by Kyla Stone
The first frisson of fear scythed through her. “Where are they? Tell me they’re okay.”
“They’re both missing.”
With her free hand, she rubbed her sweaty temple. Bear leaned against her legs, whining plaintively. He sensed something was wrong. “What does that mean?”
“There’s evidence they might have been at the scene when it happened. We’re looking for them, I promise. But Lena. There is no one left to take care of them. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Her breath came faster and faster, like she was running uphill, her lungs on fire but she was standing absolutely still. She couldn’t feel her fingers gripping the phone.
She imagined her niece, the last time she’d seen her at five years old. That dark fringe of hair and huge black eyes. And Cody, bright-eyed but somber, an old soul trapped in a kid’s body.
How fiercely she’d loved them.
Then she’d walked away.
It had felt like walking away from her own beating heart.
“Lena—” A lifetime of emotions and memories and past entwined histories in that name, the heaviness with which he spoke the syllables. In her mind’s eye, she saw Jackson at eight, at twelve, at fifteen, at twenty-five.
She’d known him her entire life. It was more than knowing. They’d shared a friendship deeper than she’d ever known, a friendship that had survived tragedy, scandal, and heartbreak.
Even sixteen hundred miles apart, she could feel him out there.
“She needs you,” Jackson said.
“I—I can’t.”
“She’s thirteen years old,” Jackson said, his voice soft as another round of static infiltrated their conversation. It would have been easy to pretend she hadn’t heard. But she had.
“I’m not her mother.”
“I didn’t say that. I said you. Shiloh and Cody need you, Lena.”
Lena didn’t speak. She couldn’t.
“You need to come back. You need to come home—”
A burst of static. Then silence.
“Jackson?”
Nothing.
She tried calling him again. No service. With shaking fingers, she slid the phone back in her pocket. A tangle of emotions churned inside her.
She’d sworn never to step foot in the UP again.
All this time, she’d told herself they didn’t need her. That her presence would cause tension and drama. Her father didn’t want her there. Her father had disowned her. Hell, the whole town had.
Everyone was better off without her. Those poor grieving children would forget her. Wasn’t that the best thing? To forget in a way that she never could.
That’s what he’d told herself every day for the last eight years.
Jackson Cross was the good one. The best of them. If he promised to find her sister’s children, he would do everything in his power to do so.
It might not be good enough, a voice whispered in the back of her mind.
Lena was the searcher. The finder of the lost. She was the one who’d dedicated her life to rescuing the missing. And she was damn good at it.
Bear pushed his snout into her thigh. “You trying to tell me something?”
The dog looked up at her, tail wagging eagerly. He was ready for anything Lena had ever asked of him. He’d be ready for this, too. It was Lena who felt like the ground had been ripped out from beneath her.
She’d spent the last eight years running.
What if she’d been wrong?
10
JACKSON CROSS
DAY TWO
By noon, Jackson had gotten his third cup of coffee from Gallery Coffee Company and picked up a mocha latte for Devon, who was a sugar junkie at any time, day or night.
He’d spent all morning knocking on the doors of the victim’s neighbors before heading into the sheriff’s office in Munising for the first debrief on the case.
Several officers and deputies were in the briefing room by the time Jackson arrived, including Devon, Hasting, Nash, Moreno, and two others: Jim Hart, a retired Marine and longtime cop from the Munising Police Department, and Alexis Chilton, their resident tech genius.
“About time you showed up,” Moreno said. “Getting your beauty sleep?”
“He obviously didn’t get enough,” Devon deadpanned.
Moreno and Nash snickered.
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.” Jackson handed Devon her coffee and started the debrief. “After a fruitless four hours banging on doors and interviewing folks who didn’t hear anything or didn’t want to, I’ve only got this. We have a dog-walker, Dorothy McCallister, who says she walked by the victim’s driveway around 4:45 p.m. She didn’t see anything. No vehicles passed her during her approximately thirty-minute walk with her Cocker Spaniel, Tigger.”
