Killer Heat (29 page)

“Me, neither. But there's a common thread in this. We just have to find it.”

Maybe he'd do that when he and the security guard traveled into the Juniper Mountains. Although he'd originally planned on taking Francesca along, keeping her
by his side every second, he felt she'd be safe for a few hours, since Dean wouldn't have any idea where she might be. But, considering what Ray Leedy had seen the night before, he wanted her to know that Butch might be a threat, too; there could be
anything
in that black bag, including the body of the woman she was hoping to find.

“You're kidding me,” she said when he finished explaining.

“No. So…this thing is far from over. Keep your eyes open, okay?”

“I will.”

He knew she was about to hang up but, for some reason, felt compelled to stop her before she could. “Francesca?”

“What?”

Don't ask. Let her meet someone who hasn't hurt her the way you have.
“Never mind,” he said. “I'll catch you later.”

 

What was it Jonah had wanted?

Tempted to call him back to see if she could get him to tell her, Francesca stared down at her phone as she left the sheriff's station. She was fairly certain he hadn't been about to make another comment on the case. The energy of those last few seconds had seemed far too personal, as if the world had suddenly shrunk into an intimate bubble that included only the two of them. But if he'd been about to admit that he cared for her, what would she say in return? What did she want from their renewed association?

That was a difficult question to answer because as much as she still loved him, she wasn't sure it would be wise to hope for a future together. Too many obstacles
stood between them. For one, it'd been a decade since their earlier relationship. Those years had changed them both. For another, they lived in different states. Then there was Adriana. Was there room in her life for
both
of them? Or would it become painful and awkward, eventually making her resent one or the other? She also had to think of her family. If she and Jonah decided to marry at some point, could she really expect her parents and her brother to embrace him?

Her phone flashed to the main menu as if trying to tell her that the past was too big a hurdle to clear. The last thing she wanted was to reunite with Jonah only to go through another breakup. It'd been hard enough the first time….

Dropping her phone in her purse, she told herself she was better off leaving the relationship as it stood. Sure, she'd missed him. But if she'd learned to build a life without him once, she could do it again. She'd be wiser to make that decision now, before she formed as many new memories of him as she had past ones. At least after the last few days she'd be able to remember him in a more positive light. Sometimes one had to be grateful for small things.

Pushing the button on her key that would unlock her car, she took a deep breath. Maybe she wouldn't have the sense of completion or happiness that felt so tantalizingly close whenever Jonah was around, but that happiness could be just an illusion.

 

From the moment she got out of her car, Francesca could feel Butch's glare. It cut through the summer heat like the searing blue flame of a welding torch as he watched her approach from where he sat in a cheap plastic lawn chair, while his son played on a tire swing that
hung from the same kind of rope Dean had brought to her house. She made that connection right away, planned to ask the police to take a sample, since Dean had left that short length of rope behind.

The Impala was gone. She guessed Butch had suggested his wife leave, possibly to avoid the painful process of having half a dozen police officers crawl over the house and yard, searching through everything and anything, including her underwear, tampons and birth control products. It wasn't like she had to stay. Search warrants were very specific, and since Dean didn't drive, the judge hadn't allowed Finch to include the vehicles.

It didn't look as if the old folks were home, either, which made Francesca wonder whether Finch was having them tailed. If Dean's parents felt any sympathy for their boy's situation, they could be meeting up with him right now, passing him money or giving him a lift to someplace they deemed safe, someplace out of reach of the law—like Mexico, which was only a four-and-a-half-hour drive away.

Planning to ask Finch if he'd considered that possibility, she started to skirt around Butch when he came to his feet and stepped in front of her. “Well, look who it is,” he said, raising the can of beer in his hand.

She wished she had more energy, but last night had taken its toll. “I have nothing to say to you,” she told him. “Please get out of my way.”

He didn't. Wearing a baseball hat with his typical sleeveless shirt and jeans, he took a swig of beer. “I hear Dean gave you a scare.”

The taunt in his voice said he wasn't displeased by his brother-in-law's actions, and that surprised her. After learning about his activity with that black garbage bag,
she would've expected him to be upset that Dean had brought the police down on them.

“That's right,” she said. “And I gave
him
a shot of pepper spray. Considering he's wanted by the police and will probably spend the rest of his life in prison, I'd say he got the worst of it, wouldn't you?”

Muscles bulging, he folded his arms across his massive chest. “Too bad that boy ain't more of a man.”

