by Karen Fenech
Parker Burby hadn’t actually witnessed Ryder harm Beth, but there was no doubt in Clare’s mind that Parker believed that’s what had happened seconds before he’d entered the house.
Clare wanted to find Dean Ryder and cut off a body part for his mistreatment of her sister.
At six o’clock, when Ryder pulled into his driveway, she pulled in behind him.
Clare met him by the driver’s side door as he stepped out. His eyes narrowed.
“ ‘Golden Boy,’ that’s how I heard you described in town,” Clare said without preamble. Her rage hadn’t cooled in the hours since Parker Burby’s visit. “Wonder what Farley’s residents, your co-workers, and the brass in the Columbia PD would say if they knew the golden boy war hero is really a coward who beat his wife.”
Goading him, she took the steps that would bring them toe-to-toe. Her hand was inside her purse, clutching the gun she kept there, and her purse was leveled at his chest. Their gazes locked and held. Clare’s eyes widened and her breathing quickened in anticipation. Go for it, she thought.
Ryder’s face reddened. A vein pulsed at his temple. But he made no move against her.
“You’re right not to take me on, Dean,” Clare said in a lethal whisper. “I’m not Beth.”
Ryder gritted his teeth. “Get out of here.”
“Beth didn’t leave town with the trucker. I’ve been in touch with that man and Beth didn’t leave with him. She is not with him. You wouldn’t know where she is, would you, Dean?”
“Go to hell.”
“What time did you get home that evening?”
“You hard of hearing?”
“Why wouldn’t you want to answer my question? Is there a reason you don’t want me to know what time you got home on that day?”
“This how you feds treat fellow cops? This what you learned at the Bureau?”
Clare watched him without blinking. “You have something to hide, Dean?”
Ryder crossed his arms. “I got home at six p.m.”
“When did you last see Beth?”
“The morning she left. She went to work. I went to work. When I got back home at the end of the day, she’d cleared out.”
“How did you know she was gone? She leave a note?”
“No note. Her closet was empty. Her suitcase was gone.” Ryder’s tone grew soft and mocking. “Even the FBI should be able to connect those dots.”
Clare ignored the insult. “If she didn’t leave a note, how did you conclude that she left with Hoag?”
“I didn’t until I heard talk of it around town.”
“Beth didn’t take her car?”
Ryder’s glance flicked away from Clare and in the direction of the green sedan. “My car. And you can see for yourself she didn’t since it’s parked in my driveway.”
“How did the car get back here?”
“Beth left it.”
“Doesn’t look that way. No one in town saw Beth after she drove away from Connie’s Inn that afternoon. None of your neighbors saw her. It appears that she never came home that day to return the car, yet here it is. She didn’t meet her ride out of town. You know something about that, Dean?”
“You’re finished here. I’m done talking to you.”
Clare eyed Ryder. “I’m nowhere near finished. I will find my sister. Count on it.”
A siren wailed briefly as a patrol car parked at the curb in front of the Ryder house. Clare looked away from Ryder. A man wearing a sheriff’s star on the left breast pocket of his uniform shirt emerged from the car. He had a trim, swimmer’s build and his features were hard as granite as he made his way up the driveway.
“Got a call from one of the neighbors about a disturbance.” His gaze settled on Clare. “I’m Sheriff Ozzie Petty. Everything all right here, Dean?”
The question was directed at Ryder, but the sheriff’s hard expression remained aimed at her, Clare realized.
Ryder cut a glance to the sheriff. “It’s fine, Oz. She was just leaving.”
“I’ve been asking Dean what he knows about his wife’s whereabouts.” Clare observed Ryder again. “His wife, who allegedly left Farley one week ago, but who I’ve been unable to locate since. Beth is my sister, and I’m—”
“I know all about you, Agent Marshall.” Petty reached up and pushed his uniform cap back a bit off his brow. He sighed. “You’ve caused quite a stir around these parts in the three days you’ve been in town.”
Clare turned to Petty. “Is that so?”
“I’m afraid that it is. Let’s just you and me get in our vehicles now and move on.” Sheriff Petty nodded slowly. “You and I can have a cup of coffee in my office. Though, we might want to make that ice coffee. The heat hasn’t let up at all today and looks like the night isn’t going to get any cooler.” The sheriff smiled, wrinkling the skin around his mouth and eyes.
