Cold Highway: Ellie Kline Series: Book Four

by Stone, Mary

  Ellie sat up straighter, gripping the arms of the chair. “He could’ve used an alias, or a doctor on staff that’s a friend of his, or someone made a house call. Dr. Kingsley associates with powerful people. He could be anywhere.”

  “And he could be rotting in a ditch somewhere,” Fortis offered.

  Chief Johnson stood, coming around and sitting on the edge of his desk, towering over her. “The point is, whether he’s dead or wishing he was dead while he nurses his wounds, he is definitely out of commission for now. We’ve stepped up patrols in your neighborhood, and we have an active case open, being handled by one of our brightest detectives. Detective Valdez has already made significant headway, and I trust him completely. You need to back off.”

  She tightened her hands on the armrests of the chair. “I can’t, sir. Respectfully. I can’t sleep at night knowing that Kingsley’s out there.”

  Chief Johnson frowned, shaking his head. “You need to find a way to move past this. It’s interfering with your work. That’s a problem.” Dark eyes fixed on her, his mouth set into a grim line. “I’ve seen talented detectives fall prey to obsession over the years, and I don’t want it to happen to you. You’re chasing a ghost, Kline. And like it or not, this is out of your hands. It’s time to buckle down and focus on your career.”

  “I am focused.” She narrowed her eyes, trying not to let her anger show as heat grew in her chest. “If he’s out there, I’m going to catch him.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” Chief Johnson crossed his arms, scowling down at her. “If you find out Dr. Kingsley is still alive, you’re to report his whereabouts to Detective Valdez. Am I clear?”

  She paused before nodding curtly. “Yes, sir.” But in her heart, she knew she’d just told him a lie.

  “I don’t want you working on this case or any case related to yours.”

  She lowered her gaze to the floor to hide the rebellion she knew would show in her eyes. Her mother had always told her that her red hair and green eyes made her look like a hellion, but that when she was angry her eyes shot green sparks.

  “Listen, Kline, it’s not that you’re not a first-rate detective. You are.” Johnson paused as if waiting for her to answer, but Ellie was busy quelling the anger building inside her. “You saved Valerie. Hell, you’re the one who figured out she was still alive. And if it hadn’t been for you, Jillian would’ve been the human trafficking ring’s next victim. You don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Stop taking chances with your career and focus on making smart choices that will help you rise through the ranks. That’s what you should be focusing on right now.”

  Ellie nodded again, unable to stop herself from glaring at her boss’s boss. “I read you loud and clear.”

  “Good. Now, are you making any headway on your current case?” She cast her eyes to the side, unable to meet the chief’s gaze. He gave a soft harrumph. “You have a list you’re working from? Is that not so?”

  “I’ve been focused on Kingsley.” She fought to contain her emotions. “Kingsley watched me for thirteen years before he sought his revenge. He kidnapped my roommate and lured me to the warehouse where he held me when I was fifteen, all because I escaped from him that night. I admit that I’m obsessed with him, but that’s because he’s obsessed with me. If he’s still out there, I’m still in danger, and so is everyone around me.”

  “No one is faulting you, Kline. I just don’t want to see this monster get off because we messed up. Let me run Charleston PD my way.” Chief Johnson turned his attention to Fortis. “From now on, I’ll leave you in charge of assigning specific cases.”

  Ellie narrowed her eyes, gritting her teeth together as the two men continued to talk over her.

  “I already have one in mind.” Fortis nodded thoughtfully. “The case is pretty straight forward, but the deceased was never identified. Now that the photo evidence from older cases has all been scanned and digitized, we’ve found connecting missing persons cases with cold cases easier. In some instances, identifying the victim is the only piece of the puzzle missing. I’ve put those cases at the top of the list, and Kline will focus on those until we’ve cleared out as many as we can. If there’s a missing persons report for our Jane and John Does in the system, it shouldn’t take long to connect the dots.”

