Touch of Evil (15 page)

“Where?”

A troubled look flashed across Justine’s features. “It’s not an exact address, just an area, and remember, this is only where her phone is. That doesn’t mean she’s there now.”

A flash of intuition revved up Ross’s heartbeat. Recovering, he said, “It’s where they were found, right? Where the rest of Hangman’s Bayou—”

When she nodded, he added, “But I thought you had the area searched.”

“Listen, I have to call this in and get some backup. Right now, while it’s still there.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She made her way toward the front door. “But I promise you, I’ll call as soon as—”

“If you tell me no, I’ll only follow you in my car. I’m an emergency physician, Justine.”

“You’re a family member first,” she said. “And if Laney needs help, I’ll be sure to call an ambu—”

“I’m coming.” He lowered his voice, making it clear he was telling and not asking.

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “But understand this, Ross. If I give an order, you’re to follow it. No argument, no questions. Your cousin’s safety’s absolutely top priority, but if there’s any kind of crime scene, preserving evidence has to run a close second. You fail to follow orders, I’ll have you in cuffs so fast, you won’t know what hit you.”

“You don’t need to threaten me,” he said, pissed off by her
tone. Even if it called to mind his own blunt delivery when he’d warned her against leaving the hospital after her concussion. Maybe that was part of their trouble: that at least when it came to work, both of them were oriented toward results first and feelings second.

She didn’t answer but headed toward the Expedition. Ross locked up and hurried after her.

“Wait a minute,” he called. “Let me grab my medical bag from my trunk.”

She had the SUV running and was on her phone when Ross returned from the driveway and climbed in beside her, both his kit and an old blanket from his car in hand. With the temperature dropping and everything still damp from the earlier rain, he wanted to be prepared for anything.

“Yeah, well, meet us over there as soon as you’re finished,” Justine was saying. “Bring Calvin with you. And whatever you do, Larry, don’t mention this to any of the other guys.”

Still on the line, she drove, bumping over the curb to splash down into a puddle.

“
Who
came looking for me?” she asked. “Was it about the budget, because I haven’t had time to breathe, much less—What? You’re kidding. That’s just great, and no, he hasn’t called me. Probably hoping to blindside me. Thanks, Larry. Thanks a bunch for the heads-up.”

Ending the call, Justine sighed and shook her head. She looked pale, Ross decided, overwhelmed by the events of these past few days but still grimly determined.

“What is it?” he asked as they wound through a residential neighborhood. “Who are you avoiding?”

She darted a forlorn look his way. “Damned DA, Herb Stockton, wants to interview me. I expected the Rangers to show up asking questions, not that twerp.”

“You’d prefer the Texas Rangers?” Ross asked, knowing their impressive reputation as investigators of all sorts of crimes, particularly those involving corrupt elected officials.

“Definitely,” Justine said. “Rangers don’t come into town with an agenda, and they’re likely to keep digging until they figure out who really killed Roger and the others. And that’s all I want. The truth, without a bunch of county politics.”

The fierceness of her eyes and voice dared him to defy her. Instead, he nodded, saying, “I believe you.”

As Justine turned onto the tree-lined state highway that would lead them toward Bone Lake, she flashed a smile his way. “Then that makes one person in this county. Of course, I had to sleep with you.”

Ross grinned. “It’d take too long to sleep your way through the whole phone book. Ever think of doing just the DA as a shortcut?”

Justine gave a theatrical shudder. “Not in my worst nightmares. And the next time you make that kind of suggestion, you might want to remember that I’m armed…and in a very bad mood.”

Despite the way his fear for Laney was clawing at his insides, Ross laughed, remembering how much he’d always liked Justine’s black humor. Better irreverence than hysteria, which would rob both of them of the capacity to function.

But the conversation soon turned serious again.

“Do you think there’s any possibility,” Justine asked, her voice gentling, “that Laney might’ve driven on her own out here where her friends died? Either to memorialize them somehow or possibly to…”

Ross shook his head. “She would never kill herself, if that’s what you mean. Just yesterday she swore it to me. Said she’d never do something like that to the family, and she wanted me to know it, in case anything happened…Damn it, Justine. I should’ve reported that she was gone right away, as soon as I found out she wasn’t in the house when Trudy got there.”

