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The door burst open, Chet towering over her with a deep frown and worried eyes. “What? What happened? Are you okay?”
She pointed to the shed. “I found rope in the shed. In a secret spot behind the wall.”
Without a word, Chet stormed down the stairs and across the yard.
Mia’s over-worked legs shook like jelly as she ran after him, fear mounting inside her with each new question her mind formed.
Chet disappeared inside the shed, and she stopped in the doorway. His giant body making the space even more suffocating.
“Look at the wall behind the middle shelf in the back. Where I pulled away all the stuff.”
Chet ducked down, pulling out the flashlight of his phone. “Shit. I need to call this in.” He reemerged, a world of hurt and confusion knitted on his brow
She brought her shaking hand to her collarbone. Words refused to form into a coherent sentence. But only one word was needed right now. “Bobby.”
Chet shoved a hand through his hair. “Doesn’t look good.”
Disappointment and sadness clashed as loud as thunder across his face. She wanted to comfort him, but his earlier rebuff had her keeping her comments—and her hands—to herself. “Do you really think he’s a killer?”
He hung his head, giving it a little shake. “Until we’re able to talk to him, I just don’t know anymore.”
She swished her mouth to her side. She didn’t want to sit around and wait for Bobby to be found to solve this. To sit and wait for more threats and acts of violence. An idea took form. “We can’t talk to Bobby until we find him, but there is someone else we can talk to.”
Chet’s eyebrows snapped down above his brown eyes. “Who?”
“Professor Lipton. You were convinced he was the guilty. Maybe he is.” All signs might point to Bobby but she struggled to align the man she’d known the last couple months with the monster terrorizing Chet and murdering innocent women. If there was any way someone else could be responsible, she wanted to find them.
He shook his head. “He won’t talk to me. Not after I dragged his name through the mud.”
She shrugged and beat back the doubt creeping up her spine. She needed to act, to do something, to keep climbing that metaphorical hill. “You can’t, but I can.”
19
Chet considered Mia’s offer to speak to Professor Lipton as Cruz and Lincoln marched to and from the shed, carrying out evidence bags and lining them on the worn path that led to the dock. He clung to the idea that someone besides Bobby was the guilty party, and all he had to do was prove it. But as the bags mounted higher, his hopes dipped lower.
“I think we’ve got everything we need.” Cruz shoved the blue gloves that had covered his hands in his pocket than dusted his palms off against the thighs of his pants.
Chet surveyed the collection waiting to be processed. Bags of rope along with threads of random material found on the edge of the shelves, as if snagged while shoving things in the hiding spot. Zip ties and duct tape were also confiscated, although those items were placed on the shelves. Left out in the open like the other items in the shed. “What’s next?”
Grimacing, Lincoln removed a pair of gloves then rubbed the back of his neck. “Test for prints. Compare what we found in the graves and see if anything is similar. Match the rope. We already know it’s more of a specialty product, and that it’s sold at Truly’s Trading Post. We haven’t uncovered any receipts for this rope, but it may have been purchased years ago. That’s something I hope we can find out.”
“We really need to talk to Bobby,” Cruz said, his gaze fixed on the ground.
Mia stood with her arms wrapped around her middle, her new dog laying on the ground in front of her. “What about Missy? She opened up a little bit more when we visited her earlier. Maybe she could shed some light on some of this.” She flung a hand toward the evidence then quickly secured her arm back over the other.
Lincoln sighed. “She might not have a choice. I’m going to try to get a warrant. This is damning enough. If we can search Bobby’s house and find more circumstantial evidence, we can make a harder push for his location.”
The thought of the police combing through Bobby’s house without him there, with Missy helpless to do anything but watch and worry, made Chet sick. But he couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of advancing this investigation. “What’s being done now to find Bobby? Do you have officers searching the woods?”
Cruz shook his head. “Nothing beyond popping over to his usual hunting spots and coming up empty. We’ve asked Eddy for other ideas, but he doesn’t have any. Without concrete evidence, we don’t have the resources to do a full man hunt. But this might change things.”
“What about Grace?” Chet asked. “She’s the best tracker in the tri-state area. Has anyone spoken to her about trying to track Bobby?” Now that he thought of it, he kicked himself for not speaking with Grace sooner. As a coworker at Crossroads Mountain Retreat, and a friend, she’d readily offer her services if he asked. Regardless of Cruz and Lincoln’s opinion, he made a mental note to contact her when he got a chance.
“I’ll speak with her if and when it comes to needing her assistance,” Cruz said. “Until now, Bobby is a person of interest rather than a suspect. Shifting how he’s labeled will change our approach going forward.”
Lincoln scooped a large blue duffle bag with PVPD on the side from the sidewalk and opened it wide. He took the evidence bags and filled the duffle before hooking it on his shoulder. “I want to get started with this. Cruz, can you work on securing the warrant?”
Cruz nodded.
