffing their hair. Matt Wong resurfaced, too.
I snaked my way through the crowd of press, lingering volunteers, and what appeared to be good old-fashioned rubberneckers, and grabbed a spot close to the front. I was surprised to see that the sheriff’s department hadn’t yet set up a podium, so there was no place for the TV and radio crews to position their microphones. In fact, there was no sign of anyone from the sheriff’s office.
At two minutes to five we found out why. A sole member of the sheriff’s team, a female deputy, arrived and announced to the crowd that the press conference was being postponed until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. She then hurried off without taking any questions.
There’d been a development, I realized, maybe something big, but they weren’t telling us. I glanced inside Dot’s. Hank was on the phone, his face expressionless, and Kelly was stuffing flyers back into a box. At least for the time being, they were as out of the loop as the rest of us.
Since I’d signed up to receive automatic news alerts from the sheriff’s department, I’d hear eventually if anything major had gone down. But this meant that I’d have zip from law enforcement for the post tonight. I breathed a sigh of relief that I at least had my interview with Cody coming up.
As the media vehicles departed with a roar, I parked myself against my Jeep again, nursing a bottle of lukewarm water and watching the daylight fade. There were still a few volunteers milling around, but eventually they took off as well. And so did Hank and Kelly, locking the door of Dot’s behind them.
I was alone in the lot now, accompanied by nothing except the sound of cars whizzing behind me on Route 9N. Finally the truth smacked me in the head. Cody was a no-show.
Damn.
The only thing I could think of at this point was to head to his house and see if he’d talk to me there, which would also provide my first chance to see part of Shannon’s usual jogging route. I’d already programmed my GPS with the family address on Wheeler Road, which ran between Route 9 and Route 9N.
The area turned out to be heavily wooded, with homes set far apart. I’d seen the word successful used to describe Cody Blaine in the news coverage, and the house at 192 Wheeler backed that up. It was a large modern design of glass, stone, and what appeared to be cedar, set fairly far back on the quiet road, with woods rising behind it in the rear. The only light was the one burning just
above the front door. Maybe Cody was picking up the kids at Kelly’s in-laws. Or perhaps he wasn’t staying here at all, avoiding the press who’d show up if they knew he was in residence.
Odd, though, that no one would be stationed at the house in case Shannon staggered home in that fugue state her family had envisioned.
I pulled into the Blaine driveway, backed out, and headed toward Route 9N. Wheeler Road had a fairly wide shoulder, and it was easy to envision Shannon running here, breathing in the crisp air, thinking about how to decorate the next batch of cupcakes she’d make for her kids.
And then, rounding a bend, I saw her. A woman in dark shorts and a white T-shirt, streaking up the road in the same direction I was going. Even in the waning light I couldn’t miss her long blond hair, tied in a ponytail and bouncing hard behind her with each step.
It was Shannon Blaine. And it looked as if she was running for her life.
Chapter 2
I BRAKED, SHIFTED FAST INTO PARK, AND FLUNG OPEN THE door.
“Shannon,” I yelled, scrambling out of the Jeep and tearing up the road toward her. “Shannon, wait.”
She finally swung around, so fast her ponytail slapped her lightly in the face. Maybe she had been in a fugue, wandering through the area for two full days, always just far enough ahead of searchers to elude being seen.
“Shannon, are you okay?” I called, short of breath. “Let me help you.”
As I closed the distance between us, she backed away from me, and I spotted the alarm in her eyes.
“My name’s not Shannon,” she said, catching a breath.
And now, only a few feet apart, I realized that I’d been mistaken. Even in the dim light, I could tell that her eyes were brown and not that dazzling green I’d noted in Shannon’s photo. How stupid to let my imagination play a trick on me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “From the back you looked just like Shannon Blaine.”
She narrowed her eyes, still considering me warily. “I don’t even know who that is. I—I’m not from here.”
“Um, okay,” I said. I realized she must be a tourist. “Shannon’s a local woman who went missing on Monday, possibly from this exact road. Actually, I’m not sure it’s safe for you to be out alone like this. There’s a chance that she was abducted.”