“But you had good reason to believe she might have left on her own,” Justine reminded him. “Considering her feelings
toward her sister, we still have to look at it as a possibility. ”

“What if Savoy called her to meet him for some reason and she interrupted his shooting?” Ross asked.

“We’ll ask her about it when we find her.”

Ross appreciated Justine’s optimism, even though he suspected it might be feigned for his benefit. He tried to send his mind down the same path, visualizing himself running up to Laney, who was veiled in black and laying a wreath beneath the boughs where her lover and her friends had died. He imagined himself embracing her, then giving her hell for shaving ten years off his life with worry.

When Justine’s phone rang, he jumped, nerve endings primed for bad news.

She glanced down at the caller ID and said, “My home number,” before answering. “Hey, Dad. I don’t think I’m going to make it home for dinner.”

Only then did Ross realize that the afternoon was fading, the colors of trees leaching out and a few small deer grazing in the deepening shadows. Checking his watch—the Expedition’s clock was broken—he saw it was already about twenty minutes after six. They were still a couple of miles away. What if their hopes of finding Laney disappeared into the darkness?

“You found
what
?” Justine was asking her father. “Sorry, but you’re breaking up. Can you repeat that? Slowly, please.”

She pulled to the shoulder, her body tensing visibly. “You found what? How could we have missed it last night? Is Noah—Are you keeping a close eye on him? Is he all right?

“Yes, Dad,” she went on after a moment. “I do realize you were in law enforcement when I was still in diapers. God knows, you’ve reminded me enough. And I
know
you’re careful with Noah. I’m just upset, that’s all, and I can’t get back there right now, so I’ll need you to bag the note and…”

She closed her eyes and massaged her forehead. “And by
the way, if Herb Stockton happens to stop by or call, you have no idea when I’ll be back. No idea where I am now, either.”

Ross cleared his throat, and when she glanced his way, he gestured first toward his watch and then to the sun’s rim as it tucked itself behind the tree line. Nodding in response, Justine resumed driving and finished her call.

To Ross, she said, “Sorry about that. I had to—”

“Noah’s all right?”

“He is, and I know my dad’ll watch him like a hawk. Especially since…Dad took out Noah’s clothes to wash them. The ones he was wearing yesterday to school, and after.” She pursed her lips, and Ross saw her eyes welling.

“What is it?” he asked.

Shaking her head, she answered, “How could I have missed it last night? There was a strip of paper, a note curled in his jeans pocket.”

Rather than press for details, he waited while she struggled for composure.

Her lips trembled as she spoke. “It said, ‘Liar. Bitch. Step aside or pay hard.’ And I’ve seen something similar before, a milder version left for me at work, beneath a wiper blade on my truck. It seemed harmless at the time, so I didn’t think too much about it. But now…now I realize someone was serious. And when I didn’t get the message, the bastard went for my kid.”

“It all has to be tied together, the hangings and the nooses.”

Nodding, she said, “That’s what we’ve been thinking. Right now, though, all we can do is keep yanking at loose threads until something unravels—and make sure Noah’s never left alone till this is over.”

She made a right turn, taking them down the unpaved road that skirted a long inlet of Bone Lake. The Expedition wallowed through rainwater-filled ruts, the sprung suspension punishing them with each jolt.

Checking the mileage reading on her odometer, she
added, “Keep your eyes open, Ross. The cell phone location could be anywhere along here.”

He craned his neck and squinted through the filmy window, then lowered it in an attempt to better peer into the shadowed realm of oak and cypress. “Where, exactly?” he asked impatiently.

The air rushing in was chilly, but Justine, too, put down her window. She smelled earthy dampness, vegetable decay, and, in the background, the lake itself, a great, invisible expanse beginning not fifty yards off to their right.

“I told you, Ross,” she said, “the location I have isn’t exact. At best, we could narrow it down to about a hundred meters. But this isn’t an ‘at-best’ situation.”

“Her car should be here somewhere,” he said. “We ought to see it parked out on the road, right?”

