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Carter moved the toothpick across his lips, noticed Jo’s annoyed expression and removed it. So, he’d start chewing gum again—anything for a quiet life. “That depends. What’s missin’ from this scene?”
“Signs of a struggle, blood, drag marks?” Jo huffed out a sigh. “What are you getting at, Carter?”
“Weapons.” Carter waved a hand around, encompassing the entire house. “No gun locker, no rifles, I found no sign of a weapon anywhere. I figure this family had an aversion to owning weapons.” He smiled at her. “So, if a guy walked in the back door wearin’ a ski mask and wavin’ a gun around, do you figure the mom would ask him real nice if she could grab a coat for her kid, or would she be too darn scared?”
“She’d be terrified and do what was necessary to protect her child.” Jo raised both eyebrows. “They would have followed instructions.”
Carter nodded. “Yeah, someone could have marched them outside and into a vehicle. The nearest neighbor is five acres away, the driveway shielded by trees. It’s a kidnapper’s paradise. One guy goes into the house. There’s no forced entry, so they left the door unlocked and he orders them to leave. I figure he had a van with a driver. The gunman pushed them inside and then climbed in after them. Maybe he got the husband to restrain the others… Who knows? There had to be at least two abductors, or one of the family would have made a run for it.”
“Maybe not if the kid was threatened.” Jo stared into space like she did often when she was visualizing a crime scene. “If they held a gun to the kid’s head, the parents would comply.”
Taking in the scene again, Carter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Look at the table. Dad sat here with his back to the door, Mom next to him, the kid next to her. The phones give their positions. The cover of the pink one, has the wife’s name on it.” He rubbed his chin. “This was a normal guy, not trained to protect himself, probably never got into a fight in his life, but I’ve seen all types throw themselves at a gunman to allow their wife and kid to escape. It should have been a bloodbath.” He sighed. “No one just walks out with a gunman.”
“Maybe the chair was the only thing he could do?” Jo folded her arms over her chest. “I’d like to know why they were taken.”
The same thoughts had been spinning through Carter’s brain. He nodded. “Yeah, the reason behind the kidnapping is what we need to know. There’s nothing for us here.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call the local sheriff and tell him first break in the weather we’ll be heading back to Snakeskin Gully. We’ll work on the case from there. We’ll need background info on the victims. People don’t just vanish like this unless they have value to someone, as in witnesses to a crime, drug syndicates, snitches. We need to know everything about them to find out who kidnapped them, and as no bodies have shown up, I’d have expected a ransom by now. Why is this family so valuable to someone?”
“If they’d witnessed a crime, the sheriff would have told us.” Jo looked around the room. “The calendar says the kid had a dentist appointment today.” She shook her head. “Witness protection?”
Carter rubbed the back of his neck itching to chew on a toothpick and looked at her. “I can call it in and leave details about the couple and when they went missin’. If there’s a problem, we’ll never know. They’ll handle it.” Giving up, he pulled a toothpick from his top pocket and tossed it into his mouth. He looked at Jo and wiggled his eyebrows. “Do you want me to start smoking cigars? I kinda like the smell of them.”
“You hate cigar smoke, so that won’t fly, Carter.” Jo leaned against the kitchen counter and shook her head slowly. “I pulled a splinter out of your mouth, Ty. A splinter. That’s one thing, but the wood must be wearing down your teeth. It’s just replacing one bad habit with another. Have you tried hypnosis?”
Carter took one more look around the kitchen and then settled his gaze back on Jo. She was mothering him again. Darn, he wasn’t that much younger than her, but he understood her lack of close family manifested in a need to nurture. He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Yeah, and it didn’t go well. I had a major flashback and found myself restrained by two psychiatric nurses and drugged up for days. That ain’t ever happening again.”
“Okay, I’ll drive and you make the calls.” Jo ducked under the crime scene tape on the front door. “Call Wolfe as well. His team did the forensic sweep of the scene when the family were reported missing. See if he’s found anything.” She headed toward the rental and looked up. “It’s stopped snowing.”
Carter stared at the bleak sky. “Maybe it’s not snowing here and the chopper can handle light falls, but I’ll need to know the visibility over the mountains before we leave. Head back to the motel. If it’s a go, we’ll take off without delay. The weather could close in again at any time.” He smiled at her. “With luck, you’ll be home in time to kiss your little girl goodnight.”
SEVEN
A cold wind battered Billy Stevens as he headed home from work along Stanton. His job as a teaching assistant at Black Rock Falls High School often kept him late, and the walk home, so easy in summer, was dark and lonely in winter. He took the same route home every night: straight down Stanton and turned left onto Pine. He shared a house with three other men. They were a group of single doctors completing their residencies at Black Rock Falls Hospital. They were nice guys who had so many shifts someone was always asleep. He’d gotten used to creeping around and not making a sound. They all treated him well and, when they weren’t sleeping, were good company.
