Walking on Her Grave (Rogue River Novella, Book 4) (8 page)

Zane was sitting at the scratched table, reports spread out across the Formica.

Seth took the folding chair opposite the police chief. He glanced at the log sheet from the construction site. “Find anything?”

Zane looked up from the papers. “The problem is that I know most of these people, and I can’t imagine any of them setting the O’Rourke resort on fire.”

“Any of them having money trouble?”

Zane propped his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes. “Probably all of them, but everyone who was at the site yesterday was an employee, a supplier, or a subcontractor.”

“All of whom are dependent on the O’Rourkes for their next meal.”

“It doesn’t make sense for any of them to sabotage the job that’s feeding his family,” Zane agreed.

Seth ran a finger down the list. “Eric Hearne was at the resort yesterday. When I talked to Katelyn yesterday, she mentioned they’d had a disagreement about an invoice.”

“If Katelyn mentioned the argument, it was probably more than a minor disagreement. But it might be best if you talk to Eric,” Zane said.

“Probably.” Seth laughed. Eric had made a play for Stevie, but Carly’s sister only had eyes for Zane. “I’ll be passing the hardware store on my way out to the Taylor farm. I’ll stop and talk to him. Did you know Faye was having heart trouble?”

Zane’s head snapped up. “No.”

Seth broke out his notebook and gave Zane a rundown of his discussion with Katelyn and Faye.

“How the hell could she keep something like that a secret?”

“She said she uses a cardiologist over an hour away.”

“She must get her prescriptions filled in fucking Portland,” Zane said.

“Faye asked that we keep her condition confidential.”

“Of course.” Zane scratched his chin. "But if she really needs open heart surgery, there’s no way she’ll be able to keep that a secret.”

“She’s hoping to put it off until the resort is up and running,” Seth said. “But I haven’t gotten to the best part. Guess who was sleeping with Mike?”

Surprise lifted Zane’s brows. “Who?”

“Katelyn.”

Zane froze. “You’re kidding.”

“No. The gossip came from Everett in sanitation via Patsy, but I confronted Katelyn and she admitted she and Mike were involved in a relationship.”

“Can you get the time and date she was seen coming out of Mike’s place confirmed by Everett?”

“Working on it. I stopped at the public works building, but he’d already left. I missed him at home too. His wife said he went fishing. She’s not sure what time he’ll be back. He didn’t answer his cell phone.”

“He’d probably be out of cell range.”

“I left messages for him everywhere,” Seth said. “What do you have?”

“We took fingerprints off Mike’s doorknobs and that wine bottle in the recycling bin. I’ll get Katelyn’s prints and see if we have any matches with prints found at Mike’s house. Did she say when she was last with him?”

“She said last Thursday night. Left at dawn Friday morning, which is when Everett would have been making his rounds with the recycling collection truck.” Seth moved to his next section of notes. “Since Stevie was tied up with you at the accident, I went to see Alex Rollins. He has no alibi for yesterday afternoon.” He summarized his brief interview with Alex.

Zane frowned. “He was pretty pissed off on Founder’s Day.”

“He’s still pretty pissed off.” Seth rubbed at the bandage on his arm. The heat in the tiny conference room made his injury burn.

“Well shit.” Zane grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. “So far we have Alex Rollins and Eric Hearne as possible arson suspects. Motives for both would be personal. Maybe the arson isn’t related to your drug case.”

“Maybe not.”

“What about Mike’s disappearance?”

“Nobody saw anything. There are no signs of a struggle inside his home. Our two main pieces of evidence are an unlocked back door and a few scratches on the jamb.”

“Mike couldn’t be involved in the drug ring, could he?”

“That would be my last guess, but it seems awfully convenient that he was sleeping with Katelyn and performing inspections on the resort.”

Sheila banged on the door, then opened it. “Alex Rollins is on the phone. He is freaking out.”

