“Not a problem.” Rhett rubbed his hands together. “I’ll head into town first thing in the morning and get things organized. My housekeeper will be able to keep them in food, but I’ll pick up some extra supplies.”
Glad to see him so enthusiastic and not so concerned, Jenna smiled. “Of course, my office will reimburse you for any out-of-pocket expenses.”
“No need.” Rhett laughed and shook his head. “My inheritance would last me two lifetimes, and I have income coming in from the ranch. I just want to get to the bottom of all this so I can live a peaceful life here. This place is so beautiful. I would like to make it my home. It’s what my parents wanted and I’d like to fulfill their wishes.”
Nodding, Jenna met his gaze. “That’s good to know. We’ll take the boys home now. I need to drop by Wolfe’s office on the way to give him everything from the safe. Once Wolfe’s gone through it, I can give it to Rio and Rowley to begin the investigation.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “There’s an autopsy in the morning at ten. Once we’re through there, we’ll come back to continue interviewing people.”
“I don’t know how you keep it all in your head.” Rhett rubbed the back of his neck and eyed her with admiration. “Three cases on the go at the same time, it must be a nightmare.”
Laughing, Jenna met Kane’s gaze as he came back into the house carrying evidence bags. “It’s a juggling act, that’s for sure. Most times it’s just following procedure and designating jobs to the right people. When we all work together, we usually solve the cases.” She indicated toward Kane heading up the stairs. “I’ll go and help Dave bag the evidence and then we’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for allowing my boys to play with your train set. It looks brand-new.”
“I found it in the attic.” He lowered his gaze. “I guess he was going to give it to me the Christmas he died. I’ve gotten a ton of enjoyment out of watching your boys playing with it. I hope one day I’ll have kids who can play with it too.”
Eyes stinging with unshed tears, Jenna nodded. “I’m sure you will. I gotta go. It’s getting late.” She turned away and ran up the stairs.
She found Kane meticulously turning each page of the journals and taking photographs. “I was going to suggest you do that. You must have read my mind.”
“I’ve taken photographs of everything in the tin and made copies of the small notebook.” Kane indicated toward the pile of bags, each with a description printed on the front. “There are only a few pages left. I haven’t had time to read them. I just figured I couldn’t wait to find out what’s been going on here. Now we have copies, Rio and Rowley can start the investigation right away.”
Jenna still wore the gloves she’d put on earlier and held the pages open for Kane to capture. In no time at all they had copies of everything that had been in the safe. She bagged the gun and the clip Kane had removed. “You know, from the small number of pages I’ve glanced over, I figure Rhett’s father was in fear of his life for a time. I wonder why he didn’t go to speak to the sheriff about his concerns.”
“There must be a reason.” Kane put his phone in his pocket and took the bag containing the gun and wrote on the label. “I’ll be looking for any link between the employees back twenty years ago and the local sheriff. Maybe they were related or close friends. That being the case, Rhett’s father wouldn’t feel safe going to the sheriff about one of his relatives, would he?”
Understanding completely, Jenna sighed. “I feel as if I’m being torn in two directions. Discovering these journals and seeing the frantic writing inside, I feel we need to follow up on this case as soon as possible. It feels almost raw, doesn’t it, as if Rhett’s dad is reaching out from the grave and begging us to help.” She pushed her hand through her hair and looked at him. “Then we have that poor young woman, who may have been buried alive. We can’t turn our backs on her either, can we? Both cases are important and need our attention. I just can’t stop the notion that there’s a connection between both of them. It’s not impossible to believe that one man has been killing over all this time. Many serial killers murder until they’re caught and have been killing for twenty years. The urge to kill never goes away and they all have to live their fantasies. Sometimes they can keep it under control for a short period of time, but with the number of women coming and going in a place like this, it’s like a serial killer’s smorgasbord.”
Seventeen
Black Rock Falls
Monday
Late June mornings in Black Rock Falls were glorious. Sunlight filtered through the trees, leaving zebra patterns across the landscape, and in the distance the mountains rose black against a brilliant blue sky that went on forever. Each morning they’d done their chores, let the horses out into the corral, and worked out for an hour before Jackson and Tauri came bounding out of their bedroom. Since Jackson’s birth, anytime that Jenna left the house, even for a second, she took the baby monitor with her. They had Raya, their live-in housekeeper, to watch them but usually the boys slept until seven. Just before eight, she climbed into the truck with Kane and they headed for the office. They’d decided to leave Duke behind today. He liked to stay home with Jackson, and they would be driving all over today, maybe even riding out to examine murder scenes, and Duke wasn’t getting any younger. They couldn’t expect him to keep up with them all day. She turned to Kane as he accelerated along the highway. “We have quite a few things to get through today. I’m really anxious to see what was written in the journals and I’m keen to know who was doing what at the ranch on Thursday as well, but I need to concentrate on one case at a time. When we get to the office, I’ll work out a plan of action. Carter is going to call Beth and Styles this morning and ask if they want to join him at the ranch.”