“That’s smack in the middle of our time of death window,” Hasting said.
Moreno leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Dorothy’s what, in her eighties now? How reliable is she? How’s her hearing? Her eyesight?”
“She lives independently. The woman still shovels her own front porch,” Jackson said. As Easton’s closest neighbor, Mrs. McCallister had also been interviewed in the case eight years ago. Her reliability had been questioned then, too. “She’s fine.”
Moreno raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Didn’t know you had such a thing for her, Cross.” He winked. “I’ll remember that in the future.”
“What else do we have?” Hart asked.
“We do have the security footage,” Devon said. “Easton had three cameras. One on the house, one on the parking lot and driveway, and one covering the interior of the junkyard. The junkyard camera was inoperable. I couldn’t tell whether the solar flare had something to do with it or if it malfunctioned weeks or months ago. I ran the working footage this morning. It’s only three days’ worth, then it records over itself.”
“And?” Hart asked.
“Nothing jumped out at me regarding the house footage. No visitors. Amos, Shiloh, and Cody appear, but seldom together.”
She pushed an opened file across the table. “Here’s the list of every vehicle that visited the Easton property over the seventy-two hours prior to the homicide. Five vehicles. Three I could make out license plate numbers, for two I could not. We do have the vehicle makes and models, however. I ran the plates. Any of these names stand out to you?”
Jackson read the list aloud. Every name was familiar. Gideon Crawford had been born and raised here. He was a bartender at the Northwoods Bar. Dana Lutz ran snowmobiling tours in the winter, and Scott Smith owned the local gas station. None had recent run-ins with the law.
“Nothing sticks out.” Jackson turned to Alexis. “Can you take these? Run the usual checks. See if anyone noticed anything suspicious.”
Alexis nodded as she chewed on her pen. In her late twenties, her strawberry-blonde hair was shaved on the sides, the rest plopped on top of her head in a messy bun. She wore thick, oversized black-frame glasses. “Let’s hope the servers are functional.”
Devon clicked a few buttons on her laptop and then flipped it to face the rest of the room. The grainy footage appeared, the world rendered in indistinct black and white. “At approximately 6:30 p.m. last night, a white Jeep Wrangler pulls up. Walter Boone gets out, heads up to the house at 6:33 p.m., waits three minutes like he expects someone to be home, then turns and walks down the hill to the salvage yard.”
The officers watched the grainy figure as they followed Devon’s verbal description. His body language appeared normal, his shoulders slightly hunched. No warning bells went off. Just a guy in slacks and a sweater vest who needed a new fender.
They watched the empty parking lot. A minute or so later, Boone came back into view, this time moving much faster, his stride jerky and uneven, a phone pressed to his cheek.
He went straight to his car, fumbled to open it, then clambered inside and sat for about sixty seconds, still holding his phone.
“
Why’s he just sitting there?” Hasting asked.
“He calls 911 here. It’s grainy but it checks out. He spoke with Tammy Dale at 6:390 p.m.”
Tammy was their dispatch operator, emergency operator, and administrative assistant. A no-nonsense mother of four in her late fifties with fifteen grandchildren, she kept the department running like a well-oiled machine.
They watched as Boone tossed his phone on the passenger seat. The grainy Jeep backed up, did a U-turn and punched the gas, roaring down the long driveway and out of sight of the camera’s view.
Devon switched off the footage and closed her laptop. “Seventy-six seconds. That’s how long he’s in the junkyard. Long enough to walk in past all those cars to the center, see the vic, and walk straight back out.”
“Who is this guy?” Devon asked. “You know him?”
“Of course,” Hasting said. “He volunteer coaches the LEGO robotics club at the high school. He coached my kid and got him a partial scholarship to MTU.” He meant Michigan Technical University in Houghton.
“We interviewed him this morning,” Moreno said. “His story matches with the footage. No inconsistencies.”
“Did he touch the victim?” Jackson asked.
“He says no.”
Jackson pointed to one of the crime scene photos spread out across the table. “You can see here and here the victim’s shirt that the blood spatter is smeared.”
