Mount Junction was tinted with all the shades between white and gray. White snow covered the surrounding mountain range and dark gray gunk covered the snowbanks along the lighter gray streets. It was the largest town for a hundred miles in the lower corner of Oregon. A town built around its university. The university was the biggest employer in the county, and the rest of the population either ranched or provided support services for the students, like restaurants and clothing stores. Mount Junction’s reputation was conservative, a reflection of the school that was proud to be red in the prominently blue state. Michael had noticed immediately that these Southeast Oregonians were significantly more talented at driving in poor winter conditions than Portlanders. Snow was a way of life out here.
The heat cranked, Michael sat in his rented four-wheel drive and studied his map. He wanted to get in and get out of this part of the state as fast as possible. He hadn’t liked leaving Lacey alone with Jack Harper. Michael shouldn’t care whom Lacey kissed, but this guy was different. Harper had inserted himself in her circle and extended an overprotective shield that was Michael’s by right. No doubt Jack was going to look out for her and do his damndest to keep her safe, but that didn’t mean he had to like the guy.
Damn it, he was getting distracted. “Concentrate,” Michael muttered. Get it done and get back to her.
Lacey wasn’t his anymore. Michael knew that. But that hadn’t changed all the dynamics of their relationship. She still fussed at him like a worried sister and he looked out for her like an older brother. But if she ever showed signs of wanting to go back to the way things had once been...he’d be ready. Their short time as a couple had been the most important relationship in his life. There’d been fireworks. In bed and out. It was the fireworks outside of bed that had caused her to put an end to their dating. He’d been steamed, but he’d gotten over it. He’d learned to bite his tongue and wait. But this thing with Harper was different, and it was causing a stir in the pit of his stomach.
Michael shook the map and exhaled hard. Focus.
He’d found a willing contact with the local police who’d agreed to dig up the official report on the accidental death of Amy Smith, the Mount Junction gymnast who’d driven her car into a river. Michael had done his own research on the accident, but had run into a problem trying to dig into her background. Too many damn Smiths in Oregon. The source had promised to e-mail him everything on the case and what pieces he could find of the girl’s personal history. Michael especially wanted to see the autopsy report.
He couldn’t get those broken femurs out of his mind. Amy’s, Suzanne’s, and now three men in the Portland area. All with breaks in the same places.
Michael was searching the map for the site where Amy’s car had been found. According to newspaper reports, she’d driven into the river and had been washed out of her car into the rough, rocky river. The car had remained, half stuck in the muddy bank until boaters had spotted it the next day. Three weeks later, the body had turned up a mile down the river. The young couple who’d stumbled over Amy’s remains at a riverside campsite hadn’t realized it was human at first.
Michael wanted to stand on the ground where Amy had vanished and try to imagine what could have happened that day. The campsite where her remains had been found would be next. Relying on photos and hearsay wasn’t good enough for him. He preferred going straight to the source, seeing it for himself.
The map led him three miles out of Mount Junction on a winding, snow-packed road to the spot where her vehicle had been found. He could have used directions off the GPS, but he wanted to study the topography of the area and get a feel for the surrounding landscape. Nothing felt better than a real map in his hands.
He parked his truck along the old road and hiked the quarter mile to the river. The snow was a foot and a half deep and he was sweating by the time he reached the bank. He cursed. The accident had occurred in the spring. How was he supposed to picture it accurately at this time of year? Everything was blanketed.
Slowly, he turned in a full circle, taking in the beauty of the site. He eyed the narrow trail he’d plowed from the road and frowned. Amy Smith drove a quarter mile off the road and into the river? Large boulders and clumps of evergreens edged his trail as it meandered to the river. Apparently she’d avoided hitting those but couldn’t avoid the water. Had she been drunk? No one remembered seeing her earlier in the day. No one had realized she was missing until her little Corolla had been spotted in the water.
The bank of the river sloped down steeply from where he stood. He estimated the distance from the bank crest to the water as twenty feet. No way could she have gotten her car back up the hill. Maybe she’d tried to get out of the car and gotten caught in the current. Could she have waded to shore if she wasn’t hurt too badly?
Looking up at the snowy mountains around him, he realized the water had to be near-freezing temperatures, even in the spring. Plunging into icy water could shock the breath out of anyone. An icy shiver shot down his legs and into his frozen hiking boots. He’d been swept into freezing water before. His body clenched as he remembered his plunge into liquid ice. He’d stupidly hung on to a crab pot as it’d swung from the crab boat deck back over the ocean and then lost his grip. If it hadn’t been for the fast-acting crew and captain, he’d be a human iceberg in the Bering Sea. Almost no one survived a tumble into those waters.
