I tugged free and walked over to the car. A quick click on the key fob unlocked the door, but as I reached for the driver’s door handle, I stopped short. Glancing back at Jed who was striding toward his car, I pulled out my phone and called him.
“I think this was where Neil Franken was taken. There’s blood on the ground and on the car door.”
“Take photos, then go around to the other side.”
“Are you sure?”
“We need to check out his car. He could have notes inside. We don’t want to leave anything that could tie this to you behind.”
I grimaced. “Okay.”
“Let me do it, NK.”
“No,” I said more forcefully than I’d intended. “It’s my mess, I’ll clean it up.” I switched over to my photo app and snapped a few pics, then walked around the front of the car and got inside the passenger side, keeping Jed on the line as I pulled on my other glove. “I don’t see anything out in the open.” I opened the glove compartment and pulled out the registration paperwork. “The car belongs to Chad Manchester. Why would this guy be driving his client’s car?”
“Good question. Get photos of that too. Anything else?”
I moved the car manual to the side. “The glove box is clean.” I snapped photos of the registration, then folded down the sun visors. “I found some convenience store receipts.”
“Do they give locations?” Jed said.
“Ardmore. Texarkana. Both for gas and snacks.”
“We can set up locations and times he was there. Get photos of those too. Anything else?”
The edge of a small white card was tucked into a pocket in the driver’s visor, which had been hidden by the receipts. “There’s something in the visor pocket.” I reached up and tugged it out. “Oh crap. It’s a driver’s license.”
“Whose?”
I leaned closer. “Chad Manchester.”
“Does the photo look like the guy in the basement? He could have multiple identities.”
I stared at the license, fear racing through my blood. This guy looked nothing like the man in my basement and a whole lot like the man I’d killed in Ardmore.
“Neely Kate?”
I shuddered and tried to get myself together. “No. He’s not in my basement. Chad Manchester is younger and thinner than that guy.” I paused. “Chad Manchester looks a lot like his brother.”
“Shit,” Jed muttered. “I’ve got a really bad feelin’ about this. Get photos of the receipts and license, then get out of there.”
“Let me check the rest of the car.”
“Fuck the rest of the car. Get the photos and get out, Neely Kate.”
There was no way I was leaving behind anything that could tie me to this. I felt under both seats and glanced in the backseat. “I’m already done checking. Nothing else.”
“Then get your photos and come back to my car.”
“What about the trunk?”
“Skip the trunk.”
I switched on the camera app and snapped the photos. After I put everything back, I held the phone up to my ear. “I got it.”
“Good. Get back here and let’s go.”
I slid out of the passenger seat and pressed the lock button on the key fob, but as I started to head toward the front of the car, I had second thoughts. “I’m already here, Jed. I’m gonna check the trunk.”
“Okay,” he said, not sounding happy about it. “But don’t snoop around the space. Just do a quick glance, take a photo if you see something, then get over here. I’m tellin’ you, something feels off. We need to go.”
“Do you think someone’s watchin’ us?”
“No, and I’ve been lookin’.”
I took a deep breath as I pushed the trunk button, eager to be done with this, but I instantly regretted it as something putrid hit my nose.
“Oh, my stars and garters.” I’d encountered that smell at Granny’s after a cat had died in the barn. That was not a good sign.
“What’s wrong?” Jed asked.
I steeled myself as I rounded the back end of the car.
There in the trunk was a man with his ankles bound and his wrists tied behind his back with zip ties. There were at least a dozen large clear plastic bags covering his damp short-sleeved dress shirt and jeans. If I had any doubt he was dead, the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead convinced me otherwise. But it was his face that made me shudder. It was ashy gray and slightly bloated, but it was still like looking at a ghost.
“There’s good news and bad news,” I said. “I found Chad Manchester, but he’s definitely dead.”
Chapter 13
“Close the trunk and get over here,” Jed said, his voice tense. “Now.”
I did as he said, mostly because I didn’t want to be here either.
As soon as I got in the car, he held out a gloved hand. “Key.”
I handed it to him and he pulled the glove inside out, with the fob still inside, then tossed it into the already-open glove compartment. I was still fumbling with my seat belt as he pulled out of the space.
We rode for nearly a minute in silence. I had no idea what Jed was thinking about, but I couldn’t get that smell or that image of dead Chad Manchester out of my head.
It took me a second to realize Jed had said something. “What?”
“Call Joe.”
Oh. Lord. That was gonna be a difficult call. “He’s gonna blow a gasket.”
“I need to talk to him.” He sounded nervous, which made me even more nervous. “Put it on speaker.”
I pulled out my phone and called my brother. The phone rang and as soon as Joe answered, he said, “Everything okay?”
“We found more than we bargained for,” Jed said before I could respond.
Joe waited a second, then said, “I take it that it wasn’t all good.”
“The laptop has fingerprint recognition. We brought it with us.”
“Were you seen?”
Jed gave me a quick glance, then said, “No. There were signs that Kate had been in the room… or at least that she had someone play errand runner for her.”
“What did she leave?”
“Another note,” I said. “And a present.”
“Shit, it wasn’t a body, was it?”
I sucked in a breath.
“Neely Kate?” he asked when I remained quiet, his worry coming through loud and clear.
“No,” I said. “Kate left me a package under the mattress—the PI reports from her search in Ardmore and tracking down my mother in West Virginia.”
“That’s good, I guess,” Joe said in a hopeful tone. “Why do I think there’s something else you haven’t told me yet?”
Jed piped up. “We found his car key in the room and searched his car in the parking lot.”
“And?”
“The car belongs to Chad Manchester. Pearce Manchester’s brother.”
“So the guy in Neely Kate’s basement is Chad Manchester?”
“No,” I said. “Chad Manchester is currently dead in the trunk of his car.”
Joe let out a long list of obscenities, some used in creative ways I’d never heard before. “You’re positive no one saw you?”
“I was the one who searched the car,” I said. “I was wearing my wig.”
“That didn’t answer my question, now did it?”
“She wasn’t seen,” Jed said. “I was watching. No one walked out, and I didn’t see anyone lookin’ out the windows. It was parked in the back, so no one on the street saw us. This hotel is known for its faulty security cameras, so I’ll make sure there was a glitch while we were back there.”
“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel much better,” he said sarcastically.
“We still have the key,” Jed said. “We’re bringin’ it back with us.”
Joe was silent for so long I thought he’d hung up, but he finally said, “I’ve got to think this through.”
“We need to find out who owned that laptop,” Jed said. “It could have been Manchester’s.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Get back here and we’ll go through it. I’ve found a few things from the phone, but I still don’t know who Franken’s supposed to meet at noon.”
“We’ve still got a few hours to figure it out,” I said. “If nothing else, we go and see if we recognize who shows up.”
“You won’t be goin’ anywhere,” Joe said in an authoritative tone. “Not with Kate on the loose.”
“We’ll discuss it when I get back.” I hung up.
Jed shot me a dark look. “You’ll pay for that.”
“And I’ll likely be payin’ for a lot more before this is all said and done.”
His hand covered mine. “Not if I can help it.”