Clare’s anger spiked. “Don’t patronize me. And don’t stretch my patience with the good ol’ boy shit you have going on with Dean Ryder.”
Sheriff Petty’s lips pressed together briefly. “Now, hold on a minute here—”
Clare turned to Ryder once again. She did not have cause to arrest him and nothing would be gained if she pressed the matter now with no more than supposition.
“We’ll talk again,” she said.
It galled Clare to have to say those words. Worse, it took all of her self-control to turn and walk away from him.
She returned to her car. Some of Ryder’s neighbors had gathered on their front lawns. Heads turned as Clare drove by. She ignored them. It was time she took a close look at Ryder.
Jake’s SUV wasn’t in the lot of the Bureau office when Clare pulled in fifteen minutes later. She felt relief and a quick release of tension that had knotted her stomach at the prospect of encountering him. They hadn’t spoken since their argument at the bar yesterday. They’d driven back to Farley in a stony silence. The passage of another day had not reduced her hurt at Jake’s assessment of their past relationship. She’d given him all she had, and he’d summed it up to “great sex.” If only . . . a breath trembled out of her.
She brought the car to a stop, killed the ignition, but remained inside, needing some time to shake off the memory of her encounter yesterday with Jake and bring herself back to the moment. She had a job to do. She needed to get to it.
She made her way through the double glass doors of the small building. The doors opened into a small reception area. An air conditioner kicked on. She was wearing an above-the-knee skirt and cold air blew across her bare legs from a nearby vent.
A young man with a wave of blonde hair that fell across his brow sat behind a desk. He glanced up at her entrance.
“Hello, may I help you?” he asked.
Clare took her ID out of the purse dangling from her shoulder and held it up for him to see.
“Agent Marshall, hello,” the young man said. “Jake told me you might come in to the office. I’m Jonathan, the administrative assistant. Jake’s not in just now but he said you can use his office. I’ll show you where it is.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Jonathan backed a wheelchair out from behind the desk and Clare followed him down a hall.
They passed several rooms before Jonathan stopped outside one of them. The office door was open.
“This is Jake’s office,” Jonathan said. “I can brew a pot of coffee if you like, or something cold?”
“No, thanks, I’m fine.”
Jonathan nodded. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
With that, he left her alone.
Clare entered Jake’s office. It was colored in grays and black. On Jake’s desk was a picture of the young girl Clare had seen when she’d taken him home, Sammie, his niece.
Big green eyes. Short copper-colored hair. A wide smile that showed both front teeth missing. The girl sat in front of a cake with the words “Happy Birthday Sammie” written on it in pink frosting. There were four flaming candles. A few other smiling
children stood around Sammie. Clare saw that the picture had been taken in Jake’s front yard, by the swing, and some time ago, since Sammie’s hair was short in the photograph. When Clare had seen the child two days earlier her hair was hanging to her shoulders.
It struck Clare as odd that the birthday party would be held at her uncle Jake’s, rather than at Sammie’s parents’ house. But then again, she was hardly an expert on family functions.
She booted up Jake’s computer, entered her access code, and logged onto the Bureau’s database.
* * * * *
A pain in her neck alerted her to the fact that she’d been at it for a while. She glanced at her watch. Two hours had passed.
She’d learned that Ryder had been a marine during the Gulf War who’d been commended and honorably discharged when his tour of duty ended. He returned home, applied for and was accepted by the Columbia PD, and over the years had been promoted to his current position of detective.
Jake had mentioned yesterday that they might be able to poke a hole through something that turned up, but she hadn’t found anything. Except for his stint in the Gulf, Ryder had lived all of his life in Farley. She’d traced him back to birth in very little time and nothing had caught her radar.
Clare huffed out a frustrated breath. She pushed back from Jake’s desk and sent herself and the chair skidding along the wood floor. She was getting nowhere tracing Beth. Her stomach was tight as a fist with fear for her sister.
It was time she reported Beth missing.
Clare’s eyes watered. She blinked quickly. Her hands shook as she went about filing the reports. She registered her sister’s vital information with NCIC—the National Crime Information Center—to be wired to every police department in the country and with VICAP—the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. VICAP’s computer database would compare missing persons cases from across the country to see if Beth’s disappearance could be connected to any of them. She issued a BOL—Be on the Lookout—with Beth’s description.
In the morning she’d speak with Jake and with Sheriff Petty’s office to coordinate a local investigation.
