Shocked, she inhaled a sharp breath as she made a beeline for the exit. She knew exactly where she was, but one question still remained.
Why?
Cody stoodin the kitchen surrounded by Katherine’s family. Guilt and fear ate away at him.
If only he’d had the conversation she’d asked for right then. Or if he’d insisted she and Ollie come inside so they weren’t alone.
But he hadn’t. And now she was gone.
“I spoke with Eric Rider’s dad, brother and uncle,” Owen said. “All have alibis. They don’t have her.”
“Which leaves us with diddly shit,” Mike said. He stood with his arms anchored over his chest. His face a tight line of torture. He flipped through the papers wedged in the file Tommy hadbrought and scattered them around the table. “We have to be missing something.”
Anxiety crawled over Cody’s skin. He wanted to be out in the world, pounding the pavement and knocking on doors. But there was nowhere to go, no tracks to follow. He and Tommy had gone through the woods and found no trace of Katherine or the person who’d taken her. It was as if she’d vanished.
But that wasn’t possible, and time was running out.
Elsie sat in the living room with Ollie. She’d tried to get him to leave but the boy refused. Not even the promise of time spent with Jimmy could coax him from the house where he was convinced his mother would return.
Tommy paced, biting his thumbnail. “Let’s go over everything we know again. Maybe something will stand out this time.”
Cody squeezed his eyes shut and replayed everything they’d learned. “The person we’re looking for has an axe to grind against authority and a personal vendetta against Katherine. Called her a snitch, so he thinks she told on him or is the reason for something bad that happened. No one who’s been released from the Cooper County jail in the past year fits the bill, and the list of released prisoners from the tri-county area is a mile long.”
A light hand on his shoulder opened his eyes, and he found himself staring into Elsie’s kind eyes. “I’m not a cop, but I’ve had my own brush with danger. When my roommate was kidnapped it’s because she stumbled into a crime by accident. Could something like that have happened to Katherine?”
He shoved a hand through his hair and tried to recall all the conversations he’d had with Katherine. “Nothing she mentioned to me. Do you guys remember anything happening a few years ago, or hell, longer?” He tossed the question to her dad and brothers.
Owen and Tommy shrugged.
“Not really,” Owen said. “Katherine wasn’t one to get into trouble. Even to just stumble across it. She was always with Theo. The two of them usually stayed home or did pretty boring stuff. Movies, football games, the usual.”
Tommy let out a small, nostalgic chuckle. “We always joked they were already an old married couple even as teenagers.”
A smile cracked through Mike’s gruff expression. “She was the easy one. Took on a lot of responsibility after her mother died. Not like these two knuckleheads who I always had to worry about.”
A tingle of an idea nagged the back of Cody’s brain. “We talked about that. She said after her mom died, she rebelled a little. Went to a couple of parties but it left a bad taste in her mouth. She didn’t elaborate much on what happened, though.”
Owen’s expression hardened. “I remember that. Her friend Donna Jo took her to some college party. I wasn’t happy when I found out about it, but glad Katherine made the right decision and left. She was pretty shaken up about it.”
Something shifted in Mike’s eyes. He dropped his arms to his side and worked his jaw and forth. “Wait a second. You called and told me about it right after Katherine got home. She was upset and didn’t want me to know she’d snuck off somewhere she wasn’t supposed to go. But she thought her friend had been slipped something and drugs were being passed around like candy. And didn’t she struggle to get her friend to leave because she was afraid she’d be taken advantage of if she stayed?”
“Yep, sounds about right. Thank God Katherine knew better than to drink while she was there. That night could have ended a lot differently,” Owen said.
Elsie shook her head. “So many bad people doing bad things in this world. I hope they got in trouble.”
“I didn’t have any jurisdiction over there, but made a call,” Mike said.
Cody’s eyes flew wide. “Would that be public knowledge?”
Mike frowned. “What?”
“That you, sheriff of Cooper County and Katherine’s father, was the one who made that call?”
“I don’t see how,” Mike said. “Unless someone there knew who Katherine was. Understood her connection to law enforcement so assumed she was the reason for the police showing up.”
“We need to find out what happened that night,” Cody said. “If any arrests were made, and if so, if anyone put away that night has recently been released. What county would that be? Holms?”
“Yeah,” Mike said, grabbing his phone from his pocket. “She was at a house party near the college. A little outside of town so the sheriff’s department would have handled it. Let me make a call.”