  Chief Johnson nodded. “Good.” He tilted his head toward Ellie, his eyes boring into hers without blinking. “Kline, if you need some time off, no one will blame you, but if you’re going to be here, I need you all the way here.”

  She nodded, clearing her throat. “Yes, sir.”

  “No more looking into Jillian’s kidnapping. No more chasing ghosts. If Dr. Kingsley is out there, we will find him. And he’ll pay for what he did to you, to Jillian, and everyone he’s killed. But we need to play this by the book, and that means you keep your eyes on your own cases, and let Valdez do his job.”

  “Understood.” The single word took more effort than it should have. But she knew arguing with her superior officers was pointless, and the sooner she agreed, the sooner she could leave the office.

  “I’m glad to hear it. I think moving you back to the office with the other detectives is a good start, and Fortis and I have been kicking around the idea of pairing you up with another detective.”

  Ellie bit back a snarl. “I work better alone.”

  “There’s some debate about that,” Fortis said. “Having a partner seemed to keep you in line. At least, Officer Garcia did his best. I’ll have to consider who would be the best fit, but working alone and in the evidence room isn’t happening anymore. Evidence Clerk Reed seems to be enabling you, and she technically isn’t even your partner.”

  Ellie gritted her teeth again as Chief Johnson nodded his agreement. “It’s time to get serious about your career, Kline. You have a bright future here, if you can keep your nose clean.”

  The two men stared at her with identical smiles, as if they were waiting for her to agree.

  She swallowed, trying to force herself to yield. Kingsley hadn’t just disappeared, but there was no evidence to prove otherwise. All she had was a gut feeling that he was somewhere lurking, licking his wounds until the time was right.

  They all knew the doctor was a patient man. After all, he’d waited until the thirteenth anniversary of Ellie’s escape to act, and he’d almost killed Jillian in the process. A man like Kingsley wasn’t easily defeated. As long as her superiors were breathing down her neck, she wouldn’t be able to keep looking for Kingsley. She had to stay in her lane, at least for now.

  Chief Johnson arched an eyebrow in response to her lengthy silence, lips parting, about to press the issue.

  She hurried to answer. “Yes, I can do that.”

  Johnson smiled and leaned back, clearly pleased. “Excellent. I’m glad we could come to an agreement.” He waved a hand toward the door. “If you don’t mind, Kline, I have a few things I need to discuss with Lead Fortis.”

  “Of course.” She stood, clearing out of the office so fast she was halfway down the hall before taking a breath. Scowling, she stalked back to her desk, paused, did an about-face, and went back out the door.

  The elevator was empty as she stepped inside, and this time, no one stuck their hand in the opening at the last minute to stop the doors from closing. She rode to the lower level, thankful for the quiet. Her nerves were frazzled, and she needed a moment to collect herself.

  Plus, this was the perfect time to gather her things from her old desk and move them upstairs. Not because she wanted to, but because she needed Fortis and Chief Johnson to believe she was following orders. Yes, she would take whatever case Fortis assigned and run with it, but they couldn’t stop her from searching for Kingsley on her own time.

  This wasn’t just about her kidnapping when she was fifteen, or how Kingsley had used Jillian to get to Ellie thirteen years later.

  As long as Kingsley was alive, Ellie would never be safe. Those near her would never be safe.

  This was personal, and the
re was nothing Fortis or Johnson could say to change her mind.

  The less they knew, the better. She would play by the rules, keep her head down so she could get her bosses off her back.

  As long as Kingsley was alive, her beloved city of Charleston wasn’t safe. No one was safe.

  She didn’t care how good a detective they said Valdez was. Ellie couldn’t trust anyone, especially when Kingsley was involved.

  4

  Special Agent Clay Lockwood leaned back in his chair, hooking his boots on the edge of the desk. The large open area furnished with over a dozen desks was quiet, most agents being out on a case.