She shut down Jake’s computer. Minus the hum, she became aware of an acute silence.
She shut her eyes tight, and swallowed a lump in her throat that threatened to choke her. With nothing more to do at the moment, she left Jake’s office and went home.
* * * * *
Clare woke with a start. What was that banging noise? The front door knocker. Someone was slamming it with considerable force.
It took Clare an instant to orient herself. She was in the living room of her rented house. Moonlight spilled in through the open window, across the threadbare rug and bare floor, and the sagging velvet couch she’d fallen asleep on not long ago. She hadn’t been able to shut off her thoughts about Beth until sheer exhaustion had overcome her.
Clare pushed her tangled hair back from her face, and rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes. The knocking continued. She sat, then got to her feet and made her way barefoot to the front door.
About to yank it open, she stopped herself. Could her caller be Dean Ryder? If so, she didn’t think he’d be there to shoot the breeze over a cup of tea.
She shook her head to clear the last of the sleep, and spotted her purse where she’d left it on the hall table when she’d come in earlier that night. Her service weapon was still inside.
Dean Ryder had a gun, too, she reminded herself. She should be so lucky that she’d rattled him so thoroughly that he’d take a shot at her. The thought sent a rush of adrenaline through her.
The door wasn’t equipped with a peep hole. She wouldn’t have used it now, if it had been. She retrieved her gun then took up a position to the side of the door and called out, “Who is it?”
“Jake,” came the terse reply.
Not Ryder, but she didn’t welcome Jake’s presence at her door either. Hand on the door lock, Clare debated turning around and leaving him standing out there. What he’d said to her in the bar came back to her, and with it, the hurt. His assessment of how things had been between them felt like a betrayal, but at the moment there was more; she felt battered since filing the missing person’s report on her sister and wasn’t up to sparring with him, wasn’t up to facing him.
It was that last thought—not up to facing him—that had her twisting the lock open. As she did, Jake’s words from yesterday came back to her: When there’s a way to achieve a result that will save pain, most people take that way. Not you.
Clare pressed her lips together at his analysis of her, at his incredible gall. She pulled the door open with more force than was necessary and received a jolt to her shoulder as she stopped the door from striking the wall behind it.
“Do you know what time it is?” she asked.
Jake’s gaze remained steady on hers. Without consulting his wristwatch, he said, “Eleven-fourteen.”
He wore a dark gray suit and tie. She doubted that he’d put on business attire to visit her at eleven o’clock at night. Had he been working?
If so, she couldn’t imagine what in Farley would require the attention of the FBI this late. The thought flitted through her mind and she dismissed it. She was too wrung out to summon any interest.
Clare rubbed her eyes. “I was asleep.”
His gaze lowered, taking her in. She’d fallen asleep in the clothes she’d been wearing that day, or most of them. She’d removed the jacket but still wore a blouse and the skirt that made up the suit. Both were now wrinkled and the skirt had bunched at her waist, baring most of her legs. She realized she was giving him an eye-full of thigh, but resisted giving the skirt a tug.
“Nice sleepwear.” Jake brushed by her and entered the hall. “You want to tell me why you’re answering your door armed?”
Clare scowled and closed the door with her foot. She placed the gun on the table by her purse, ignoring his question. “What do you want?”
“I got a visit from Sheriff Petty.”
Clare crossed her arms. “And?”
“Thought you’d like to know that Dean Ryder is threatening to sue the Bureau and you personally for harassment unless you lay off.”
Clare shook her head and sneered. “I doubt he has the guts. His kind tends to stick with bullying those who can’t fight back. Like Beth.”
“What?”
“Parker Burby came by here.”
Clare hesitated, not wanting to engage Jake in conversation, but putting her personal feelings about him aside for the moment, she went on and filled him in on her talk with Parker. “When I confronted Ryder, he didn’t deny abusing Beth.”
Something lodged in Clare’s throat. She swallowed to clear it, then went on. “The big mystery is how her car got back to her place if she didn’t drive it there herself. Lil Fisher, who works at Connie Dannon’s inn, saw Beth drive away in it after work that day. Ryder said the car was in his driveway when he got there, yet no one saw Beth drive it home. No one saw Beth at all after she left the inn.”
“May not be a mystery,” Jake said. “I’ll call the sheriff’s office. Ask if they found the car abandoned someplace and notified Ryder about it.”
