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“Because it was jump out of the ambulance or risk him opening my door and doing to me what he did to Chris.” He shook his head. “Chris’s married. Two kids. What am I gonna tell his wife?”
Violet listened as Jimmy talked about Chris and his wife and kids. Barbecues and all that, but something stuck in her craw. But now she was thinking about Ruby. Why hadn’t she been in the cabin? In the other room? If Cecil had her, why not take her to the same place he took the other holler girls—like Bella Dawn?
Because Cecil didn’t have Ruby.
“The Blind Eye Killer is still out there.”
“I know,” Jimmy said. “That’s why we’re in here.”
“No...it’s not Cecil. Cecil’s a predator. His voyeurism escalated, and he took Bella Dawn from the bar and cast suspicion on his own brother. But how did he intersect with Atta? He had her locket, her things.” She glanced up. “Didn’t you say she came to you and you fixed her up?”
“I did.”
“Did she mention an altercation with Cecil or seeing him before she left the Swallow?”
She rubbed her head, willing the cotton to clear.
“No. Just there’d been a fight. She didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe it was Cecil. Nadine didn’t know it was him. I believed her. But he knows better than to touch a holler girl. He must have a death wish or something. Although, Mother is dead and Wanda too. Loretta is going away, and Ruby isn’t going to take over.”
They couldn’t even find Ruby.
But she wasn’t at the cabin. Why?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tuesday, October 24
12:24 a.m.
John’s eyes were dry and itchy, and the coffee he’d been drinking while studying Google Earth and marking likely places on a map to give Owen Barkley a head start when he arrived with the rest of the SCU team had gone cold. Ty had called them earlier when Violet hadn’t arrived at the emergency clinic and the ambulance with a dead Chris Leigh had been found.
Did Cecil have Jimmy and Violet? Had he murdered Jimmy and taken Violet? She would be doped up and vulnerable.
He couldn’t lose her. He’d almost lost her hours ago.
Regis told them about the basement at the leather shop, but Ty had called to say it was clean, no sign of Ruby or anything that would point to Cecil being the Blind Eye Killer. The search for Cecil was still on. Between roadblocks and locals out helping, they’d surely find him.
John told Ty about the secret passages in the house and the wood shavings, the peeper holes that Violet had found. That went over like a lead balloon, but he called out the ERT to comb the passages as well as Cecil’s basement just in case and was going to find Aunt Hossie. She would know about the passages, but she might not know Cecil used them or made peepholes. But she needed to be talked to because she might have insight into where Cecil would go.
But what if Cecil didn’t have Ruby? Ruby had a duffel bag on her counter. Lula said Ruby had gone outside to talk to someone and never come back. But did she have the bag with her? Was it still on the counter? Violet said Ruby was going to run drugs for Whiskey. A bad exchange might have happened, and she wasn’t connected to the killer at all. He went outside, shivered at the cold. It had begun drizzling again. He swallowed and grabbed his phone. He sent a text to Ty to check on that duffel bag. It could be a game changer.
Next, he needed to make a call he absolutely did not want to make. But he needed Greg to help Ruby.
He called the number. On the sixth ring, Greg answered. “Hey.”
“Hey. Look, I’m not calling about Callie. I know about the run Whiskey enlisted Ruby for. Is it possible that she’s not been snatched by a killer but the exchange went south?”
“No. Whiskey isn’t faking the search for her. She was supposed to make the drop at eight o’clock tonight. An hour away. Be back by ten p.m. tops. But at eight thirty, the buyer called pretty hacked that he’d been stood up. Whiskey thought Ruby might have double-crossed him and skipped town. But Lula was at a neighbor’s house. She wouldn’t leave her. He went to her place. The duffel was on the counter. Everything accounted for.”
That put her abduction between when Violet visited her around three o’clock and eight o’clock, when she was supposed to meet for the swap. “Has he had any leads?”
“No. He’s looked in places the law wouldn’t or doesn’t even know about.” He was quiet, then: “And...and I’m sorry about what happened. That’s not why I requested Callie for the job. She was always good at what she did. It progressed.”
John didn’t need to hear how it happened. Didn’t want to. “If you hear anything, call me. Violet’s missing too and Jimmy Russell.”
“Do-gooder Jimmy.” Greg laughed. “As if Whiskey didn’t know he and Chris Leigh were trying to help women get out from under running drugs and attempting to rescue holler girls. ’Course Chris didn’t know Jimmy was paying for their services half the time.” He swore. “Talk about a hypocrite.”
“Call if you hear anything. Please.”