Zane reached for the phone on the table. “Mr. Rollins?” He listened, his frown deepening. “We’ll be right there.”

“What is it?” Seth asked.

Zane shoved the papers on the table into a file folder. “Peter is missing.”

Carly drove down Alex Rollins’s street and parked her Jeep behind two Solitude PD cruisers and Seth’s county vehicle. The front door stood open. She jumped out of the car and hurried across the lawn as Seth rounded the side of the house.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Looks like Peter went out the window sometime after we left.”

“But he’s on the second story.”

“The drainpipe is bent. He probably climbed down.” Seth scratched his arm. “The ground is dry and hard as concrete. No footprints.”

“But why?”

“Don’t know yet.” Seth steered her inside. “Zane’s inside. A couple of officers are sweeping the woods.” Seth nodded toward the end of the street, where the forest edged the neighborhood. “Unless he got a friend with a car to pick him up, the wooded area is his next-best option to stay out of sight.”

Alex Rollins paced the living room, his belligerent attitude swapped for that of a frantic parent. His gaze riveted on Carly. “You two scared him this afternoon, asking him for his whereabouts as if he was a suspect. I get why he was a bastard.” He jerked his thumb at Seth. “But Peter trusts you.” Alex moved toward her.

Seth stepped between them. “That’s not true and you know it. Peter answered
my
question and that was the end of it.”

Alex’s fists clenched at his sides. He met Seth’s gaze, then his eyes shifted to Carly again. Alex deflated. “You’re right. This is all my fault. I can’t control my own kid. Hell, I don’t even know my own kid. He was drinking and using drugs and I had no idea. My wife took his dope and used it herself instead of telling me.” He pressed both hands against his face. “The fact is that before O’Rourke let me go, I was hardly home, and when I was here, I didn’t spend much time with Bev or Peter.”

Alex had given Carly a rough time, but she still felt sorry for him. His son and wife were both in trouble, and he didn’t know how to help them. His life was spinning out of control.

“When did you see Peter last?” Seth asked.

“After you left I went upstairs. I was going to ask him if he wanted to talk, but I could hear music playing through the door. The counselor keeps telling me to keep our lines of communication open. I need to have a meaningful conversation with Peter every day. But for crying out loud, we had enough meaningful conversation in that session yesterday to last a week. We were both talked out. And it was the first time I’d heard his stereo on since he came home. It sounded normal, like before all this happened. So I didn’t bother him. Yesterday was rough. I gave him some space. But I should have checked on him.”

Carly stepped around Seth. “Give yourself a break. No one would have expected a kid to go out a second-story window.”

Alex’s eyes were lost. “What the fuck is going on in this town?”

Good question
, thought Carly.

“Alex?” Zane called from the stairwell. “Can you come up here and see if you can figure out what he took with him?”

Alex, Carly, and Seth trooped up to Peter’s room. Dirty laundry was strewn across the hardwood floor. Rock band posters from the 1980s covered the walls. Apparently Led Zeppelin was making a comeback. Alex checked the closet and dresser drawers. “He took his backpack. Can’t say about clothes. He has jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies. They all look alike.”

“Can you check the rest of the house?” Zane asked. “And let’s get a list of Peter’s friends. We’ll start calling parents.”

Zane gathered forces on the front lawn. “It’s eight o’clock. No daylight left. This boy knows the area. Let’s send out a BOLO to the surrounding counties and the state police.” Zane assigned phone calls and tasks. “We’ll try friends’ parents, local hangouts, et cetera. Let’s get on it, people. A lot of bad things have been going down in this town lately. I want this boy found.”

“I hate to think of him out in the dark woods, alone.” Carly glanced at the trees three lots away. The sun glowed from behind the tree line. Shadows reached across the houses on wooded lots.

Seth put an arm around Carly’s shoulders. “We’ll find him.”

“We’d better get started.” Carly took the list of phone numbers Alex had given them and went into the house. Alex made coffee in the kitchen. Time to start calling parents. It was going to be a long night, and Peter was out there, alone in the dark.