“And what would a man have done, Butch?” She wanted to taunt him in return, let him know he'd been observed last night, but she wouldn't risk compromising their case. First they had to get him on record saying he hadn't left the house.

His gaze dropped to the slight cleavage above her V-neck shirt. “A real man would've had you on your back in ten seconds flat.”

A tingle of fear went through her. Dean had shown up at her house with a rope, yet this man frightened her even more. “Are we talking about rape, Butch? Are you suggesting a real man, a man like you, would've raped me?”

He gave her an evil smile that made her feel shockingly vulnerable. “Rape you? Heck, no. That's illegal.”

“Not to mention immoral.”

“That, too.” He took another drink of his beer. “I'm just sayin' a real man would've been able to pin you so you couldn't spray him, that's all,” he said with a wink as he stepped aside.

When she came even with him, she paused. “You think you're helping your case by making comments like that, Butch? Isn't your family in enough trouble?”

He made a show of appraising her calves, the only part of her legs visible beneath her knee-length skirt. “I'm not in any trouble. They won't find anything here,
except maybe a few trophies from the women I've—” his smile widened “—
pinned.
”

“You'd better hope all those women are still breathing, or you'll have a much bigger problem than just putting up with a mess,” she said as she gestured at the chaos surrounding them.

He reached out to grab her arm before she could walk away, but the front door opened and a forensic tech came out at the same time. Laughing, Butch shoved his hand through his hair as if he'd intended that action all along. “Let's hope
you're
still breathing when all this is over, huh?”

Francesca couldn't believe his nerve. She was so appalled she didn't realize the forensic tech had spoken to her until he repeated himself. “I said, are you Francesca Moretti?”

Pulling her gaze from Butch, she focused on the man who'd been trying to hail her. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

His eyes cut between her and Butch. Obviously, he sensed the tension but didn't understand the reason behind it. “Finch asked me to keep a lookout for you. He's in back.”

“Right. In back,” she said, and began to follow him. Then she caught the tech's arm, so he couldn't go in without her, and faced Butch. “I'm going to find Julia, or find out what happened to her. Then we'll see who's safe and who's not.”

The unconcerned mask he'd worn since she arrived disintegrated. “You don't know when to quit, do you?”

“When whoever's been murdering women and dumping their bodies in the desert or on the street, like so much trash, has been put behind bars, I'll quit,” she said, and walked off.

A
fter taking the letters Finch had given her to the car, Francesca sat in the driver's seat reading. She thought she might have some questions for the investigators or run across a detail she'd need to check out while she had access to the property. But she felt so sleepy she was hardly in top form. And Butch was making her uncomfortable with the way he kept watching her.

When glaring didn't seem to intimidate her, he got up and fetched the bat he'd come at her with the first day they met. Whenever she glanced up, he'd grin wickedly and take a big swing, as if he was happily knocking her head off. In return, she'd smile and give him a nod of acknowledgment, then hold up the letter she'd just read, as if it contained so much damning evidence he didn't have a prayer of staying out of jail.

He didn't like that. After three such exchanges, he cursed and threw the bat aside, then slumped in his chair. The next time she looked up, she noticed that his expression had darkened to a glower. She smiled, anyway, but soon started her car and drove half a mile down the road, where she could still be close but read without the anxiety.

Dean had dedicated the first page of almost every
letter to effusive compliments and pledges of undying love. But in this one there was also a poem using every letter in Julia's name, one he'd obviously written himself.

“Isolated as a
bear?
” she read. That line stuck out because it didn't make a lot of sense, until she realized that the last item on the list for each letter created a separate poem.

He'd wanted to rhyme.

Francesca doubted Dean would ever win any awards for his poetry, but at least he'd provided a physical description for the girl she needed to find. Maybe it was rudimentary, but it was still more than she'd known a moment earlier. Julia was under eighteen—but since Dean had written this last May, maybe not anymore. She had green eyes and dark hair. Francesca wondered if Dean had included the physical details as a way to
remember her. That seemed plausible, especially since his writing had grown less specific and more flowery as time went on, implying that he hadn't seen her in quite a while, or that he was writing to someone fondly remembered. This poem might even be his idea of a memorial.

Going through each line again, she studied the other adjectives. According to Dean, Julia was also
jinxed, isolated
and
abandoned.
Those three words caught Francesca's attention because they were the only negative ones in the poem, and they didn't reflect directly on Julia but on her circumstances.

Had this girl run into bad luck? Why was she jinxed, abandoned and isolated?

