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Standing to one side as Carter maneuvered the picture inside the door, she looked out into the sleet. “We’ll need to check her truck.”
“Okay.” Carter pulled the door closed behind him and smiled at her. “I’ll go. Your teeth are chattering. Maybe you should wait here, and when I’m done, I’ll go and get the cruiser?”
Shaking her head, Jo followed him out of the garage and to the truck. “There’s no way that I’ll risk waiting here while you head off alone. There could be a serial killer watching everything we do. That forest is so dense I’m surprised Vaughn wanted to live here. I sure as heck wouldn’t.” Shivering, she turned her back to the wind as he searched the truck.
“Car keys.” Carter held them out like a trophy. “She left them in the ignition. This means whoever abducted her came just after she’d gotten home. There’s nothing else in there. No purse. Maybe she didn’t carry one.” He sighed. “No signs of a struggle. It’s not looking like an abduction to me.”
Jo analyzed the situation. “Maybe not, but if she left the keys in the ignition, she didn’t intend to stay either.” She looked at Carter. “Apart from the painting, it’s all too neat. I think she knew this man.”
“The information we have is that she was delivering a picture to a client.” Carter popped a toothpick into his mouth and moved it across his lips thinking. “If that’s the painting in question, why didn’t he take it?”
Jo folded her arms over her chest to ward off the swirling sleet-filled wind. “She’d have a record of the sale. It’s probably back at the gallery. If he’d taken the painting, then we’d have the name of the client. Think about it. Taking it would be pointing a finger at him as her abductor. This guy is smart. He could say he was held up, tried to call her and got no reply. Even an abductor could do that right? If he has her, he has her phone. No blood at the scene and no sign of a struggle. All we have are the tire tracks.”
“Seven people missing between both counties.” Carter slipped the keys into an evidence bag and pulled down his Stetson against the sleet. “If any of Jenna’s cases tie in, we have a problem and it’s growing real fast.”
Jo let out a long sigh and, bowing her head against the driving sleet, followed Carter back to the cruiser. “I’ll call Sheriff Nolan and then we’ll go and see if she left her sales records at the town hall. If we find anything, we’ll go and see the buyer. If not it’s Joshua Sage, the IT tech out of Hollows Ridge”—she gave him a hopeful look—“can we stop for something to eat along the way? I’m starving.”
“Me too. After visiting the gallery, we’ll drop by the diner.” Carter swung open the door to the cruiser and Zorro was on his feet, stumpy tail wagging. “He looks better already.”
Jo laughed as she slid into the passenger seat. “He was just cold, but you should take him for a checkup. It will put your mind at rest.”
“Yeah, it will.” Carter headed the cruiser back down the dirt road. “I’ll call Joshua Sage when we get to the diner as well. He might be in the store in town. It will save us time hunting him down. Don’t worry, I won’t scare him off. I’ll make some excuse about a computer problem just to see if he’s in town.”
Jo frowned. “That sounds like entrapment.”
“Nah.” Carter grinned at her. “It just so happens I do have a legit question about computers to ask him. My laptop is getting slow, so he might be able to give me some suggestions to speed it up.”
Jo shook her head in disbelief. “I guess that’s okay, but it doesn’t sound like an emergency. Maybe you should call Kalo to suggest something?”
“Sure.” Carter grinned at her. “Like everything he does is legal.”
The town hall had signs leading to the exhibition and they showed their badges. The person on the door pointed out Ellen Cartwright, Ginger Vaughn’s assistant and the person who’d called the sheriff earlier. The young woman was surrounded by people asking questions. Jo glanced at Carter. “She looks a little stressed.”
“I’m not surprised.” Carter took the toothpick from between his lips and sighed. “Her boss has vanished and it looks as if she’s trying to hold the fort.”
Catching the young woman’s eye, Jo held up her cred pack and tipped her head toward a door with the signstaff only. Ellen Cartwright gave her a nod, smiled at the people around her and made her excuses. She hurried over and pushed open the door to a room leading to a loading dock.
“Is there any news about Miss Vaughn?” Ellen looked from one to the other with an expectant expression. “Please say you’ve found her. It’s been a nightmare here this morning. I can’t sell any of her pictures without her approval. All I can do is make a list of the clients’ offers.”
“No, we haven’t located her yet.” Carter straightened. “It would help if we knew the name of the client she was meeting last night. Do you have that information?”
“No, I don’t. She never mentioned his name.” Ellen pushed her long hair over one shoulder. “I know the client was a woman. I took the call on Miss Vaughn’s phone. I overheard some of the conversation—not that I was listening. There was a problem about collecting the picture. Apparently, the client’s husband drives right past the turnoff to Miss Vaughn’s cabin out at Broken Wolf Forest on his way home from work, so she arranged to meet him there at six last night. I had Tim, one of the assistants, help crate up the picture and load it into her pickup. She left after that and I haven’t heard from her since.”
“Does she keep a record of her sales here at the gallery?” Carter looked around the room. A computer sat on a nearby desk. “On that perhaps?”
“No, that shows us when the deliveries are due for pickup.” Ellen sighed. “Miss Vaughn kept everything on her iPad and she gave out hard copies of receipts. She photographed them and kept them on a file in her iPad as a backup. She took both of them with her when she left last night.”
Jo frowned. They’d found nothing in Miss Vaughn’s vehicle. “Did she have only the one painting with her? Would she have another crated up at the cabin?”
“Not that I’m aware.” Ellen shook her head. “No, I’m sure. The pictures at the cabin were unfinished and she only took one from here. It was in a crate with a bright red number six painted on it. That represents the number in the catalog.”
“Did she have her purse with her?” Carter raised one blond eyebrow.
“Yes, she carried one. It was black leather with a medallion-type clip on the front.” Ellen’s face had become distraught. “Something bad has happened to her, hasn’t it? I mean, you’re the FBI. You must be here for a reason.”
Jo kept her voice calm and her face expressionless. “Due to the explosion on the highway, the sheriff is busy right now and we were in town. We have no idea where she is and we’re just following clues. She might be staying with friends. Do you know any of her friends, apart from her boyfriend?”
“She didn’t socialize. I thinkboyfriendis the wrong term to use. As far as I know, they went on casual dinner dates. He is an artist as well. She never mentioned him as the love of her life or anything.” Ellen folded her arms over her chest. “She was a little remote. Her work was everything to her and she seemed to be unaware of anything else around her. We wouldn’t see her for six months at a time when she was out at the cabin, but she always called and never missed a day during an exhibition. It was how she made her living and she wouldn’t risk missing a sale.” She lifted up her arms and dropped them. “This is why I called the sheriff. Not being here and not answering a call from the gallery just wouldn’t happen.”
