Mountain of Evidence

by Cindi Myers

  She spotted space on a shelf in the back and hurried to put the roses there, then paused to admire the bucket of pink carnations that was all that was left of the stock they had used for prom. Eve had mentioned that next Wednesday she had a huge order of flowers coming in for a big wedding. Janie really hoped she would get to help with those arrangements, and maybe even get to go with Eve when she delivered the flowers to the church and the reception hall. Spending her break here was turning out to be so much more interesting than hanging out at home with Mom and Beth and her friends.

  She left the freezer and started back toward the front of the shop when the sound of a man’s voice made her freeze. The voice was low—too low to be her dad’s. They were closed, so it wouldn’t be a customer, would it?

  On tiptoe, and holding her breath, she crept to the curtain that separated the workroom from the rest of the shop. She stood right behind the curtain, straining to hear.

  She didn’t know exactly what she was hearing, but she knew it made her afraid. Scuffling sounds, like a struggle. Then something heavy being dragged over the floor. The man’s voice again, the words indistinct, but like he was giving orders. Then the sound of the door opening, the door chime sounding, and then...nothing. So silent she could hear her own breath heaving in and out, and her heart pounding.

  After what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes, she eased back the curtain and peered into the front of the shop. The first thing she noticed was the sliding door of the display cooler open. Flower petals littered the floor around it. Had they been there before? Maybe. They had all been pulling things in and out of that cooler all day.

  She took two more steps forward, until she could see the whole shop. Empty. “Eve?” she called, almost a whisper. Then, a little louder. “Eve?”

  No answer. She wanted to cry, but she forced back the tears. She had to think. What to do? What would her dad do?

  Hands trembling, she picked up the phone receiver and dialed. Then she sank to the floor behind the counter, where anyone watching wouldn’t see her. “Dad?” she asked when he answered. “Can you come to the flower shop right away? I think something really bad has happened.”

  * * *

  THE FURY IN Toby’s eyes startled Eve, and the knife in his hands frightened her, but the thought of what he might do if Janie suddenly walked in on him terrified her. So she made no protest when he tied her hands roughly behind her back. He held the knife to her throat again. “You make a sound and I’ll cut you,” he said. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded, and he dragged her toward the door. He gave no indication that he had any idea Janie was in the store, and this knowledge sent a flood of relief through Eve. Janie would probably be confused and frightened when she came back to the front room and Eve was gone, but she had a good head on her shoulders and would probably call her father.

  Grant would think of something, she told herself, comforted by the thought. Grant would take care of Janie, and help Eve.

  Out on the sidewalk, she stumbled alongside Toby to the white sedan she remembered from their date. Toby opened the passenger door and shoved her inside. “Don’t try anything stupid,” he said. “I can still hurt you bad.”

  “I won’t,” she promised. All she wanted was to get him away from the flower shop before Janie ran out or he spotted her through the front window.

  She remained silent as they drove through town and headed toward the national park and the wilderness land that was part of the Ranger Brigade’s jurisdiction. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “We’re going to find Dane Trask,” he said.

  “Do you know where he is?” she asked, surprised.

  “No. But when he finds out I have you, he’ll come running, and then I’ll have him.”

  “I don’t think I understand,” she said. Why would Dane come running?

  Toby grinned. “You don’t? Let me put it another way. I’m setting a trap to catch Trask. And you’re the bait.”

  * * *

  JANIE’S WORDS WERE like an icicle to Grant’s heart. “Take a deep breath,” he said, as much to his daughter as to himself. “And tell me what’s going on.”

  “I think someone broke into the shop, right after we closed. I was in the back cooler and heard a man’s voice, then some thumping sounds and...” She made a sound like a sob. “When I came out, Eve was gone.”

  “Where are you now?” Grant asked. “Are you somewhere safe?”

  “I’m on the floor behind the front counter.”

  “Do me a favor. Go into the back room. Wait there. I’ll be right there.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  “I love you, too, Pumpkin.”

  He ended the call, moved into the main room of headquarters, and scanned the men and women working there. “Beck! Dance! With me,” he ordered and headed for the armory at the rear of the building.

  By the time Dance and Beck reached him, Grant had opened the locker containing SWAT gear and began passing out body armor, helmets and weapons. “What have we got?” Dance asked, accepting a sniper rifle.

  “A possible kidnapping,” Grant said. “The flower shop where my daughter is working. She just called to say someone—she thinks a man, but she only heard his voice, she didn’t see him—came in after closing. She heard a struggle and when she came out of the back room, the shop’s owner, Eve Shea, was gone.”

  “Eve Shea is Dane Trask’s girlfriend,” Beck said.

  “Was,” Grant said. “They split up six months ago.”

  “Do you think Trask has her?” Dance asked.

  “I don’t know who has her, but we’re going in prepared for anything. After we assess the situation, we may call in reinforcements. Right now, I need to go make sure my daughter is all right.”

