Chasing Daybreak (Dark of Night Book 1) (4 page)

“It’s all in there. Unfortunately, that’s all you get to take with you. Those are copies of the official reports. All the evidence, however, stays here.” He shrugged apologetically. “Open case and all.”

I understood. Chain of evidence. He couldn’t risk us compromising anything just in case it ever had to go to trial. Nodding, I opened the file.

“So, is there somewhere we can take a look at this?” Shane asked.

For being a former history teacher, Shane had adjusted well to the life of a PI. He didn’t ask a lot of dumb questions, especially around the police. It made things easier on me not to have to constantly school him on police procedure.

Reggie hefted the white box and dropped it into Shane’s arms. “Interrogation Room One is open. It’s all ours.”

In a strange procession, we walked to the room, followed by dozens of curious stares. I tried to ignore them. It was only natural they’d be curious, even suspicious of Shane, and by association, me. No one was outright rude, and that was all I really asked for.

Flicking on the overhead light, we settled around the wooden table. Reggie took a seat in a corner and propped his feet on the table, leaving Shane and me to rummage through the contents of the box.

I examined the bags. “Are these from the house?”

“The house, the car. Even her locker at the school where she taught,” Reggie answered in his thick Southern drawl.

“Her computer?”

He shook his head. “No personal computer. We have her phone, but there were no unusual calls made or received. Baby girl, I know her daddy is upset we aren’t actively pursuing the case anymore, but we went over every scrap of her life and came up with a big fat nothing. Looks more and more like she just ran away.”

“You really think so?” I looked him flat in the eye.

“Aww hell, I dunno. I don’t think she’d leave those kids, that’s for sure. But you never really know about people, do ya?”

I agreed. People never failed to surprise, and often disappoint.

I pulled out a bag holding a planner. “Anything in this?”

Reggie nodded as he leaned forward and opened the folder containing the notes. “There’s a copy of every page in here. It was just her work schedule, the kids’ school stuff, and a couple of nail appointments. No red flags.”

“Reggie, you know I’m not trying to step on your toes here. I’m sure you guys did all you could. I told her father as much. But if it’ll make him feel better to get another set of eyes on this, then that’s the least I can do for him. Whether she just took off or not, he lost his child. Those kids lost their mother. So I’ll go over every scrap one more time, just to give them what little peace of mind I can offer.”

“I know that, baby girl,” Reggie said softly. “I wanna put this mess to bed as much as anyone.”

His eyes held mine, full of emotions his words would never betray. We’d both been in the search team when she’d first gone missing. Every day there were fewer and fewer volunteers. At the end, there were just five of us. Then they called off the searches all together. No one ever wanted to admit it, but the honest truth was we knew from day one it wasn’t a search-and-rescue mission, it was a recovery mission. We never expected to find her alive.

Reggie had been on the police force for over thirty years. I knew his wife wanted him to retire, and I knew why. Jobs like his, cases like this one, they haunted you. I’d only been doing this for a year, and I could already feel the weariness creeping into my bones. How my father had managed twenty-odd years on the force and another ten as a PI, I would never know.

When I’d first taken over the business, Reggie came to see me. He told me that the only thing keeping him sane was his family, that they tethered him to life. Without that, he said, the darkness would eat away at a man’s soul. He told me to find my tether.

I was still looking for one.

Two hours and six pages of notes later, we were finished. As Shane and I repacked the box, Reggie handed me the cardboard lid.

He rubbed his head. “You got everything you need?”

“I think so.” I slipped the pages of notes into the folder. “I’ll call you if we turn anything up.”

I tossed the clear bag holding Lisa Welch’s purse into the box with a flick of my wrist.
Useless,
I thought with a huff.

Beside me, Shane stiffened.

I looked up. His face was rigid, nostrils flared, mouth in a half snarl.

“Shane?”

Reggie noticed, too. His hand twitched at his side not far from his gun.

“Shane!” I snapped my fingers this time.

He relaxed, looking down as the tension receded from the air around him.

“What is it?” Reggie asked.

Shane picked up the evidence bag I’d tossed and held it out to Reggie. “Can I open this?”

Reggie tilted his head to the side, his hand still hovering near his gun. “No, but I can. Why?”

“I need to smell it,” Shane answered quietly, not looking up.

Reggie looked baffled. “Smell it?”

I stepped in before Shane had to explain. “Shane has a highly developed olfactory sense. A thousand times better than any bloodhound. He might be able to smell something on the purse that could give us a clue about her abductor.”

I tried to make myself sound more confident than I felt. Truth was, Shane did have a great nose. Unfortunately, the thing he could smell the best was blood. If that bag had been in, near, or around blood, he’d know it.

With deliberate slowness, Reggie took the bag from Shane’s hand. Pulling a knife out of his utility belt, he slid the blade across the red seal, squeezed the bag open a fraction, and held it out to Shane.

“Don’t touch it,” he warned.

Shane looked up, his brown eyes clear, and nodded. I let out a breath. Whatever he was up to, he was at least in control of himself.

Holding the bag carefully under his face, he drew in a deep breath. Then another. Closing his eyes, he handed the bag back to Reggie, who quickly resealed and initialed the pouch.

“Anything?” Reggie and I asked at the same time.

Shane shook his head. “A hint of perfume and gasoline. This was found in the car?”

“Yep. Wow, that’s better than a bloodhound Brooks.” Reggie closed the box with a smile. His voice was dry, husky. As much as he liked him, I knew Reggie would have shot Shane in a second if he thought he was going to lose it. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“Can we get a look at it?” Shane asked as we left the room.

“You’ll have to talk to the husband,” Reggie answered. “As soon as the scene was cleared, the car went back to him.”

“Great.” I sighed.