He pulled his gaze from the dark water, rubbed his hands together, and fought to slow his heart rate, channeling his thoughts in a different direction. Was this public land or privately owned? On the opposite bank, about a mile away, a barn stood cold and lifeless. A fence had once stood between the barn and river but was now a spotty line of crumbling, rotted wood. He needed to do a property search.
Pulling up the warm collar of his heavy jacket to protect his neck, he trudged back to his truck. Snow started to lightly fall, creating a hazy Christmas card out of the dreary landscape. Stopping, he turned for one last view of the deadly gray river and wondered if he was chasing a ghost.
Michael downed the scalding coffee as he paged through a property search. The heat in his hotel room was turned to the maximum, but he still had icy toes. The trip to the campsite where Amy’s remains had been found was a bust. The grounds had been closed and the access road gated for the winter. He’d debated parking and hiking the road to the campsite, but it was nearly two miles to the river from the gate. Besides, the snowfall had surged into heavy curtains of winter white, and he’d been hungry. He made a mental note to check Google Earth. Maybe he could find some bird’s-eye photos of the area.
His eyes skimmed through the property search website as he sought to discover who owned the land around the river. He scrolled down through the legalese and spotted the owner’s name in the middle of the page. His breath caught and the gears in his brain turned in a new direction. It was definitely not public land. Where he’d stood this morning was part of a 260-acre parcel of private property belonging to Joseph and Anna Stevenson.
Lacey’s ex-in-laws.
Never piss off a reporter.
Jack slammed the paper on his desk and tried to call Michael at the newspaper. Jack’s secretary, Janice, had uneasily delivered the afternoon edition of The Oregonian. She’d run down to a newsstand and bought a copy after her mother had called to say her boss was on the front page.
Brody was working his butt off, digging into Jack’s past. The blasted article detailed Jack’s long-ago interview with the Corvallis police when he’d been questioned in the original campus murders. All the facts were accurate, but that didn’t mean he liked seeing it on the front page.
Brody’s voice mail said he was out of town as Jack remembered that last night Lacey had asked Brody about his trip to Mount Junction today. How long was the reporter supposed to be gone? Jack rubbed the back of his neck as he hung up. He leaned back in his chair and glared at the silent phone. Now what? He couldn’t do nothing, but he wasn’t about to ask Lacey for Brody’s cell number. He still felt kind of bad about the DVD incident.
She’d told him to leave her house at four this morning, lecturing him about her relationship with that reporter. He wouldn’t have left, but she’d immediately called her father to come stay with her, and he’d been there within minutes. In the first ten seconds of her rant, he’d learned that Michael Brody was one of her closest friends whom she protected like an angry mother goose. A goose might be smaller than you, but when it was ticked off, honking loudly, and coming at you, you ran in the opposite direction.
He’d get back in her good graces. Somehow.
At least he’d learned she and Brody weren’t dating or something.
Jack put the early-morning embarrassment out of his brain and refocused on the article. Of course, the paper reported that Jack stated he’d had nothing to do with the body in the foundation of one of his buildings. It also said Jack hadn’t been charged with any crime and he’d been cooperating fully with every police request. He should be pleased, right?
But then the paper listed his connections to the old crimes.
It stated he’d owned the old apartment building at the time of the original crimes. Not quite factual, he mused, twisting his lips. Technically his father had owned it back then. Jack had attended OSU at the time of the first disappearances. That was true, but almost a third of the local college grads in Oregon went to OSU.
It stated he’d dated athletes at college. All the women who disappeared were blonde athletes. Brody had dug up a quote from some anonymous source that said Jack had dated blondes exclusively in college. He scowled. All his girlfriends back then were blonde? He thought hard and couldn’t seem to come up with an exception. That didn’t mean he murdered them.
Lacey. Blonde. Athlete. Shit. He threw the paper in his trash and turned his chair to stare out the window at the mountain.
He mentally reviewed the article some more. After reading it five times, he’d committed it to memory.
And Hillary Roske.
Jack dug the front page back out of the trashcan and studied her old picture, searching for memories of their time together. He couldn’t come up with many. She’d been a pretty girl, sweet. But the relationship wasn’t a good match from the beginning.
Her eyes looked back at his, silent, accusing. He remembered being compelled to help find her abductor all those years ago. When he’d worked for the Lakefield PD, she’d always been in the back of his mind. Along with all the other girls.
Now the old cases were back in the limelight and his name had erupted out of the archives like a submerged cork bobbing to the surface. He screwed his eyes shut but still saw Hillary’s perky smile.