  On the way into town he called the Montrose Police, then dialed the number for the shop. It rang and rang, but finally Janie answered. “Eve’s Garden, how can I help you?” She sounded so adult it hurt to hear.

  “Janie, it’s Dad. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m sitting here by the back door with the phone. Nobody else is here.”

  “We’re on our way. The Montrose police are coming, too.”

  When the two Ranger cruisers pulled onto Main, two Montrose squad cars were already parked in front of the flower shop. A sergeant met them on the sidewalk. “No sign of activity inside,” he said.

  “My daughter is in there, in the back,” Grant said. “She says no one else is in there. Let me go in first and get her.”

  “The door’s unlocked,” a second Montrose officer said. “We tried it, but didn’t go in.”

  Grant pulled on gloves, then went in. Everything looked pretty orderly. The door to the display cooler stood open, and there were a few flower petals on the floor, but otherwise, nothing looked out of place. “Janie!” he called. “You can come out now.”

  Seconds later, Janie pushed back the curtain that separated the front of the shop from the workroom. She was very pale, and stared at the group of armed men, wide-eyed. “Come here, honey,” Grant said, and she ran to him and buried her face in his side.

  He hugged her close and patted her back while she cried a little. Dance and Beck and two Montrose officers searched the shop from front to back. “It’s clear,” Dance said, emerging from the back a few moments later.

  Grant gently pushed Janie away and handed her a handkerchief. “Take a minute to calm down, then tell us what happened,” he said.

  She sniffed and scrubbed at her eyes with the handkerchief, suddenly looking very young. He wanted to pull her close again, to shield her from all the danger and ugliness in life. Instead, he took out a recorder. “I’m going to record this, so we have a record,” he said. “You tell me everything you remember.”

  She started from when she took some vases of rosebuds to th
e back walk-in cooler, through hearing the man’s voice and the sounds of struggle, up to when she called him. Her voice shook a little as she relived it all, but she remained tough. “I couldn’t hear what the man was saying, and I didn’t recognize the voice, but it was deep—deeper than yours.”

  He switched off the recorder. “You did a good job,” he said. He turned to the others. “Talk to people in the shops on either side and across the street and see if they saw anything.”

  “We’ll start processing the scene for evidence,” the Montrose sergeant said.

  Janie turned toward the display cooler. “I don’t know if those flower petals were on the floor before or not,” she said. “But I think Eve was in there when the guy came in and grabbed her.”

  Grant patted her shoulder. “Try not to worry about it, Pumpkin,” he said. “You did what you could—now it’s our job to find her.” Every second counted. Grant had no idea what Eve’s kidnapper intended, but his job was to get to them before the man could act on his intentions.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What is going on here? Has there been an accident or something?” A woman’s voice rose out on the sidewalk.

  “Sarah!” Janie called, and Eve’s assistant pushed past one of the Montrose officers and rushed up to them.

  “Janie, what is going on?” she asked.

  “Eve’s been kidnapped,” Janie said, and started crying again.

  The color left Sarah’s face and she turned to Grant. “Eve’s gone?”

  He took her elbow and walked with her a little way from Janie, who continued to sniffle and mop at her face with the handkerchief. “Janie was in the back room and heard a man’s voice and sounds of a struggle. When she came out, Eve was gone and the shop was empty. She said this happened not too long after you left. Did you see anyone near the shop when you left—in a car parked nearby, or on the sidewalk?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I didn’t notice anyone. But then, I was in a rush to get home and see my son and his date before they left for prom.”

  “Was there anyone in the shop earlier in the day who acted suspicious? Anyone angry about anything?”

  “No. Nothing like that.” She glanced at the cops swarming the shop, taking photographs and measurements, dusting for fingerprints. “After my son and his date left, my husband and I decided to go out to eat. We were driving past and I saw all the cop cars and I had to see what was happening.”

  She turned as a bulky man with a broad face and thinning blond hair came into the shop. “I’m Dale McLean,” he said, putting an arm around Sarah. “What’s going on?”

  “Someone’s kidnapped Eve,” Sarah said.

  Janie joined them and Sarah put her arm around the girl. “You were so smart to call your dad right away,” she said.

  “I’m worried about Eve,” she said.

  “I’m sure your father and his men will find her.” Sarah looked at Grant. “You’re going to be busy a while, aren’t you? Working? I can take Janie if you like.”

  He hadn’t even thought about what he would do with Janie while he searched for Eve. He looked at his daughter. “Would you mind going home with Sarah?” he asked.

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “I’m sure you’d rather be at your own place, but I’d appreciate the company,” Sarah said.

  “All right,” Janie said.

  She went to the back room to retrieve her backpack. “Thank you,” Grant said. “I wouldn’t want her to have to stay at my place by herself.”

  “Of course not. She’s a great kid, Commander. You should be proud.”

  “I am.”

  After Janie and the McLeans left, Beck and Dance returned, bringing with them a young black woman with close cropped hair and large, wide-set eyes. “This is Isabel Hart,” Dance said. “She works at the sandwich shop across the street and may have seen our guy.”

