Dead in Her Tracks (8 page)

Terror threatened to overtake her thoughts, but she fought it back.

She needed to focus and get out. The room had a single metal door and three rows of bright fluorescent lights recessed behind plexiglass in the ceiling. Even if she got her hands loose she wouldn’t be able to get at a bulb or break some of the plastic to use as a weapon.

Zane? Was he looking for her?

She had no concept of time. Did he even know she was missing yet?

The women from Medford had never been found. Neither had Samantha Lyle.

Am I next?

Zane’s face lingered in her thoughts, and she pressed her lips together, fighting back tears. Her left thumb went to touch her engagement ring and found an empty finger. She craned her head, trying to see her left hand. Her ring was gone.

A trophy.

She swallowed hard, tasting tears.
Not while I’m still breathing, you bastard.

If Donald thought she would go down easy, he was in for a surprise.

“Can you swing by Donald’s house?” Zane asked Kenny. “And ask if Stevie picked up Bruce’s medication?”

“Not a problem,” said Kenny. “He only lives a mile or two from me.”

“I found a phone number under his mother’s name, and it must have been a landline in her house at some point, but it’s been disconnected. I asked around for his cell number, but no one has it.”

“A lot of people have disconnected their landlines,” remarked Kenny. “I’ll call you back after I talk to him.”

Zane ended the call. It was just after eight o’clock. No reason Donald wouldn’t still be up.

His brain churned. If Stevie had picked up the medication but hadn’t made it out to her mother’s home, she could have gone off the road anywhere between the two locations. He mentally drove the five-mile route, looking for a place she might have slid off the road. The snow had mostly melted and the roads shouldn’t be icy, but even wet they could be treacherous. He grabbed his hat and keys, needing to take action instead of making phone calls.

This feels like the search for Bruce.

It’d been less than a week since another member of the Taylor family had been missing.

Zane wanted a quicker and safer resolution for Stevie.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

W
hen the locks clicked on the heavy metal door, Stevie felt as if she’d been waiting for hours. She’d stared at the door for a long time, squinting at the brown streaks that raked the concrete blocks next to the doorframe. The more she’d looked at them, the more she’d been able to envision a woman clawing her fingers bloody on the concrete, trying desperately to escape.

By her legs there were brown stains on the mattress. Like blood had pooled.

Her mind had tried to shut down as she’d stared at them.
How many women died on this mattress?

The door opened and Donald strode in with a confidence she’d never seen in the quiet man. He practically strutted. She hid her surprise and simply stared at him.

Show no fear.

She knew a victim’s fear would feed a man like him. It was all about power.

How had he become this person? She’d known Donald and his mother most of her life. Her parents had considered him a close acquaintance, if not a friend. As the town’s longtime pharmacist and sole Realtor, he’d been a large chunk of the town’s foundation. Now he was a cancer that ate away at their town from the inside, slithering in the shadows, striking out at vulnerable women.

Stevie wasn’t vulnerable. And she would let him know it.

The chains on her ankles clanked.
Maybe I’m a bit vulnerable.

He stopped a full three feet away from the metal-framed bed and ran a proud gaze over her. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

She said nothing, keeping her eyes trained on his face.
He’s staying a safe distance away. He’s not entirely confident.

“I’ve always liked you, Stevie,” he said. “You were one of those girls in town that drew everyone’s attention. Beautiful, outgoing, energetic. And talented. I’d forgotten how you can sing.” A dreamy smile filled his face. “When you sang the other night, it blew me away. Your whole family is quite talented. I’d always had a thing for your mother, you know. Her voice was incredible. Does she wonder what might have happened with her singing career if she hadn’t married your father?” He tilted his head to the side as he asked the question.

She stayed silent.

His face fell. “So it’s going to be like that, is it? This will go a lot easier for you if you’re polite, Stevie. I don’t think Patsy raised you to be rude.”

Her mother’s name on his lips made her want to vomit.

