“I spoke to Brian and he let me look around his property, but Gavin wasn’t home. We’ve asked him to come in tomorrow morning.”
“He wasn’t home because he was in town trying to scare the shit out of us. Did Brian admit Skylar worked at the ranch?”
“Says she worked there a couple of days but didn’t show up this morning. She told him she was trying to make money to meet up with a boyfriend. He figures she just continued on.”
“That’s a lie. She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“We’ll look into it,” he said, but I was getting a horrible feeling he believed Brian.
“What about Crystal?”
“Claims he’s never seen her before.”
“That’s bullshit. We worked there—I can describe their barn.” I thought of something else. “Theo, they had a ranch hand named Theo.”
“I’ll look into that, but at the moment we still don’t have enough to get a search warrant.”
“We told you Gavin was seen talking to Crystal at the bar. Isn’t that enough?”
“Unfortunately, no one saw her leaving with him that night. We need solid evidence.”
“What about Riley? I think he knows something.”
“We’ve also asked him to come into the station in the morning. Hopefully he’ll give us more to go on—we’ll keep you updated. In the meantime just stay in your room.”
We spent the night taking turns keeping guard. One of us sat on the bed with the gun while the other tried to sleep but mostly tossed and turned. McPhail had called back, told us there was no sign of Gavin near our motel. It didn’t bring me comfort, knowing they hadn’t seen him. He could still be outside waiting.
I sat with my back pressed against the headboard, the gun gripped tight in my hands and my head turned toward the door, staring at the handle.
CHAPTER THIRTY
SKYLAR
We had to get to that bottle. The room was almost dark now and I had no way of communicating with Crystal, but we had to drag the bed closer somehow.
I thought about the layout of the room. The dresser was in the far corner to the right, opposite the side of the bed where I was tied.
When we’d tried to push the bed before, we did it from the side only and pushed across. This time we had to spin the bed around so the bottom faced the other wall—then I might be able to knock the bottle off the dresser.
I managed to grab my rope with the back of my hands, then walked forward toward the wall on the left side, dragging the bed behind me, hoping Crystal would realize what I was doing. I heard her feet land on the floor, then the bed started to move easier—she was pulling too. It was hard work, and I felt faint from the heat, sweat dripping down my face and stinging my eyes. The rope pulled my arms back, stretching all my tendons and ligaments. But we managed to drag the bed a few feet.
I stopped, tried to catch my breath, inhaling through my nose. I could also hear Crystal breathing in the dark.
The next step was to spin the bed around. I had to push from the bottom end, which meant Crystal couldn’t help. I leaned down, put my shoulder into the side of the mattress near the end of the bed, and pushed forward. I felt the bed move on her side too and stopped pushing. How could I tell her to stop?
I thumped the floor a couple of times with my foot, and when I started pushing again, she didn’t push from her side.
I had to stop a few times to catch my breath, and worried about Gavin walking in, but I couldn’t give up now. That bottle was our only hope.
Finally I got the bed pointed in the direction of the bottle. I walked around to the bottom of the bed and grabbed the rope behind me again, pulling forward like a workhorse, leaning all my weight into it. I hoped Crystal realized that I needed her to get behind the headboard. I felt the bed move—she was pushing forward while I pulled. She must have seen the bottle too.
We had the bed within a couple of feet of the dresser. My eyes had adjusted slightly and I could make out the shape. The opposite bottom corner of the bed was closer, but could I reach it? I climbed on top, tried to crawl to the other side. Then I lay on my back and stretched my foot toward the dresser.
I could just stretch my toes out and touch the bottle, but I might knock it off. We needed the bed closer.
I got off and wedged my shoulder into the side of the mattress again, pushed with all my strength, felt Crystal doing the same behind me.
The bed moved another foot. I heard the bottom bedpost hit the dresser and held my breath, but the bottle stayed where it was.