The winding road snaked through a suburb covered with pine trees, and the smell of them filled the air more here than opposite the forest. Pine needles crunched underfoot and cones tumbled everywhere across the fresh dusting of snow. It wasn’t snowing hard, just the odd snowflake drifting down, but the sky was heavy and it would only be a matter of time before winter came in full force. He hoisted his backpack over one arm and stuck to the blacktop to avoid the snowy shoulder. Along this road, the uneven edge had many holes and a gutter to prevent flooding. Walking on it during snow season was a recipe for breaking an ankle. The road became more remote as he walked, the houses set farther back from the road, secluded and surrounded by land. He glanced through the trees to the lights blazing from a massive house donated to the college for a fraternity. Murder had happened there some years previously and now the guys who lived there swore it was haunted. The tales about the house changed from year to year but seemed to make living there even more desirable for the college boys. He chuckled to himself. “Some people are just plain crazy.”
As he turned the corner, his attention moved to the massive black truck sitting under the trees with the back door wide open. He’d seen the sheriff going by in something similar with her deputy at her side. He took in the light covering of snow and wondered how long it had been there. As he approached, he made out a figure sprawled on the ground. He ran forward, and found a man face down in the long grass. He stared at him for long seconds, waiting to see if his chest moved. He didn’t look dead. Maybe he’d suffered a medical episode and collapsed? “Hey, are you okay?”
Nothing.
Not wanting to touch a corpse, if this was one, he reluctantly pulled off a glove, bent down and slid his fingers down the man’s neck to feel for a pulse. It happened so fast. As his fingers touched the warm flesh, the man’s elbow slammed into him, hitting him in the neck. Staggering, Billy gasped trying to force air into his lungs. The next second, his feet left the floor and he sprawled across the back seat. Stink filled his nostrils as the door slammed shut behind him. Shocked, Billy gasped in air and struggled to sit up. Panic gripped him and he slapped both hands on the thick Perspex divider between him and the man sliding behind the wheel. “Hey, what the heck do you think you’re doing?”
Dark eyes shielded by a black Stetson peered at him in the rear view mirror, but the man said nothing. The truck’s engine hummed as the man turned the vehicle around and headed sedately back toward Stanton. Billy grabbed for door handles but found none. He lay down on the seat and kicked using both feet on the door and window, but nothing happened. “Let me out of here. Have you lost your mind? Stop the car, you jerk. I’m calling the sheriff.”
The truck didn’t stop and just kept heading out of town. Unease sank through him to settle in his bones as reality dawned. He wasn’t getting out of the truck anytime soon. Looking around for his backpack, he shook his head in disbelief. It was gone, along with his phone. He pushed at the doors and windows and scanned all directions. Surely someone would see him? The driver slowed and his window buzzed down. Billy gaped as his backpack flew from the window and tumbled into a bank of snow. “Hey, that’s my property. You can’t do that?”
The man just kept driving, his eyes flicking back only occasionally to look at him. Freaking out, Billy smashed into the Perspex divider, using all the force he could muster. It didn’t so much as creak. As he hunted the floor and under the seat for anything to use as a weapon, the cab filled with smoke and a strange smell. He slapped at the Perspex divider again. “Let me out.”
He blinked. Acrid smoke poured out from under the seats. He waved it away but it was filling his lungs and stealing his breath. He pulled his shirt over his nose but his eyelids grew heavy. He couldn’t breathe and the smell was making him nauseous.He’s suffocating me with carbon monoxide gas.
EIGHT
THURSDAY
A flurry of snowflakes brushed Kane’s cheeks as he walked from the stables. Underfoot, the frosted grass crunched. The temperature had dropped dramatically and he’d decided to leave the horses in the barn. They’d waited in vain for the search warrant the previous afternoon. The judge had been in court and, as it was quiet in town and they couldn’t move on with the missing persons case, they’d come back to the ranch and taken the horses out for a trail ride. Although, they’d talked shop all the way and back. If something had happened to Maisy Jones, there would be a ton of suspects to wade through, seeing as she had worked a shift at the Triple Z before she vanished. He climbed the steps and wiped his feet on the mat outside the door before stepping inside the house.
A wave of warmth and the smell of hot coffee greeted him as he shucked his coat and hat and headed for the kitchen. “It’s getting colder.” He poured coffee and added the fixings and then used the cup to warm his hands. “If it gets any colder, it will be too cold to snow.”
“It always snows and the ski resort is counting on it being a long season this year.” Jenna smiled at him. “You weren’t serious about having Pop-Tarts for breakfast, were you? I couldn’t find any in the pantry.”