Play along or keep silent?

He stared at her a moment longer and then sighed. He grabbed a chair, pulled it closer—but not too close—and sat. He worked his lips as he studied her, twisting and pressing them.

He looked more like an owl than ever. His big round eyeglasses frames were from a different decade, making him seem meek and mild.

“My mother was a strong woman like yours is,” he said. “She raised me right. Taught me the manners that so many of today’s youth are missing.” His expression indicated that he lumped her, given her current behavior, with “today’s youth.” “Young women simply aren’t taught how to behave these days.”

Someone has mommy issues.

She couldn’t remember much about Donald’s mother. She’d always been called Mrs. Montgomery. If she’d had a first name, it had never been used. Stevie faintly recalled a tall, heavy-boned woman with white hair. She’d always worn a housedress and carried a patent leather purse. Stevie was struck by a dim recollection of standing on the main street in Solitude and making faces at her reflection in Mrs. Montgomery’s purse as her mother spoke very loudly with Donald’s mother. The woman had lost her hearing as she aged, and Patsy said she rarely left the house the last few years of her life. Stevie had no memory of Donald’s father. She knew only that he’d been the town pharmacist before his son took over.

“I don’t know why you’re a cop,” Donald said. “It’s a very unfeminine role. It’s almost like you’re trying to prove something, like you’re not just a pretty face with beautiful hair.” He reached out and touched her hair, an admiring expression on his face.

Internally Stevie cringed, keeping her expression neutral as his fingers stroked her hair.
The Medford women, Samantha Lyle, Vanessa Phillips. All long wavy or curly hair.

Bile burned the back of her throat.

His fingers hesitantly touched her cheek. She froze.

“Ah, Stevie. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

She turned her face to the wall, unable to look at him any longer. Down low, right where the mattress met the wall, she spotted initials scratched into the concrete block.

V.P.

She held back a scream.

Zane slowly drove the country road, watching for skid marks or a sign that a car had plunged into the brush. He’d put in a call to Stevie’s brother-in-law Seth with the county sheriff’s department, explaining the situation. Seth had immediately gotten some county vehicles on the roads, doing a search similar to Zane’s. Carly was in full investigation mode, calling every friend of Stevie’s to see if she’d stopped by.

Donald had told Kenny that Stevie had picked up the medication soon after five o’clock and left. Donald had had the impression she was headed straight to her mother’s house to make the delivery.

After getting Kenny’s report on Donald, Zane had sent Kenny to Fletcher’s and the Wayward Motel. He wanted Kenny to talk to Charlie and Jake, see with his own eyes that Stevie wasn’t with them. He also ordered Kenny to bang on every motel door. Zane didn’t care if the guests were disturbed. He wanted someone to get a look in every room, especially Tim Sessions’s. Too much of both murder investigations had centered on Fletcher’s and the motel.

Zane changed his mind and abruptly pulled a U-turn. County could search the roads. He wanted to see Jake Powers’s face and look in his eyes when he said he hadn’t seen Stevie that evening.

Jake was a horrible liar.

“Bob Fletcher was one of my closest friends,” Donald said. He’d been rambling for a few minutes as he stroked Stevie’s hair. She’d stayed mum, but when he mentioned Bob she narrowed her gaze at him.

Donald and Bob?

“He was!” Donald said at the disbelief in her eyes. “We had a lot in common.”

“Bullshit. You’re nothing like Bob.”
Tread carefully.

Fury filled his face. “He liked me. He helped me out at one of the lowest times of my life . . . when my mother died. He was my
friend
.”

“You didn’t act that way when you told me there were drugs being dealt at the truck stop. You practically pointed at Bob as the head of the operation.”

He sneered. “I had you going, huh?”

She stared at him. He’d said all that to mislead her? And the police? Why?

Did he kill Bob?

A piece of the puzzle tentatively fell into place.

Donald supplied Bob with the oxy. Kept him addicted.