  Exhausted from dividing his time between Dallas, Texas and the new Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team, or ACTeam office in Charleston, South Carolina, he toyed with the idea of calling it a day and heading home. He had more than enough vacation time saved up, and he wasn’t actively working a case. Being in the office seemed pointless when his mind kept drifting to his bed, which he hadn’t spent much time in since launching the Charleston ACTeam unit the month before.

  He was about to give up and log off the computer when Supervisory Agent Rachel Carr sauntered over to his desk with a file in her hand. Petite with shoulder-length salt and pepper hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, her soft hazel eyes and warm smile combined with her small stature made her appear nonthreatening, catching many a hardened criminal off guard over the years. Clay had been lucky enough to witness her take down men twice her size, more than once.

  Smiling at the memory, he pointed at the file. “What’s that?”

  “A cold case out of Arizona. The locals sent it over as a possible human trafficking case, though I’m not sure it fits the parameters. I thought you might want to take a look.”

  She slid it across his desk, and he frowned. “Why? I don’t have any known human trafficking activity in that area. Maybe it’s just a murder.”

  She shrugged. “Could be, but this victim is from Charleston. Isn’t that where you uncovered that group who were kidnapping victims and selling them online? That could explain how Charity Parker ended up in Arizona in the first place. Runaways are an easy target.”

  He snorted, though the sound was amused more than anything. “I didn’t discover the group. A redheaded spitfire of a detective named Kline did that. If she and her department hadn’t uncovered their website and linked it to the black market snuff films, the traffickers could’ve flown under the radar for a long time to come.”

  “Well, maybe you can make sense of this one.”

  “I’ll give it a look.”

  Agent Carr shot him a knowing grin. “Good. When you’re done, how about you hit the hay and catch up on some sleep? When are you heading back to Charleston?”

  Clay glanced at the desktop calendar, squinting to decipher his own tight scribbles. “End of the month.”

  “Perfect.” She gestured to the file. “This one’s already been returned to her family and buried, so Arizona’s just hoping we can shed some light on who killed her. Case went cold twelve years ago, so if you want to take some of that vacation time you’ve been hoarding and rest up, it can wait a week or two.”

  Clay flipped the folder open and stared down at the five-by-seven picture of the victim. “Is this a school picture?”

  “Yep. Her family gave the Maricopa County Sheriff a picture when they went to pick up her remains from Arizona. The photo was three years old at the time.”

  Jade green eyes fixed on the camera, the sarcastic half smile that was typical of sullen teens was framed by jet-black hair with subtle brown highlights. It was either natural or a very expensive dye job. Behind the cover page, the eight-by-ten crime scene photo showed Charity as she’d been found in the desert. She was unrecognizable save for the black hair.

  Clay frowned, scanning the coroner’s notes. “She was found largely intact. That’s a surprise in the desert.”

  “The cause of death was drowning, though if she hadn’t drowned, she would’ve succumbed to the blunt-force trauma a short time later.”

  Clay spread the crime scene photos out, lining them up so they took up the entire desktop. “The photographer did an excellent job.” He pointed out the picture they created when combined, showing the entirety of the area surrounding Charity’s body so that it was almost like they were there. “Were they able to figure out what she was bludgeoned with?” He used the tip of his pen to indicate a few large jagged stones. “There’s a few options, but I don’t see any blood. There should have been a lot of blood since her spine was severed.”

  “According to the detective assigned to the case, there was a flash flood in the area that happened right around the time of death. If the killer used one of those rocks, it may have tumbled downstream in the washout.”

  “This isn’t where she was killed?” He shuffled through the notes until he found the page he was looking for. “Ah, I see, right here. She’s about a mile from the nearest dirt road. How was she found?”

  “College students.”

  Clay cringed at the thought of students coming across a murder victim, even if they were technically adults. A body that had spent any amount of time in water was often a gruesome sight, and most people weren’t prepared for that reality. “What were they doing way out in the desert?”

  “Setting up game cameras for an animal science project.”