Predawn misted on the trail. Carly hefted her pack higher on her back. Thirty minutes into their search, there was no sign of Peter. She’d spent the evening calling Peter’s friends. None of them had seen him. She’d even asked the parents to check their basements and outbuildings for signs that the teen could be hiding on their properties. No luck. A search had been organized after Alex discovered old camping equipment missing from the garage. Firemen, hunters, law enforcement, scouts. At first light, everyone who knew the woods had been on hand to help find the missing teen. Six rescue teams had split up to search Peter’s childhood haunts.

Small Town Rule #9: Someone is always in your business, but that’s okay because someone also always has your back.

Seth consulted his portable GPS. “Our sector takes us across the river and turns north, following the Rogue all the way up to the old O’Rourke campground. Alex said this was one of Peter’s favorite hikes when he was a scout.”

Our sector
. Like Seth would allow anyone else to team up with Carly.

“The bridge is about a quarter mile in. From there on, the path runs parallel to the river all the way to the old campground.” Carly set off down the trail. “My dad used to take us hiking on this trail.” Her tone turned wistful.

Seth fell into step behind her. Dry leaves and twigs crunched underfoot. The faint roar of water sounded under the chirp of insects and birds. Small animals moved through the underbrush. Though she couldn’t see the river yet, she could smell the mossy scent of the water. Dawn filtered through the trees.

“How far do you think he could have gone?” Seth wasn’t a Solitude native. They’d fished and camped a little, early in their relationship, but Carly had grown up here.

“Depends. The trail is all uphill, and the incline increases closer to the campground. That’ll slow him down. We aren’t sure exactly when he left yesterday, but the footing is rocky for night hiking. I’d think he’d pitch his tent as soon as it got dark,” Carly said. “On the other hand, most of his community service has been walking roadsides and recreation areas picking up litter. He’s pretty fit, and he packed supplies.”

According to his father’s inventory, Peter was equipped with a tent and sleeping bag. His father also suspected he’d raided the pantry for energy drinks, beef jerky, and candy bars.

“The state forest is on the other side of the campground?”

“Yes. Peter could disappear for a long time out there.”

“The Forest Service is on alert. The rangers will be out looking for him too.”

The trail let out onto the riverbank. White water rushed under a wooden bridge. The river was narrow here, maybe thirty feet across, but the current picked up as water was forced through the narrow gap between the rocks. On the right, the river plunged five feet over an outcropping of rock.

“Why did he take off?” Carly’s boots clomped on loose-sounding boards. Mist swirled up and dampened her skin.

The bridge bounced lightly underfoot as Seth walked onto it. “Who knows? His dad said the joint counseling session was rough on both of them. Maybe it was too much. Some people don’t like to talk about their issues.”

“If he wants to get his life back on track, he needs to understand why and how he got into this mess. Otherwise he’ll probably just make the same mistakes all over again. Problems have to be faced, not buried.” She left the bridge. The trail continued through a dense patch of trees and climbed. The temperature dropped ten degrees as they moved into the shade. The light sheen of sweat on her skin cooled, and Carly shivered. Had Peter been cold last night?

Seth didn’t respond.

“You know I would have been perfectly safe today with any one of the other volunteers,” she said. His behavior at the four a.m. search party meeting made her wonder if he really could change. None of the thirty firemen, cops, and hunters was good enough to partner with Carly. Seth
had
to be her personal guard.

“Maybe I just wanted to spend time with you.”

She glanced back. Their gazes met. Unfortunately the stubborn set to his jaw was damned sexy, and despite the animosity hovering around them, she felt the connection straight into the pit of her belly. Visions of him, naked and powerful, rising over her in the moonlight, flooded her brain, reminding her of the overwhelming link they’d shared since the first time they’d met. Love at first sight was no joke. She was her own worst enemy.