“I’m sure having two FBI choppers parked there will be a topic of conversation for a few days.” Kane smiled at her. “One thing, whoever is murdering people will likely stop with the FBI hanging around.”
Jenna collected her long dark hair and tied it behind her neck, fastening it with a hair tie she wore around her wrist. “Maybe a few rats will desert the sinking ship. Then we’ll have a list of suspects without doing the grunt work.”
When she arrived at the office, she ushered everyone into the conference room: Chief Deputy Rio, and Deputies Rowley and Raven. Deputy Johnny Raven, their K-9 handler, a medical doctor, and chopper pilot, usually worked when they needed him. The rest of his time was taken up with training dogs for protection, most of which he collected from the local dog refuges. Many dogs that became problems for their owners because of their size or activity were perfect specimens for him to train to be K-9s or personal protection dogs. In any case, if they passed with flying colors or not, he guaranteed he would find them good homes. Once everyone was assembled, she set up her laptop to display the files on a flat screen opposite the long conference room table. “As these journals will need to be carefully analyzed by Wolfe, we took images of everything so that we could begin the investigation immediately. Yesterday we went and visited the place Rhett’s parents perished in a fire. There was no investigation into their deaths, not by the fire department or anyone else to determine what caused the fire. The people we spoke to mentioned there’d been a bad storm that afternoon and they assumed the cabin was struck by lightning. When we examined the remains, we discovered a key in the lock on the outside of the front door. The door had been opened and pushed back against the wall. I assume this was done to remove the bodies. To me, that is a sign that someone set fire to the cabin and locked them inside.”
“What about the windows?” Rio’s brow furrowed. “If they couldn’t get out the door, wouldn’t they have climbed out the window?”
“I’m assuming this refers to a small cabin used for either fishing or for storing items needed on a ranch to save the hands returning to the main buildings during the day. Am I correct?” Raven leaned forward resting his clasped hands on the table.
“Yeah, I couldn’t see windows wide enough for a man to crawl through and they had bars as well.” Kane doodled on a legal pad. “Too much time has gone by to do any testing, but from the fire pattern that I could see, I can assume that some type of accelerant was used. I took some soil and Wolfe has it for analyzing. You’ve all seen how fast those cabins catch fire if the forest is ablaze and I’m not buying the storm explanation either. If they’d been struck by lightning, yes, the cabin would have caught fire, but they’d likely have time to get out, and if it was a storm as bad as they say, it would have been doused well before it burned to the ground.”
Jenna cast her gaze around the table. “We’ve all read the letter Rhett’s father left with the lawyer. It didn’t give any information about the reason he was in fear of his life. We found the journals locked in a safe with an old cassette recorder, which will likely give us more details. I’m anxious to get this investigation moving, but due to the murder victim we discovered yesterday, I’ll need to hand this investigation over to you. I’m not sure, but I have a feeling that these murders are connected in some way. What I need from you is to discover who was at the ranch twenty-two years ago and who is still at the ranch now. We have all the records that Rhett supplied. I uploaded everything he gave us on a thumb drive to the server last night. The hard copies are in the back of Dave’s truck. I need you, Rio, to get a search warrant to cover past and present employment records for Lawson’s Ridge. You can mention that the owner is cooperating. You have two reasons: the recent murder and the suspected murder of Christopher Lawson. Get the warrant and then you can collect the hard files after we get back from the autopsy of a woman we believe is Marie Reyes. After we’ll be heading back to Rhett’s ranch to continue the investigation into her murder. I can give him the warrant then—so don’t mention to the judge that we already have the files, not that we’ve opened them yet. With the recent homicide, Carter is on scene now and Kalo will arrive shortly, as will hopefully Beth and Styles.”
“Okay.” Kane took control of the laptop and the images flashed up on the screen. “We’re anxious to know what’s in the notebooks, but unfortunately, we won’t be able to go through everything today with you. I’m sure you’ll be able to correlate everything and proceed with an investigation. Let’s start with the items we found inside a tin box. On first inspection, you would consider them to be serial killer trophies, but I believe the entries in the notebook and this map will explain them.”
The first pages had lists of female seasonal workers with small descriptive notes beside them. Lawson had mentioned where the people worked and certain character traits. On a few of these he’d left asterisks with the dates they’d arrived and the dates they’d left. As they went through the pages, they discovered four women’s names with asterisks that he’d tied directly to the items he’d collected. Each had a little note beside it.
Fabric: I found this piece of fabric beside the fence line in the north paddock. It’s the same pattern as the shirt I last saw Sofia wearing when she came to the office to collect her check.
* * *
Earring: I recall Camilla wearing these earrings. They have a distinctive pattern. If she’d lost one, wouldn’t she ask around about it before she left so suddenly?
* * *
