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“I’ll consider it.” She heard footsteps.
Regis entered the sanctuary. “Bella Dawn is still missing. Her car and purse are still at the Swallow. No one’s heard from her. I don’t think she’s sleepin’ off a bender or shackin’ up anywhere. I think we got us another Blind Eye victim.”
Violet pinched the bridge of her nose and caught the glimmer around Regis’s neck. “I didn’t take you as a jewelry owner, Regis.”
He lifted it from his shirt. “Oh this? A cross my mama gave me. Does that have anything to do with Bella Dawn missing?”
Maybe.
And maybe he knew it too.
“I’ll be at the SO.” He left the church.
“I really don’t want to find another dead girl.” This was crazy.
“Me neither. But I think we’re gonna.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sunday, October 22
6:55 p.m.
John slowly circled Bella Dawn McDaniels’s beat up Ford Taurus that sat at the far end of the Swallow. Violet and Ty had found him playing horseshoes and delivered the news. Right now, they were assuming she’d been taken.
Local law enforcement had been dispatched to search several of the nearby caves. They’d been combing for hours. Ty, Violet and John had gone to Bella Dawn’s house to talk to her mom. They’d wondered why Mother still had the child and not the grandparent, but when they’d arrived, she’d been stoned out of her gourd. She was zero help.
Friends and neighbors hadn’t seen her come home. The people at the Swallow might have been the last to see her alive, including John, Violet and Greg. Bella Dawn had been coiled around him in the back booth most of the night, until the fight went down. Interviewing last night’s patrons was going to take a while. John’s stomach rumbled, reminding him hours had passed since they had lunch at the church social.
The ERT had processed the car, and he and Violet then went through it, but they hadn’t found anything special or telling, only a car seat, empty wrappers and sippy cups.
Violet had made sure that little boy was now in good hands. John hadn’t missed the genuine care and concern in her eyes. The woman had up a shield, but it wasn’t as impenetrable as she let on.
“I’m not sure she ever made it to her car,” Violet said and tore off her latex gloves, shoving them in her blazer pockets. She studied the outside of the bar then looked back at the Ford. “I think the killer was here last night. He hadn’t planned on taking a victim, but, in the chaos, it was a prime opportunity. She knew her killer. She went with him. Why leave Mason?” A frown narrowed her eyes and caused a faint line to pucker across her brow.
“She might have asked to go get him, and he lied or shoved her in his vehicle by force. No one would have paid attention due to the chaos.” An altercation would have blended in, making Violet’s theory of the killer seeing an opportunity and taking it make perfect sense.
“Perhaps. Let’s go inside. See if we can get more information.”
“It’ll be as easy as getting blood from a turnip,” John stated and motioned with an outstretched arm for her to take the lead.
“What exactly does that mean?” she asked as she approached the bar.
“I have no idea. But my mamaw used to say it so...” John opened the door for her, and they entered the Swallow. Tables and chairs had been righted, and the broken chairs, glass shards and junk had been swept up and removed. The mirror behind the bar was still missing shards and the place smelled of booze and bleach.
A woman in her twenties wiped down the bar. “We’re not open yet, hon.”
“Well, hon,” Violet said with a stringent tone, “we need information not a drink. You here last night?”
“I was. Talk about a nightmare.” She tossed the bar rag over her shoulder and shot another glance in John’s direction.
“I’d like to talk about Bella Dawn. You see her here?”
The girl darted her sight behind her then fiddled with the edge of the rag hanging from her shoulder. “She was. Got here a little after five. She brought the boys dinner.”
“What boys?”
“Whiskey and his crew. They ate back there.” She pointed to the back room. “She went upstairs with Mason until about seven. Put him to bed and came back down. Hung out.”
