Killer Heat (28 page)

“You mean I'm not the only one?”

That answered his question, and made Jonah damn glad he'd decided to spend a few extra bucks to keep Francesca safe. A fifteen-dollar-an-hour rent-a-cop had never been more worth the money. “I guess you are. What about Dean?”

“Who?”

“The slight man I told you about.”

“Haven't seen him.”

“What time did you get to the salvage yard?”

“'Round ten, like you asked.”

“Perfect. Thanks.”

“You want me to stay until dawn?”

“I'd like you to stay until I get there, if you can. I'll be on the first plane. Consider it time and a half.”

“You got it, man.”

They disconnected, but before Jonah could get showered for the day, his phone rang. “Hello?”

“Jonah?” It was Francesca. He was about to tell her what he'd learned but she didn't give him the chance.

“It's not Butch. It's Dean,” she blurted out. “He broke into my house last night and tried to kill me. If—if not for that pepper spray…”

“What?”
His free hand curled into a fist. “Are you injured?”

“No. Since the effects of the pepper spray have worn off, I'm just…rattled.”

Now that he knew she wasn't hurt, he realized what she'd told him didn't make sense. If Dean was their killer, why had Butch been driving that garbage bag into the
woods? If the two brothers-in-law were partners in crime, they were the most unlikely duo ever, so unlikely that Jonah couldn't bring himself to believe it.

Something else was at play. But what that “something” was, Jonah couldn't begin to guess.

“Where are you now?” he asked Francesca.

“On the road to Prescott.”

“Finch and Hunsacker know you're coming?”

“I called them right away. They're trying to get a search warrant.”

He considered telling her about the black bag Butch had transported, but decided to wait. If Dean was a threat to Francesca, he wanted him caught, first and foremost. No need to throw the investigation off-kilter before that could happen, especially when they were about to search the salvage yard. Let the investigators take the evidence technicians in there; he'd go to the Juniper Mountains himself.

“I'm heading to the airport right now,” he said. “I'll call you as soon as I land.”

F
rancesca told Finch and Hunsacker about the panties. Those panties were the reason Dean had come after her, which made them as significant as she'd suspected they might be. She couldn't in all conscience keep that information to herself any longer. So she'd braved their tirade and breathed a sigh of relief when the search warrant came through and they left with a couple of forensic science technicians. They were finally going to look beyond the mannequin they'd found before, and maybe they'd discover some piece of evidence that could bring this case to a satisfactory close.

But she was as uneasy as she was excited. No one knew where Dean had gone. Although Finch had sent a deputy to arrest him the moment he returned to the salvage yard, he'd never shown up. And Paris, Butch and the Wheelers claimed he'd left his phone at home so they had no way of contacting him, no idea where to find him. Unless that had changed and she hadn't been notified—which was entirely possible with Finch and Hunsacker—he was still missing.

Where could he be? And what was he doing? Francesca was more than a little afraid to find out. Not only was he mentally ill and emotionally unstable, he had the
names and addresses of all her family and friends. And he'd shown an inclination to contact them….

Expecting Jonah to arrive at any moment, she slumped over the table in the small interrogation room, where she'd been sleeping since the investigators left, and told herself everything would be fine. The investigation was on the downhill slide; it had to be. Surely Finch or Hunsacker or a tech on the team would discover some trace evidence—fibers, a piece of jewelry, hair—
something
to connect Dean with one or more of the victims, even if it was only a spot of blood he'd tracked in on his shoe.

She'd wanted to go with the investigators but, after what she'd been through and the effects of that sleeping pill, she'd been too exhausted to stay on her feet. Besides, Finch hadn't wanted her with them. Because of her encounter with Dean last night, her antagonistic relationship with Butch and the bad press her involvement in this case had already brought the department, he claimed that her presence would actually make it more difficult to achieve their goal.

“The testimony of the people closest to him will be important. I need to talk to Dean's family, get them to trust me enough to open up. I can't believe that will happen with you there,” Finch had said. “Not considering how they feel about you…”

“Just have Hunsacker do the interviews,” Francesca had responded with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “He and Butch are like family.”

The fact that Finch had shaken his head instead of speaking up to defend his partner told her that his anger over the panties and everything else was spent. He acted as if he felt bad for being such a jerk. Hunsacker, on the other hand, showed no remorse. He'd simply mut
tered, “Told you it wasn't Butch,” as he passed her on his way out.

