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“It was considered a dealbreaker. If the first kiss didn’t do it for one or the other, there would be no more. If it hit the right connection, there would be more.” Abby tilted her head. “I bet your first kiss was all lightning bolts and fireworks.”
Cassie didn’t say anything, her cheeks burning as she recalled the electricity shooting through her as they’d shared their first real kiss.
Abby’s grin spread across her face. “Yeah, I called it. You two had some serious chemistry. Make sure you sit at one of my tables tonight. I’ll make sure you have some privacy and champagne.” The young woman flitted out of the diner like a fairy sprinkling sunshine.
“She’s way too perky for me,” Cassie muttered.
“I know what you mean,” Daisy said. “But you can’t help but love her. Her mother was never as happy and outgoing and…well, you know her father. He can be a taciturn grump at his best. How did two such unhappy people produce Abby?” She shook her head, her gaze following the object of their discussion. She sighed. “Need a refill?”
Cassie put her hand over her mug. “Not in here. But I’d love one to go. It’s going to be a long day at the computer.”
Daisy pulled a paper cup from the cabinet behind her, filled it with coffee and fit a cap over the top. “That should hold you until lunchtime. Want me to put in an order for a club sandwich to be delivered to the sheriff’s office at noon?”
“That would be awesome.” For a moment, Cassie thought about picking up two sandwiches and surprising Drake at lunch. She nixed the idea as soon as she thought it and left the diner.
The last thing she wanted was to appear desperate. He’d slowed things down last night when she’d practically begged to speed it up.
Slow was good. She didn’t want to get into another toxic relationship that sucked the life out of her.
Drake was nothing like her last boyfriend, Miles. Drake was so much more. He’d been a Navy SEAL. That took discipline, courage and strength. He valued the men he’d fought with and considered them brothers. He’d stepped in when Abby was in trouble and could kiss like nobody’s business.
Cassie thought back to her first kiss with Miles. She couldn’t even recall that kiss or any other they’d shared. They must have been as unremarkable as the man himself.
The more she compared Drake to Miles, the more she looked forward to seeing Drake again that night. With the condom her brother had given her, she’d be ready for whatever might happen. Only, this time, he’d have to initiate. He had to be just as ready and willing as she was.
She drove to the sheriff’s office, parked and went inside.
“It’s your day off,” Sheriff Barron grumbled from inside his office. “You should be out riding horses, shopping with your gal pals, fishing or something. Not spending more time in this office.”
“And when do you take time off?” she shot back at him.
He didn’t answer.
“Right. Never.” She slipped into one of the empty desks in the office across from the sheriff’s. “Anything from the coroner?”
“Nothing,” the sheriff said. “However, Molly found old blueprints in the lodge office with notes made during previous remodeling efforts and building additions. The last remodel effort was fifteen years ago. The addition was twenty-one years ago when they added rooms to the west wing and expanded the kitchen.”
Cassie powered up the computer and waited for it to come online. “That’s a start. I’ll dig into the missing persons database going back between fourteen and twenty-five years ago to bracket those timeframes.”
Once she’d logged on, she brought up the Montana Missing Persons Database and went to work, sifting through hundreds of women with blond hair who’d gone missing during the ten-year span in which major modifications had been made within the lodge.
The number was too many. She narrowed the search to within a two-hundred-mile radius of Eagle Rock. That knocked the number down even more, but it was still too many to wade through one by one. A two-hundred-mile radius would lean into the neighboring state of Wyoming, which meant going into Wyoming’s missing persons database. If she did it right, she’d also tap into the national database NamUs for women who might have been in transit through Montana on their way to Washington, Oregon, Idaho or Minnesota.
Overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who’d gone missing during those years, Cassie focused on the Montana database. If she struck out there, she’d expand beyond the state. If only she had more to go on, like an age range, a birthmark or a tattoo. Dental records would be helpful when they narrowed it down to under twenty potential victims.
Though she was searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack, she couldn’t sit around and do nothing. She’d run out of leads on Penny’s case, but maybe, she could make headway on Jane Doe’s. She’d joined the sheriff’s department hoping to make a difference. In this case, they had a body. Surely, they’d be able to identify her and give her a proper burial and her family the closure they needed.
Cassie readthrough file after file, heartsick at the number of women who had never made it home from school, work or going for a freaking walk. Photo after photo of smiling blondes scrolled across her screen, ranging in age from ten to seventy-five, and she was no closer to naming the victim found in the Lucky Lady Lodge.
A sandwich arrived at noon, reminding Cassie she hadn’t eaten breakfast. She’d only left her chair twice—once to use the bathroom, another time to warm up her cold coffee in the station’s microwave. Sheriff Barron came in a couple of times to check on her but left to answer calls. The department was shorthanded. He did what he could to fill the gaps. One call was a domestic disturbance at the local laundromat. Another time he left to help a woman herd her escape-artist donkey back into his pen.
There was never a dull moment in Eagle Rock and the surrounding county. Cassie was grateful nothing major cropped up during the day. She’d have jumped in to help, on duty or not.
Nearing the end of the day, she was ready to admit defeat. She needed more information from the medical examiner before she could make any headway whatsoever.
The only bright spot to the day was that she would be seeing Drake again.