It was too late for a drop-in visit, so I settled for making a phone call when we got back to the office. Shane sat across from me as I dialed Robert Welch, Lisa’s husband. He answered on the first ring, his voice hopeful. I frowned. After all these months, he was still waiting for
the call
. The one that would change his world forever.

“Hello, Mr. Welch. I’m Isabel Stone from Stone Private Investigations. Your father-in-law has hired me to look into your wife’s disappearance and…”

That was as far as I got.

“Look here, lady, I don’t care who hired you, and I don’t want anything to do with it. I’ve already said everything I’m going to say to the police. Don’t call me again.”

Click
.

I held the phone away from my head and shrugged at Shane, who was tapping a pen on the desk. I knew he’d overheard the brief conversation. Lowering the receiver back into the cradle, I sighed and rested my head on my hands.

“Ok, partner. What did you really smell in that bag?”

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the pen toward the cup. It landed inside with a thunk. Wiping his hand down his face, he hesitated before he answered. It was a gesture I knew all too well, one that meant I probably wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

“I smelled vampire,” he finally admitted. “I think.”

“You think, super nose? Or are you sure?”

He sat back. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Do you know whose scent it was?”

I knew that most vamps had a smell unique to them, and they could often recognize each other by the scent alone. Of course, Shane was a newbie and didn’t know many other vamps. At least as far as I was aware.

He shook his head. “I didn’t recognize it. But if I could get a stronger whiff, like maybe from the car, then who knows?”

I frowned. “I don’t think the husband is going to let us get anywhere near that car.”

“So what are our options?”

“I can think of one, but you aren’t going to like it.”

“Why?” he asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Look, if I’m going to call in a favor this big on your hunch, I want to be sure it’s not a waste of time. So are you positive you scented vampire?”

“Yes, one hundred percent. Who are you going to call?”

“Ghostbusters,” I said sarcastically. Opening the file that held the photocopied info on the car, I picked up the phone. “I’m calling Tyger.”

Shane slammed his hand on the cradle. “No, you’re not.”

Patrick Wallis, aka Tyger, was one of my oldest friends. We’d been inseparable until we turned twelve and his lifestyle drove a wedge between us. By
lifestyle,
I didn’t mean a sudden desire to dress in Prada and sing show tunes.

Currently, Tyger was the leader of a local motorcycle gang and had been in and out of jail more times than I could count. When I first took over the office, I was hired to look into a string of burglaries in the upscale side of downtown Charleston. Tyger was arrested for the crimes, but I eventually caught the real thief, a rival gang member trying to get him put away so he could usurp his leadership position. Tyger was grateful, and for a few days, I was really glad I’d been able to help him. That was, until the thief had been beaten almost to death while out on bail. I didn’t have any proof that Tyger was behind it, but I believed down to my toes he was. Calling to ask him for a favor was a risk. And from the look on Shane’s face, not one he wanted me to take.

“Shane, it might be the only way to get our hands on that car. If you have any better ideas, I’m all ears.”

I left it hanging in the air between us. If Shane was really on to something, then this might be our only lead. We could get a hold of the car or we were sunk before we began swimming. I could see from his expression that he was weighing the options.

Finally, he made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Fine. Make the call.”

The only number I had for Tyger was the bike shop he owned. They were closed, so I left a message asking him to call me.

Behind me, Shane pulled out the rolling white board and cleaned it off. Together we reconstructed, as best we could, a time line of the day Lisa Welch disappeared.

We worked until the scent of dry-erase markers started giving me a headache and the end result was less than impressive. The police had tracked Lisa’s day from eight AM, when she took her kids to school, up to four PM, when she called her neighbor.  She said she was “running late” and asked if they could pick the kids up from the bus and keep them until she got home at five.

Lisa Welch was never seen or heard from again.

I stepped back, looking at the time line.

“Okay.” I pointed. “She had lunch with her sister Marlene from eleven forty-five ‘til about one-fifteen. Marlene told police Lisa was agitated about something, but wouldn’t say what and didn’t mention anything about her plans for the rest of the day. Lisa paid for lunch, and they went their separate ways. Lisa’s car was found abandoned at eleven that night at the Old Town Mall.”

“Do we have copies of the financials?”

I rifled through the stacks of papers Reggie had allowed us to copy and tossed Shane the bank and credit card statements.

“The police say there were no unusual charges on either the bank card or her Visa.” I continued tapping the dry-erase marker on my chin as Shane leafed through the statements.

“Apparently, she didn’t pay for lunch either. At least, not with either of these accounts. Where did they eat?”

I checked Marlene’s statement. “The Brand Steakhouse. Maybe she paid cash?”

“Pricey place. When was the last time you paid for a seventy-dollar meal with cash?”

“Good catch,” I stated, impressed. “It might be worth checking with the sister.”

“Maybe Lisa had a credit card the husband didn’t know about. Especially if she were hiding something.”

Shane was right. I’d seen that before. It was pretty common with cheating spouses for one to have a secret account. Heck, some had whole secret lives, including houses and cars.

“I’ll call Marlene in the morning,” I offered.

“No offense, but after the reaction you got from the husband, maybe I should take a stab at this one. The file says she waits tables down at Club Rouge off Peach Street. I could go work my charm on her.”

I gritted my teeth. He was right again. Something about him had total strangers ready to spill their life stories to him. Even before becoming a vampire, he’d been charismatic. When you added the otherworldly aura, it was downright unsettling. At least to me. Everyone else found him irresistible.

“Fine,” I agreed reluctantly.

Shane flashed a dimpled smile and tossed me the marker he’d been holding.

“Don’t wait up,” he hollered over his shoulder as he walked out of the office.

Watching him leave, I hoped I was doing the right thing sicking him on Marlene. The poor girl probably wouldn’t know what hit her.