Her cell phone rang. Lifting her head, she pressed the answer button. “Hello?”

“Jonah there yet?”

Finch. “No. But he should be coming soon.”

“You stuck on palling around with him? Or do you want to make yourself useful?”

Covering a yawn, she got up to stretch her sore muscles. As tired as she was, she thought she could've slept anywhere, even standing, but that chair hadn't been remotely comfortable. “I'm ready to help. What's going on?”

“Not much. We haven't found anything incriminating yet.”

Disappointment weighed as heavily as her fatigue. “I'd settle for suspicious.”

“These things take time.”

She switched the phone to her other ear. “So why are you calling me?”

“The interviews aren't going much better than the search.”

“No one's talking, even though
I'm
not there?” she said, taking a jab at his refusal to include her.

He didn't rise to the bait. “Not the old folks. Not Butch's wife. And certainly not Butch.”

“I told you to let Hunsacker do the interviews.”

Irritation sharpened his voice. “Enough with the bad blood between you and Hunsacker. If you two want to go at each other, leave me out of it.”

He had a point. Letting her dislike of Hunsacker get in the way wouldn't help. She was just so…sleep-deprived. And worried.

Resting her forehead against the wall, she stared down
at the commercial-grade carpet. “Maybe Dean's family doesn't know anything. He was able to stalk Sherrilyn, which means he has a great deal of freedom. This might sound a bit harsh, but Butch and the others are probably glad when he takes off on his little walkabouts, because then they don't have to deal with him.”

“Maybe they are glad when he's gone. But they know more than they're saying about Julia. I can feel it.”

She toed a spot where the carpet was coming loose from the wall. “I thought you didn't put much store in instinct.”

“I don't put much store in
your
instinct.
My
instinct's like a compass.” The chuckle that followed indicated he was joking.

“You can be funny?” she said dryly. “I didn't know that about you.”

“There's a lot you don't know about me.”

And she wasn't really interested in learning more. “You think they're protecting him?” she asked, getting back to what mattered most.

“Hell, no. Butch and Paris would love to make someone else responsible for Dean. Even a prison warden.”

Francesca still wasn't sure where Finch was going with all this, why he'd reached out to her. “You haven't told me what you want from me.”

“I need you to find Julia.”

What?
She lifted her head. “The Julia Paris mentioned to Butch?”

“That's the one. We kept Butch, Paris and the Wheelers separated so they couldn't hear each other's testimony. Standard procedure. But every time I asked about her—if Dean had any friends by the name of Julia or if they've ever known a Julia—they mumbled something vague, like, ‘Not that I remember,' or, ‘Not in recent
years,' and that was it. I couldn't get another damn detail out of them.”

That P.I. was here for a reason, Butch. And it wasn't to ask about Julia.
Those words had meant so much to Francesca when she'd first heard them. She'd assumed Paris knew of another woman who'd gone missing, that she suspected why and was keeping mum about it to protect her husband. But after Dean broke in and came after her with his trusty choke rope, Francesca had decided those words could have another meaning entirely. “Maybe I was wrong,” she said. “Maybe this Julia hasn't been victimized. She could just be another woman, alive and well, with whom Butch has been romantically involved.”

“That's what I told myself when you first reported what you'd heard. I didn't find the comment particularly damning. Not on its own. But if this Julia is alive, and Butch and the Wheelers have nothing to hide, why won't anyone provide me with a name and an address so I can talk to her?”

Francesca tried to reason that out, but he went on before she could arrive at an answer.

“And there's something else that's curious,” he said.

Stifling a groan because she still felt as if she'd been hit by a truck, she sank back into her chair. “What's that?”

“I found a whole box of love letters in Dean's room.”

“To Sherrilyn?”

“To Julia.”

This woke her up. “Do you know how long ago they were written?”

“The most recent is dated last week.”

“Which would suggest she's alive,” she said, smooth
ing the tape on the fresh bandage she'd put over her stitches.

“Except that they were never addressed, let alone sent. There has to be a reason.”

“Maybe he doesn't know where she is.”

“I thought of that, too. But in them he talks about how much he wishes he could've protected her from Butch. It seems to be a recurring theme.”

Protect her from Butch?
It was Dean who was dangerous. They'd just established that, hadn't they?

Too tense to sit still, Francesca got to her feet again. “What does Butch say when you ask him about those letters?”

“Nothing.”

“Try asking Paris.”