“Like someone was checking for a heartbeat,” Hasting said.
“Possibly. But someone definitely touched him after the assault while the blood was still wet.”
Jackson and Devon exchanged a glance. It could have been the perpetrator or one of the kids. Or, the perpetrator was one of the kids. That was a thought he did not want to consider.
“Have the crime technicians come back with anything?” Hasting asked.
“They’re still processing the scene.” Jackson rubbed his temples. The caffeine hadn’t been enough to stave off a headache. “We have a blood sample in a footprint, but DNA hasn’t come back yet.”
“Next suspect,” Alexis deadpanned.
“Autopsy?” Hasting asked.
“Scheduled for tomorrow.” Jackson turned to Alexis. “Where are we on financials?”
Alexis dropped her chewed pen to the table and pushed up her glasses. “I checked with the county clerk’s office. Easton owed forty-nine thousand dollars in back taxes at the beginning of the year. The county was threatening to foreclose on him. He was making interest-only payments but he was behind on those, too. Then suddenly on April third of this year, he paid the debt in full.”
Hasting clicked his tongue. “He was barely making ends meet with the junkyard business. Where the hell did he come up with that kind of money?”
“That’s a good question,” Jackson said. “How about his financial records?”
“We’re working on the search warrant,” Moreno said.
“The banks are a mess right now,” Alexis said. “They’re limiting how much people can withdraw of their own money. This geomagnetic storm really messed with their servers.”
“My GPS was being screwy this morning,” Devon said. “It said the Two Eggs and Ham Café was located on Grand Island.”
“It should be,” Moreno quipped. “Their omelets suck.”
“It’s the low earth orbit satellites, too,” Alexis said. “Banking systems rely on GPS to synchronize financial transactions. If the satellites are fritzy—” She shrugged. “Bye bye secret Cayman account.”
“You’re talking out your ass,” Moreno said.
She stared at him and wriggled her eyebrows. “Am I?”
“Okay, stay focused, everyone. Keep working on the financials,” Jackson said. “If Easton is hiding a deep dark secret, that’s it. Follow the money.”
Alexis rolled her eyes. “Yeah, hello. That’s what I’m doing.”
Hasting stood and stretched. “How long is this sun thing going to be a problem?”
Moreno stared up at the buzzing fluorescent lights. “I heard on talk radio this morning that they’re predicting even more of these things. Another one tomorrow. Maybe I should go to the bank and withdraw my millions before it’s too late.”
“Maybe you should,” Alexis said. “I’d bet it’s more like your last twenty bucks, though.”
Moreno grinned. “Never have an ex-wife. Or three. They’ll steal every hard-earned penny.”
“Hard-earned? That’s quite the exaggeration,” Alexis shot back.
Jackson had several months of supplies socked away for a rainy day. Up here, it was prudent to be prepared for emergencies. Hell, it was prudent everywhere.
Still, he made a mental note to check the supplies in the basement. And maybe stock up a bit more. It wasn’t something he talked about much; Moreno would never let it go.
“Janet Holder said the Bear Trap Inn is completely booked,” Hasting said. “I heard Pictured Rocks Resorts is tapped out and a bunch of the campgrounds, too. All the aurora-chasers want to see the best show. It’s good for business.”
Alexis went back to chewing the tip of her pen. “As long as all those tourists cash rather than credit cards. They’re gonna be in for a rude awakening when their plastic rectangles don’t do crap.”
“Good riddance.” Moreno rolled his eyes. “Those aurora-chasers can kiss my fine Portuguese behind.”
They finished up with a few details and then Jackson and Devon were on their feet, headed out again. Jackson wanted to visit the kids’ school. Devon wanted to work the crime scene again, walk through it in daylight.
They had secured the search warrant for the property, which was effective as long as law enforcement remained at the scene. Nash had drawn the short straw and stayed the night to maintain scene security and ensure the chain of custody remained intact.