Dropping the letter in her lap, Francesca rested her head on the back of her seat and gazed off into the distance. The salvage yard was fairly isolated. Could Dean have been speaking about his own reality, projecting again? He was also jinxed and, to some extent, abandoned. Those adjectives would actually be quite appropriate for someone in his situation.

A truck chugged along the dirt road to her right. Watching the dust churned up by its tires, she tried to figure out why the letters she'd read gave her the feeling that Dean knew this girl well, that the whole family did. In the earlier letters, he made several references to Butch, and “the way he looks at you.” There was even “Don't mind Paris. She's just jealous.” And “Mom knows it wasn't you.”

If those passages could be believed, they'd all spent time together, maybe a lot of it. But Francesca couldn't imagine Butch and Paris going out anywhere with Dean, not if they could avoid it. Which meant the only way they
could all associate as closely as these letters intimated was if—

Francesca's heart began to beat faster. The girl lived around here!

Her eyes riveted on the truck she'd been watching earlier and she recalled her father's words about the man who owned the farmland adjacent to the salvage yard.
The owner works it himself, so he's out there regularly, growing alfalfa….

This had to be that farmer, didn't it? Or someone he'd hired…

Francesca had left her car idling because she'd needed the air-conditioning. Pushing the gearshift into drive, she punched the gas pedal, swung around the corner and barreled down the road. The truck, a dented old Ford, clearly a work vehicle, was pretty far ahead of her, but she managed to get the driver's attention by laying on her horn and flashing her lights.

He stopped, allowing her to draw even with him.

Hoping this might be the break she needed, she hopped out and hurried over to greet him. “I'm really sorry to bother you. You must think I'm crazy racing after you like that, but I had to catch you.”

The driver, an older man with a craggy face and iron-gray hair, wore bib overalls and a T-shirt dampened with sweat. A wad of tobacco filled one cheek. “What can I help you with?”

She dug through her purse and handed him her card. “I'm looking for someone.”

He spat through his open window. “You're a P.I.”

“I am.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“It's a teenage girl, about eighteen. Green eyes. Dark hair. Most likely Caucasian.”

He gawked at the dust coating her high heels. “The closest house is that way half a mile or so, at the salvage yard. You could check there.”

The engine revved as if he was about to drive off so she put her hands on the window ledge. “I know where the salvage yard is. Please, if you could just…think for a moment. I'm guessing this girl hasn't been around for a while. I'm not sure how long. But I believe she lived in the area at one time. Her name was Julia.”

His bushy eyebrows resembled two caterpillars inching toward each other. “Well, why didn't you say so? I remember Julia. She's been gone…oh, couple years. Maybe two.”

“Where did she live?”

“The house I pointed out to you.” He jerked his head in the direction from which she'd come.

“The salvage yard.”

“That's right.”

Relief, hope, even disbelief, surged through Francesca, giving her a respite from the dragging fatigue. “She lived with Butch?”

“For a while. She was some sort of runaway they took in. Nice of 'em.”

“How well do you know Butch and the Wheelers?”

He adjusted his ball cap, which was even more stained with sweat than his shirt. “I know Elaine and Bill better'n the kids. Bought this land from 'em twenty years ago, but they've retired since then. Butch is runnin' the place nowadays.” He peered at her more closely. “You okay?”

She felt as if she'd won the lottery. “I'm fine. It's just…hot.” She swiped at a drop of sweat rolling down from her temple. “Can you tell me anything about Julia?”

“Not much. There was only one time that we actually spoke. The needle on my gas gauge was sticking.” He
tapped the glass below the dusty dash. “I thought I had plenty in the tank but turns out I didn't. I ran out right in front of their place, had to knock at the door and ask if I could buy a couple gallons off 'em.”

“What did they say?”

“Julia came to the door. She was real sweet. Ran and got me a gas can and invited me in for a glass of iced tea.”

“Did you see Butch or any of the Wheelers when you were there?”

“Paris was in the kitchen. Dean, too. They were just finishing lunch. They said hello, told me Julia was from California, that her parents didn't treat her right so they'd taken her in. Dean mentioned that she helped out in the yard. Didn't see Butch, Elaine or Bill.”

“Did that incident occur in the summer?”

“Had to be. Damn hot that day. That's why the iced tea tasted so good.”

“And this was two years ago?”

“Yup.”

Francesca used the back of her wrist to dab at the sweat beading on her upper lip. “I see. And then Julia was gone shortly afterward?”

