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Before Rivers could argue, she was out of the Jeep and unlatching the gate to shove it open, the lower rail scraping a mound of snow behind it. He drove through, and she partially shut the gate again before hopping back into the passenger seat, bringing with her a rush of frigid air.
“Geez, it’s cold,” she said, shivering.
“Winter.”
“I hate it.”
“Then you moved to the wrong place.”
“Probably.” She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t pry. The truth was he didn’t know much about her, just that she’d transferred from a department in New Mexico, somewhere around Albuquerque, and her record there had been clean, even stellar, and the one time he’d asked about the move, she’d said, “It was time.” He hadn’t pushed as his own reasons for ending up at Riggs Crossing had been personal.
Well, mostly.
He drove a quarter of a mile farther through copse after copse of fir, pine, and larch before the lane took a wide bend to open into a clearing. A blocky white farmhouse capped by a gabled green roof and skirted by a broad porch sat atop a small rise. Scattered around the back end, he saw, through a veil of snow, several outbuildings. A pump house, barn, and shed were barely visible, and whatever lay beyond, pastures or other buildings, was anyone’s guess today.
“Looks the same as it did the other night,” Mendoza observed as the engine idled. She was eyeing the house and grounds, now empty, seeming almost desolate.
“Except there aren’t a dozen deputies, paramedics, firefighters, and crime-scene techs climbing over the property. The news crew is gone, and the neighboring lookie-loos have disappeared.”
“Along with all of the evidence.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What was here was collected.”
He wasn’t arguing that fact, but he needed to see the place for himself without the distractions of other cops. What the hell had really gone on here? Why had James Cahill landed in the hospital, his girlfriend gone missing?
Rivers would never admit it because it sounded crazy, but whenever he stepped into the scene, he could imagine what had happened, roll a video in his mind, “see” the crime unfold. At least in his mind’s eye.
It wasn’t ESP.
It wasn’t his cop’s “gut” feeling.
It was more of an intuitive re-creation, something innate in him. He’d only told one person, his ex-wife, Astrid, when they’d been married. And she, true to her nature, had laughed in his face.
“Oh, God, Brett, so now you’re, like, a psychic?” she’d said, her eyes dancing as she sat across from him at the kitchen table. “Or is it psychotic? Give me a break.” She’d taken a swallow of wine and then shaken her head. “I wouldn’t be telling too many people about that, not at the department. They could think you’ve gone ’round the bend, you know.”
That was the one piece of advice she’d given him that he’d taken. He knew his method of using his innate senses sounded a little nuts, so from the time of that one slip of the tongue with his then-wife, he’d kept his thoughts on the matter to himself.
Mendoza was already climbing out of the Cherokee as Rivers cut the engine. Pocketing his keys, he stepped outside into ankle-deep snow, an icy gust of wind slapping him in the face.
She flipped up the hood of her jacket and headed for the house. “Knowlton’s supposed to meet us here, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though he already gave his statement.”
“Maybe he remembered something else since he gave it.”
“Fat chance.” She seemed irritated.
“Hey, I know you think this is a waste of time, but it’s something I have to do,” he said as they walked to the house.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
He stepped up the slick steps to the front door, where crime-scene tape that had been stretched across the frame now flapped in the wind. Over the noise of gusts rattling the branches of the surrounding trees, he heard the rumble of an approaching engine.
“Here we go,” Mendoza said, nodding to the lane.