  Grant fished out his recorder again. “I’m Commander Sanderlin,” he said. “Tell me what you saw.”

  The woman looked around nervously, then said, “I went out to water the flowers in the planters by our door a little after six and I saw a man come in here,” she said. “I remember because he shoved the door really hard and made a grunting noise. That’s what made me look up. I thought the door must have stuck.” She shrugged. “I didn’t think a lot about it after that. I went inside.”

  “Was the sign on the door turned to Open or Closed?” Grant asked.

  “I don’t know. I think he was blocking the sign so I couldn’t see it.”

  “But you’re sure about the time?” Grant asked. “Just after six.”

  “Yes. Because we have a special that runs from six to eight and I had just rung up my first one of the evening.”

  “What did the man look like?” Grant asked.

  “Tall. Dark hair. Not fat or thin.” She shrugged. “His back was to me, so I didn’t see his face.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Hart.” Grant switched off the recorder. “We may have more questions for you later. We appreciate your help.”

  She left and Dance said, “He might have forced the door, or picked the lock. It’s a pretty basic lock. There’s an alarm, but it wasn’t set yet.”

  “He could have had a key, too,” Beck said. “If he’d been in the shop before or knew Ms. Shea, he could have swiped the key or borrowed it and had a duplicate made.”

  The Montrose sergeant returned. “We’ve put out an APB with Ms. Shea’s description,” he said. “We haven’t found anyone who remembers any kind of trouble with her and a man, or even a disgruntled customer. No ex-husband in the picture.”

  “She dated Dane Trask for a couple of years,” Dance said.

  The sergeant’s eyebrows rose. “Maybe he came back for her?”

  “The man the woman across the street described fits Trask’s description,” Dance said.

  “We’re not ruling out anything at this point,” Grant said. He gave the Montrose officer the description Ms. Hart had shared. “Are there any security cameras that might show the area around the shop?”

  The sergeant shook his head. “A couple of places have cameras inside, but none of them are focused on the street. We’ll keep talking to people, and we’ll put out this description, in case anyone recognizes someone.”

  He left and Grant turned to Dance. “I’m going back to the office. Keep me posted.”

  On the drive back to the office, he scanned every car he passed, hoping to see Eve, or a man who fit the description Ms. Hart had given. He refused to think what might be happening to her and focused instead on why someone might have taken her. Had Dance returned out of some misdirected version of love, determined to take Eve into exile with him? Maybe the man really had lost his grip on reality.

  Eve had no fortune, or wealthy family, so ransom seemed out of the question. Had someone been stalking her, one of her former dates who believed she was in love with him, or even a stranger who had decided he wanted her?

  Back at the office, Hud met him just inside the door. “I’ve got that image you were waiting for,” he said. “The one from Marsha Grandberry’s camera.”

  Dully, he followed Hud to his computer and studied the enlarged and enhanced image of a dark-haired man, squinting into the sun. “It looks to me like he’s definitely watching Grandberry,” Hud said. “Judging by the trees around him, I’d put him at about six-two, approximately 180 pounds.” He paused. “He fits the description for Dane Trask.”

  Some of the fog cleared from Grant’s mind as he studied the picture. Though still slightly blurred, the image was recognizable. “It’s not Dane Trask,” he said. “That’s Toby Masterson.” The two men did resemble each other, superficially. Looking at this image, it struck Grant that Masterson could have been the man who opened Trask’s safety deposit box. He could have used a fake ID, or stolen one from Trask, either at work or at Welco
me Home Warriors.

  “Who is Toby Masterson?” Hud asked.

  “He works for TDC. He knows Dane Trask from Welcome Home Warriors.” And he had dated Eve. “It’s very possible he killed Marsha Grandberry,” he said. “And I think he kidnapped Eve Shea. He fits the description we got from a witness and Eve went out with him at least once, and he’s tried to date the other women in Dane Trask’s life—Cara Mead and Trask’s daughter, Audra. I think he’s obsessed with Trask.” He clapped Hud on the back. “Get me everything you can on Masterson. I especially want to know the make, model and plate number of the vehicle he’s driving.”

  They were going to get this guy, but how long did they have before it was too late?

  * * *

  MASTERSON SWITCHED OFF his headlights and they barreled down the highway in the darkness. “What are you doing?” Eve cried. Was he trying to kill them both by speeding blindly along these twisted mountain roads?

  He didn’t answer, but suddenly swerved left, bumping onto a rough gravel road. She tried to make out some landmark in the darkness, but that was impossible. She didn’t know how Masterson could even see to drive, it was so dark out, with no moon and few stars and no other light for probably miles. The car rocked wildly from side to side and she tried to brace herself with her feet, but banged her head hard against the side window. “Are you trying to kill us?” she shouted.

  He slammed on the brakes, throwing her forward, though the seat belt he had fastened around her kept her from catapulting through the windshield. She strained her eyes to see him in the dark, but could only make out shadows. She thought she heard him breathing hard over the rumble of the car’s engine.