Page 100 of Playing With Love

Hell yes.

“We know the name on the rental agreement is bogus.”

The name on the rental agreement was John Lane. The social matched the name, and since John Lane had good credit, the agency had readily rented the house. Our fake John Lane was smart enough to pay his rent on time—not giving the property management company a reason to make a negative report to a credit agency which could possibly alert the real John Lane someone was using his name and social to rent a house. Trey had alerted him though, and the man was pissed someone had stolen his identity.

“With the lab being a minimum of three months out running the prints collected from the house, Dylan’s going through the footage now, isolating images for the locals to take to the management company to see if they can ID the man who rented the house.”

Small town? Incompetence? Laziness? However that swung, they didn’t have a driver’s license on file.

“That’s good news,” I noted.

“Yeah, but there’s more. Trey’s running the plates. Got a hit on a car registered to Mackenzie Archer. Dylan ran facial rec on the footage the neighbor gave Greg. We got Mackenzie Archer at the house, repeatedly.”

I rolled to a stop at the T in the road, and while I was waiting for traffic to clear, I asked, “Was she there the day Beatrice was killed?”

“Coroner’s report says Beatrice was dead thirty hours before she got there. That puts time of death around two P.M. the day before. At twelve-twenty, Mackenzie and Beatrice enter the house together. At twelve-forty-two, Mackenzie leaves alone. Now here’s where we’re kinda fucked. There’s a dirt road behind the house. Not an alley as such. More of a firebreak, but definitely wide enough for a car or truck. The neighbor says they all use that lane to haul in firewood or haul out trash or to pull trailers back there to park in the back of the houses. He had no cameras back there. His concern was what was happening in front of his house.”

“And that fucks us how?”

“Mackenzie was the last person leaving that house. Whoever did Beatrice left through the back. And when I say Mackenzie was the last person to leave that house, I mean the last. After that, crickets. All traffic stopped. No one in. No one out. The neighbor thought John had gone on vacation.”

Well, fuck.

“Good and bad news is,” Carter continued. “Trey has twelve plates that have repeatedly visited the house. He’s running those first. One is Mackenzie, the rest are likely dealers, that’s the bad news. Good news is the locals will have names by this afternoon so they can knock on some doors.”

Eleven dealers pushing Mackenzie’s drugs was bad news.

“Her operation is bigger than we thought.”

“Yep.”

I was nearing the coffee shop when I told Carter, “Tonight’s the vigil for Beatrice. Any names on that list that’s connected to Nu Dawn can’t be approached.”

“Right. Are you planning on using the vigil as cover to get into Tate’s house?”

“Playing that by ear. I at least want to get a look at what’s in the sheds. There were a lot of cleaning solvents in the kitchen. Chemicals I was surprised to see since Nu Dawn is all about organic and saving the earth. Not sure lye is bad for the environment and it’s used to make soap, which they do in that space, but the camp stove fuel I saw stacked in the corner next to a five-gallon bucket of iodine crystals says something else. All we need is some ephedrine, paint thinner, brake fluid, some battery acid, and you’re cooking meth. Colleen told us Tate works on cars back there. Bet I find car batteries, brake fluid, antifreeze, and freon. She also said he keeps construction materials in one of the sheds. No one would question large amounts of paint thinner being stored. If I have time to get into his house I will, but getting eyes on the sheds is my priority. If they’re not storing materials here, we’ll need to regroup. It takes six to eight hours to cook meth, even if you’re good and know what you’re doing. You can’t rush the chemical process. Now that I’ve seen the kitchen, I’d be hard pressed to believe Mackenzie and Tate would have an uninterrupted six hours to set up, cook, then clean up without someone walking in on them. But they could be storing supplies here and taking them somewhere else as needed.”

“Be careful, they could be cooking in Tate’s house.”

They could be, but I didn’t think they were.

“I’m pulling into the coffee shop, but before I go, I’d like the images Dylan’s pulling from the footage.”

“You’ll have them as soon as he’s done,” he promised. “Were you calling to check in or did you need something?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

There was a beat of silence before Carter asked, “What kind of bad feeling?”

Carter Lenox was a former SEAL; he knew there were all kinds of bad feelings when on a mission. Some were worse than others. Some were nothing more than a tingling alerting you that danger was close. Some told you to get the fuck out. Mine was somewhere in the middle. And I couldn’t be certain what I was feeling wasn’t in part due to Liza being with me and my need to keep her safe.

“The kind that tells me that shit’s about to go sideways. Twice now I’ve caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man watching us. But only a glimpse because he ducks out of sight before I can catch his face.”

“Tate?”

“That’s my guess, but I don’t know what Tate looks like and as I said, the man’s quick to disappear before I get a look at him.”

“The description Allyson gave was dark hair, taller than you so over six-two, built, good-looking, with brown eyes,” Carter reminded me.