  “Too bad they didn’t have those out there earlier.” Clay flipped through the detective’s notes. “Any other evidence that stood out?”

  “Not really, but I only glanced over the file briefly.” She picked up the photo of Charity, possibly taken after her plan to run away was already hatched. “I’m not sure if we can add anything to this; it’s already one dead lead after another. But I told the sheriff we’d give it a look, and he seemed happy with that. He has a daughter Charity’s age, and I think this case hit him really hard.”

  “I bet. Do you think it’s related to any of the trafficking rings? Not on the record, but your personal opinion.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t, but this one is similar to that body they found out in Abilene, Texas. Young woman about the same age, found off the highway on a more secluded stretch of Interstate 20.”

  “I remember that one.” He grimaced, exhaling loudly. “The parents were convinced it was a trucker, and people were fired up about it for a while.”

  “Exactly. But they were never able to prove the trucker angle, and this one’s about the same, though beaten more badly. I’m not saying it wasn’t a trucker, but anyone who drives from Arizona to Texas knows you can’t even get a radio station on some parts of that stretch of road. It’s not just truckers who know that, so it really could’ve been anyone.”

  “You’re right.” Clay waved Charity Parker’s file at his SSA. “I’ll give her case a look, then I might take you up on that vacation time.”

  “Let me know before you leave if you do.”

  He nodded, but she was already gone, her own to-do list a mile long. Leaning back in the chair again, Clay left the photos out on the desk, perusing the meticulous notes the detective had made.

  As files went, this one was on the light side, though they had a name for the victim. A name was more than some cases had, but that’s where this victim’s luck ran out. He knew her name, and where she was from. But how a nineteen-year-old from Charleston had ended up in a ditch in the Arizona desert was anyone’s guess. He could come up with a few theories, but as he scanned the notes in Charity Parker’s file, he had more questions than answers.

  The flash flood had done a number on the body and the crime scene. The poor young woman was covered with gouges and scrapes from her body rushing through the wash, but thankfully, most of those had occurred postmortem. At the writeup on the head injuries, he cringed.

  Whatever mercy drowning had been for her, she’d still been beaten badly before she died. There were distinct blows to the head, her skull cracking with the first one. By the third, her spinal cord was se
vered. Her belt was undone and her pants down past her hips, but there was no sign of sexual trauma. His first thought was that she could have been surprised while attempting to relieve herself in the low brush, but there was a gas station less than a mile down the road.

  So, the bigger mystery remained.

  How did Charity Parker get there in the first place?

  He turned another page, reading the theories the detective had laid out, complete with a picture of the turnoff directly upstream from the wash that had carried Charity away in the flash flood. Built higher than the surrounding desert, the vacant gravel lot had once been the site of a tourist shop that sold the same array of dream catchers and homemade crafts that could be found up and down Interstate 8.

  It was no surprise that the little stand hadn’t lasted, undersold by the larger shops with ample parking, cold air-conditioning, and restaurants for road-weary drivers. Some even boasted RV hookups, showers, and lounges for those who needed more than a few minutes to refresh themselves before they continued on their journey. The little tourist shop was out of the way, and there was no other attraction to draw customers. Abandoned, the building had been left to rot in the unforgiving desert.

  According to the sheriff, it was a place where truckers and illegal campers pulled off to get some sleep, unable to make it to the rest stop, and opting for a quick nap within sight of the highway. Despite the rain, there had still been tire tracks visible in the lot, which was more hard clay than gravel, with banks of loose sand spread haphazardly by the wind and rain.

  So many truckers and tired motorists had used the space as an impromptu rest area, it was impossible to separate the sets of tracks from each other. Even after staring at the photo for a few minutes, Clay could barely discern which tracks had been made before the rains, and which after.

  It was another dead end.

  Clay opened the ACTeam database, typing a few keywords into the search engine. Trucker, desert, highway, abandoned. While he settled in to wait for the hits to load on his computer, he turned to the next page of notes.