“Oh, I saw her out front once or twice after that, and we waved. But when I stopped by a few months later to see if Butch had a carburetor for a '57 Chevy, she wasn't around no more.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked about her. He said she'd run off. Said it was the damnedest thing, kind of ungrateful 'cause of everything they'd tried to do for her.”

If she was gone three months after this man had initially spoken to her in the height of summer, she'd disappeared in September or October, maybe even November
2008. “Has Butch or Dean or anyone else who lives at the salvage yard ever done anything you'd consider…unusual?”

Deep grooves formed in the farmer's weathered face. “Unusual in what way?”

“Are they up late at night? Moving objects in and out of the house? Have you heard any fighting?”

“I only work here. I don't live here. So I can't say what goes on after hours. They've always seemed okay to me. They mind their own business.” He chewed on his tobacco. “What's with all the questions? What's going on over there? I saw the police cars when I arrived. And you're the second person this week to ask me about them. Guy from Montana, another P.I. or some such, called a few days ago, wantin' information. Somethin' wrong?”

She lifted her hands from the window ledge. “One or more of them might be in trouble.”

“With the law?”

“Let's just say we need to find Julia, make sure she disappeared by choice.”

“You don't think Butch
killed
her.” When the farmer spat again, he nearly hit the frame of the window.

Francesca slid to one side for fear his aim would falter even more. She liked the shoes she was wearing. “I hope not. But it's a possibility.”

Shifting his tobacco to the other cheek, he shook his head. “No. If someone's actin' out, it's gotta be Dean.”

She was putting another twelve inches or so between them, but at this, she paused. “Why do you say that?”

“Dean's always been weird.”

“That's it?”

“If you knew
how
weird, you'd know his type of weird is enough.”

Francesca understood why he'd say that. It was Dean
who'd threatened his ex-girlfriend right before she went missing, Dean who'd broken into her house.

And yet…it was Butch who frightened her.

 

“Are we getting close?” Jonah asked.

Ray Leedy, the young security guard who'd followed Butch into the mountains the night before, sat in the passenger seat of the rented SUV, leaning into the harness of his seat belt as he concentrated on every bend in the road and every tree and rock that came into sight. “It feels like we're close,” he said. “But…a lot of this area looks the same, you know? And it was dark.”

Jonah was losing hope. He'd been driving back and forth, going around the same bends, going down this turnoff and then that one for hours, searching for where Butch had gone, all to no avail. Ray insisted he'd seen a cabin near the place where Butch had disappeared into the trees, but numerous cabins dotted these mountains.

“This one had a big
S
above the front door,” he explained. “The initial of the family who owns it, I guess. It was right there in the beam of my headlights.”

Ray had shared this detail before, several times, but they hadn't come across a cabin fitting that description.

“Do you think it could be up a little farther?” Jonah asked.

“Maybe. When I headed back, I clocked the distance on my odometer, but not right from the start. I didn't think of it immediately.”

Jonah rubbed his face. They
had
to find where Butch had gone, had to recover that black garbage bag.

Spotting a cabin they'd passed twice already, he pulled into the drive.

“What are you doing?” Ray asked.

“Checking to see if anyone's around.”

“Looks empty.”

“Maybe we'll get lucky.” Jonah jogged to the front door and knocked, but there was no answer. Primarily vacation getaways, these cabins were used mostly on holidays and weekends.

Ray rolled down his window as Jonah returned. “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Jonah said, but he wasn't ready to give up. He visited the next cabin they saw, and the next and the next one after that. It wasn't until he'd approached six different cabins that he finally found someone at home. And then she wouldn't open the door.

“Go away. Or I'll call the cops,” a female voice called out.

Jonah didn't blame her for being scared. For all she knew, he could be someone like Dean.

“Will you just answer one question for me?” he called back.

After a long pause, she responded. “What do you want to know?”

“I'm looking for a cabin with an
S
on it. Can you tell me if it's in this area?”

“Who are you?”

“I'm slipping my card under the door.” He leaned down to do that. “Name's Jonah Young,” he said as he straightened. “You can call the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office and someone will vouch for me.”

“You're a deputy?”

“Not quite. I work for the private sector—Department 6, as it says on my card. I'm consulting with the sheriff's office on a very important case.”

“And what do you want with the Schultzes' cabin?”

Now
they were getting somewhere. She knew of it,
which meant she probably also knew where it was. “I have reason to believe some evidence was placed or buried nearby.”