But why kill him?

“Why did you consider Bob a friend?” she asked slowly, dying to ask if he’d killed the man he claimed had been a friend.

Donald looked away. “I’m not the best at getting women to like me.”

You think?
She bit her tongue.
Maybe it’s the shackles and basement.
“Bob paved the way for you to meet women?”

Donald nodded. “He’d loosen them up a little bit for me. They always were compliant at first.”

“You mean he put something in their drinks at the bar.”

He scowled. “It’s not like that. They were there to drink and meet men anyway. The Rohypnol just sped up the process a bit. Eliminated a step.”

Her mind whirled. Bob drugged women for Donald to have sex with.
And then he killed them?

The stash of bills in Bob’s house. Donald gave him cash and oxy in payment.

“Bob knew what I liked in a woman. He’d let me know when one came into the bar alone. At first I’d simply take them to the motel, and they’d leave the next morning, usually embarrassed and angry.”

None of them called the police?
Stevie wanted to cry for all the women he’d raped. He must have made them believe they’d simply drunk too much. And that it’d been their fault.

Donald stared off into space. “I wanted more time with them. So many of them just ran off. We decided to bring them here.”

Where were those manners you preached to me about?

“Donald, what did your mother think of this?” she whispered.

Horror crossed his face. “Oh, I didn’t do it before Mother died. Of course not. My evenings were spent with her. She would have been shocked to know that I started going to Fletcher’s.”

Stevie didn’t want to know what he’d done in the evenings with his mother.

He glared at her. “My mother would have hated you if she could see you today. She always thought Patsy’s girls were good girls, but you’re clearly a whore. Whoring around with the chief of police.” He jerked his hand away from her hair, pulling a chunk out of her head.

Tears welled at the sting.

He stood, shoving his chair backward, and strode toward the door.

“Mother will be happy that I can redeem you.”

The door slammed behind him and three locks slid into place.

Redeem me how?

“I haven’t seen Stevie tonight,” Jake stated. “I’m sorry she’s missing, but I don’t know anything about it!”

Zane had the man’s shirt in his grip, pressing Jake’s back against the wall in the dark hallway next to the men’s room at Fletcher’s. It stank.

Jake didn’t look scared; he looked pissed.

Zane searched his eyes in the poor light. He believed him. “Fuck!” He gave Jake a shove to the side and slammed his fist into the wall where the man had stood. The wood paneling cracked.

“Holy shit,” Kenny muttered beside him. “Watch it, Zane.”

Zane counted to ten. “Jake.” He didn’t look at the man. “Someone’s taken Stevie. The same person who killed Vanessa Phillips and possibly a few other women. You know Bob was caught on video putting Vanessa’s body in his SUV.
Where was he taking her?
”

“Well, you don’t have proof that Bob put—”

“Jake! We have the footage! It’s proof! You claim you were a close friend. You tried to beat up Tony Cooper because you thought he’d killed Bob. There’s a good chance whoever was helping Bob with these women is the one who has Stevie
right now
.
Who else did Bob trust? Who’d you see him with?”

Jake shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ceiling, gnawing on his lower lip. “Well, I always thought his conversations with the pharmacist were weird. What did Bob see in that old loser? Each time he stepped foot in the bar, Bob kissed his ass.”

“Donald Montgomery?” Ice shot through Zane’s limbs.

The last person who saw Stevie.

“Yeah, I didn’t get it. I had orders to give the guy all the drinks he wanted on the house. He really wasn’t a big drinker. He’d order one mai tai and nurse it all night. Girly drink. I always wondered if he was gay and Bob felt sorry for him.”

Zane fought the urge to bang Jake’s head against the paneling.

“Bob even helped him with some repairs at his house one summer. He hauled concrete blocks for three days. Said Donald’s basement was starting to crumble. Shit. I asked Bob to help me paint a bedroom and he just laughed at me.” Jealousy filled his voice.