Before they could escape the building, the sheriff stomped out of his office, the glass panel shuddering in its frame as he slammed the door behind him.
Brad Underwood was a stern, imposing black man in his early fifties with ramrod posture. Everything about him, from his clean-shaven jaw to his bald head to his hard eyes screamed lifelong cop.
“How often we get a homicide around here?” Sheriff Underwood asked in a loud voice.
Across the foyer, Tammy Dale glanced at them from behind her desk, eyebrows raised. The sheriff shot her a look; she quickly bent her head and shuffled some papers.
“Not often, Sheriff,” Jackson said evenly.
“Not often,” Sheriff Underwood said in a mocking tone. “The last homicide caused quite the debacle.”
“I know that.”
“So, you’re going to get this one wrapped up right quick, eh?”
“I’ll do my best.”
The sheriff shook his head, perpetually disappointed in Jackson. Mainly because Jackson wasn’t his father, Horatio Cross, who’d served as sheriff for eighteen years before retiring ten years ago. Underwood had been the undersheriff for fifteen of those eighteen years.
He and Horatio had been drinking buddies for decades, and still were.
Jackson wasn’t interested in drinking buddies. He didn’t boast. He tried to keep his head down, get the job done right, and let his reputation do the talking. It didn’t always work.
Men like his father and Sheriff Underwood were interested in polling numbers, percentages, glowing news coverage and cases closed. Open and shut. Everything was a popularity contest to Sheriff Underwood. If he wasn’t winning, heads would roll.
He wasn’t haunted by bloody crime scenes. He didn’t spend sleepless nights consumed by guilt for what he had or hadn’t done. He didn’t seem to care about resolution for the victims, justice for the dead.
In some ways, Jackson envied him.
Sheriff Underwood tapped his foot impatiently. “Why haven’t you brought in Cody Easton as a suspect?”
“We’re working on bringing him in. And it’s too early to determine whether he is a suspect or a witness, or if he was there at al
l. We’re waiting on the DNA match.”
The sheriff grunted dismissively. “And the girl?”
“A possible witness. We’re working on finding her, too.”
“What other suspects do you have?”
“We canvassed the neighborhood. You know how it goes. No one heard anything. No one wants to talk.”
“You’re in charge of this case, son. Don’t make me regret it.”
Jackson hated the man’s sarcastic use of son. It fell just short of condescension. Sheriff Underwood never outright crossed the line into harassment, but he enjoyed coming close.
Eight years ago, Jackson had suffered the limelight for breaking the Broken Heart Killer case. He hadn’t wanted it. Underwood had—badly. Maybe that’s why the man disliked him so much. Or maybe there were other, darker reasons.
“I also have the Ruby Carpenter case—”
“Give it to someone else. Give it to Hasting or Nash. Better yet, close it. That girl is a chronic runaway. Her mother is grasping at straws and wasting this office’s time, resources, and taxpayer dollars.”
Jackson didn’t say anything.
Sheriff Underwood leaned in close. “You hearing me, Cross?”
“I promised her mother I’d look into it.”
“And now your good deed for the year is done. You have an actual job to do. To catch a killer so we can all sleep at night. You understand?”
“I understand.” Jackson kept his gaze steady on the sheriff’s, refusing to drop his gaze or flinch. He was used to intimidation tactics; he’d grown up with them.
Bradley Underwood enjoyed keeping his officers under his thumb. He was a man for which power and authority mattered. He was a big fish in a small pond. Until the State Police or the FBI got involved, and then he wouldn’t be.
He wanted this case locked up and fast.
So did Jackson, but for different reasons. He wanted Shiloh and Cody protected and safe. He wanted justice—true justice—to be served.
Sheriff Underwood took a step closer and lowered his voice. He smelled of the cigarettes he’d been trying to quit for ten years. “Cross, I need to know we’re on the same page in this. You and I don’t want a repeat of eight years ago. With Eli Pope freed, the citizens are already up in arms. I just had Tim Brooks in my office, had to talk him out of an organized lynching on the front lawn of the Munising precinct.”