Justine peered out straight ahead of them, but there was no car. As there had been no car for Jake Willets or Caleb LeJeune, though Hart Tyson’s truck had been found.

“It’s possible the phone was dumped here,” she said.

“Or that Laney was,” Ross added. “Where exactly were the bodies found? This light won’t last, so let’s start there.”

Since she’d been thinking along the same lines, Justine parked the SUV and grabbed her jacket from the backseat, along with a couple of flashlights.

“You should’ve brought something to keep warm,” she said as she handed him one of the lights. Her breath sent up a smoky plume between them.

Head shaking, Ross rolled down his sleeves and tossed the folded blanket over one broad shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”

Justine wondered about the strain she saw in his face, the stress and lack of sleep that had pushed hard on a man so soon back from death’s door. Not that it had slowed him earlier, when the two of them had made love, but all this worry couldn’t be good for him. And what would she do if something happened to him, out here all on their own?

“It’s pretty wet, and the temp’s still dropping,” she said. “Maybe you should wait in the truck.”

Ross merely looked at her. “Which way?”

“Don’t come crying to me when you’re all wet and shivering,” she said as she led him off the roadside, where the land sloped gently downward. Sure enough, her department uniform khakis wicked up water from the tall weeds, and her shoes grew heavy as mud squeezed from under the soles, up the sides.

“Laney,” Ross called, his voice echoing beneath thick boughs strung with Spanish moss.

The only reply was the flap of wings as a blue heron took to the air. As they proceeded lakeward, brushy limbs snapped as several small deer leaped away into the shadowed gloom.

Justine tried Laney’s cell phone number, then shook her head. “Call’s not going through. Try yours, will you?”

Ross had no better luck with his phone, so he again shouted his cousin’s name. No human voice responded.

After stumbling in a shallow depression, Justine switched on her flashlight. Soon she spotted two pairs of footprints stretching ahead of theirs, tracks that looked fairly fresh, but partially blurred by the rain.

When Ross stared down, she said, “Don’t read too much into these. They could be from my guys, when I sent them to check the area. But let’s try not to step in them, just in case they end up—”

“What’s that?” Ross asked, pointing out a sodden wad of color.

Justine squatted to investigate, pulling a pen out of her pocket—her pencils didn’t travel as well—and using it to hook the mass and stretch it until she recognized it as muddy, rust-hued fabric.

“Sweatshirt,” she said, then glanced up at Ross. “You recognize it?”

Bending his knees to squat beside her, he pointed out the
edge of a white letter on what would be the hooded sweatshirt’s chest.

She poked at it a little more and realized she’d been wrong about the color. It wasn’t rusty, but a shade of orange. Burnt orange, in particular, which made sense, since the letters spelled out
Texas Longhorns.
As in the University of Texas, with its popular team franchise.

“UT,” Ross said, seeing it an instant later.

“Not Laney’s?” she asked, though it was miles too large for the tiny singer.

Ross shook his head. “Not that I’ve ever seen her wear.”

“Know anybody else who has one?”

“UT’s pretty popular these days,” Ross said, “and it’s football season in Texas, so…”

His forehead creased and his gray eyes blinked abruptly.

“What is it?” Justine asked. “Are you thinking of someone? Because I’d like to know who’s been out here since Caleb LeJeune was found Monday. I’m sure this wasn’t here then.”

Ross shook his head and brushed his dark blond hair from his eyes. “This is probably nothing,” he said, “but I remember Laney saying something about how Jake was crazy over UT. I think he attended a semester or so and loved living in Austin. ”

Could Laney have been wearing her dead boyfriend’s sweatshirt? Justine pursed her lips, remembering nights in those first, awful months last winter when she’d wrapped herself in Lou’s old jacket just so she could catch his scent. When she’d worn it out to check the animals, Lou’s dogs had gone crazy, muddying it with paw prints as they’d jumped all over her and barked, tails wagging.

She’d had no choice except to wash the jacket after that, which had made her shout like a lunatic at poor Clyde and Oscar. Not long afterward, she’d let the dogs go to their new home—not because she held a grudge, but because they deserved better than a crazy woman for an owner.

“But a lot of guys have sweatshirts like this,” Ross said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean my cousin—”