“I can't. They all invoked their right to have a lawyer present. As soon as I mentioned her name.”

So the interviews were over almost before they'd begun. That wasn't good. “You think I can track down Julia without their help?”

“You're supposed to be a crack P.I., right?”

“Not according to you and your rotund partner,” she grumbled.

“Listen, forget all that. We've got work to do.”

Now
he was willing to collaborate. Because he needed her.

“Hunsacker and I have our hands full here,” he went on. “I'd be tempted to believe this Julia is merely a figment of Dean's imagination. He's psychotic, so that has to be considered a possibility. But—”

“Paris talked about her to Butch, which proves they know her—or know of her—too.”

“Ah, the crack in the ‘he's making up imaginary friends' hypothesis.”

Just because Julia was real didn't mean Dean's perception of her situation was. He wrote about Butch being a threat. But it was possible that Dean had hurt her himself and blamed Butch for making him angry enough to do it, or used some other convoluted justification for his actions.

“A first name isn't a lot to go on,” she said.

“But it's all we got. Can you do it? Can you find her?”

She couldn't offer any guarantees. No woman named Julia had been reported missing from this area in the past twenty years. They didn't have a body—at least, not one they'd positively identified. And her name hadn't come up in any other context—just the letters Finch had found and what Francesca had overheard Paris say.

“I'll do my best,” she replied. “But I need you to do me a favor.”

“What's that?”

“Give me the date of the very first letter.”

Paper crinkled on the other end. “Assuming they're all here, and it certainly looks that way since they were all shoved in the same box under his bed, he wrote the first one on—” a few seconds of silence ticked by “—May 15, 2008.”

Two years ago… “Okay. I'm coming to get them,” she said. “Maybe there's a reference or a name in one that could start a chain for me to follow.”

“Daylight's wasting,” he said. Then he was gone.

 

Francesca's call came in when Jonah was about thirty minutes from Prescott. He sped up as he answered, even though he was already at risk for a ticket.
What if I can't hate you?
He'd been hearing her voice in his head ever since he'd hung up with her earlier, when he was still in
California, had been telling himself not to invest that question with more meaning than he should. Not hating him was a far cry from loving him, or being willing to give him a second chance.

“Almost there,” he told her. “What's going on?”

“I wanted to let you know that you can go straight to the salvage yard, if you like.”

“Don't tell me you're heading back to Chandler.” He didn't like the sound of that, didn't want her to be alone.

“No, I'm not sure where I'll be. I'm hoping to find Julia.”

He couldn't recall who she meant. “Julia?”

“The woman Paris mentioned when I was in the salvage yard. Finch feels she's important to the investigation.”

“What's changed? He didn't seem too interested before.”

“He found a box of love letters written to a Julia under Dean's bed. Now he's convinced that whatever role she played might be significant.”

“I'd say that's more likely than not,” he mused and turned down the radio. “Any sign of Dean?”

“No. None.”

Knowing how much he'd worry about Francesca if Dean remained at large for any length of time, how impossible it would be to leave the state and go home, he cursed. “Not the answer I wanted to hear.”

“Not the answer I wanted to give you,” she responded.

He slowed for a light, thought again of their earlier conversation in which she'd hinted that she still cared for him—and purposely avoided asking if it was true. “Where do you plan to start your search for Julia?”

“If Butch, Paris and Dean all know her, chances are
she's either related to one of them or she's local. And since Butch is completely estranged from his family, even the family who took him in, and has been for a number of years, I figure the Wheelers' relatives are much more likely to possess information that might help us.”

“Seems reasonable to me. Has Finch come up with anything besides those letters?”

“Not yet. But it's a big property. They have a lot of looking to do.”

The light turned green, and he gave the Jeep Grand Cherokee he'd rented at the airport some gas. “What about Butch and Paris? Anyone talking?”

“No one. All the principal parties are planning to get an attorney.”

Because of what he'd learned about that black garbage bag, he'd expected as much. “They definitely have something to hide. But what? What could've happened to bring them all into collusion? I have a hard time believing they'd stick together to protect a serial killer, even one who's part of the family. That would make them as culpable as Dean.”

“I agree. Maybe one person might let loyalty interfere with doing the right thing, but
four?
The question isn't just
what
they're hiding but
why.
”

“It would have to be a compelling reason….”

“Maybe they're all benefiting from these deaths in some way or another.”

“How? Unless it's petty robbery. And I can't imagine that'd be nearly enough incentive.”