He’d dealt with a little bad press before, usually just letting it roll off his back. It naturally came with the territory of being a big, visible company. He didn’t take it personally. He couldn’t if he planned to stay focused on the company. He was proud of the projects they built and proud of where he’d led the business after his father stepped down. If people were jealous of his success, they could get over it.
But this was different.
He opened one eye as the phone rang. He’d told Janice to hold his calls after the third damned reporter had called. This must be important. Janice’s voice came through the intercom.
“It’s Bill Hendricks, Jack. I thought you’d want to talk to him.”
“Yeah, I’d better take his call. Thanks, Janice.”
He set the paper aside and ran his hands through his hair, making the short black spikes stand even straighter. Hendricks was a straight shooter and one of Harper Developing’s biggest accounts at the moment. He and Jack were deep in planning for a condo tower in the hot South Waterfront area. It was promising to be some of Portland’s priciest living space. Jack reached for the receiver. Blunt honesty was always best when speaking with Bill Hendricks. The man could smell a lie from six feet under.
“Morning, Bill.”
“Jack! What the hell’s going on?” Jack wrenched the phone from his ear at the roar. Yep, no words minced here.
“Exactly what the paper said, Bill. They found a body in one of the old complexes I own down in Lakefield.”
“Did you stash that body there?” The old man’s voice was powerful. Powerful mad.
“Christ, Bill! Of course not! You think I’d do something like that?” Jack tried not to laugh at the lack of guile in the crusty man.
“No I don’t. But I had to ask and hear what you had to say about it.” Thankfully, Bill’s voice dropped in volume. “I’ve had three contractors call me already, concerned I’ll back out of the tower project based on a few lousy articles in The Oregonian. Don’t people think for themselves anymore? Anyone who knows you knows this story’s a bunch of donkey crap.”
Donkey crap? If there was one person he wanted on his side, it was Bill Hendricks. The man’s words were as good as gold in this state and could go a long way in spinning Jack’s crumbling public image.
Jack hung up the phone after another minute of Bill’s monologue, rubbing absently at the deadened patch of skin on his right thigh. If Bill Hendricks was running into people questioning his company’s business future, then other people were having doubts. This rotten publicity was going to be a bitch to handle. How much permanent damage had Michael Brody done to Harper Developing?
“Mr. Harper, your sister’s on line two.”
“Thanks, Janice.” He’d forgotten to tell Janice not to put Melody’s calls through too. She probably wanted him to make an appearance at some benefit or had a philanthropy check to cosign. No one was better at spending the company money for good causes than his older sister. Reluctantly he picked up the line.
After Melody’s call, he sat back in his chair, unable to fight the grin spreading across his face. One of his problems was on the way to being solved. Fate had just handed him a golden opportunity and he was going to take full advantage of it.
He had a fancy party to go to.
In the early evening’s darkening hours, Lacey dashed to the gymnastics academy, finally escaping from the cop who’d sat outside her house all day. He’d hung around until Detective Callahan had called back, updating her on the body found that morning. Attorney Richard Buck had been murdered. Another link to DeCosta. Lacey glanced over her shoulder in the dim parking lot as she left her truck. She’d been twitchy all day, but she wasn’t going to hide under the bed.
Again, the detective suggested she leave town. She told him she’d spend the night at her father’s place. Tomorrow she was attending a fundraiser at Portland’s luxurious Benson Hotel. Maybe she’d get a room there afterward.
Callahan told her Frank had been released from jail, and Lacey said again that she didn’t want to press charges. She wasn’t scared of Frank; she simply didn’t want to deal with him. And she had a hunch he’d learned his lesson. He’d never spent the night in jail before, and she knew the memory would stick with him awhile. What would his patients think if they knew he’d been in jail for assaulting his ex?
She might drop that threat in Frank’s ear if he whined.
Lacey pushed open the heavy door to the gym and inhaled the distinctive smell of disinfectant and sweaty bodies. Her body relaxed at the odor. There was a harmony, a coherence that calmed her whenever she entered a gym; she was in her element. Tiny muscular girls and boys worked the equipment. Shouts of encouragement and rock music from a floor routine echoed off the walls. Her practiced eye followed a teen on the beam.
Between throwing Jack out of her house that morning, Michael’s furious departure, that nasty morning article on page one, Richard Buck’s death, and the topper of her ring being found at the new murder site, she’d become a mental mess. She’d struggled to think straight. She hadn’t wanted to think at all. Her first instinct had been to crawl in bed and put reality at bay with a few mind-numbing pills. It’d taken a lot of strength not to do so. She’d held the bottle of Xanax in her hand for five minutes before putting it back on the shelf, recognizing the signs of a depressive downswing. She’d known her best bet was to throw herself out of the house and get some exercise, hence her escape to the gym. If she’d crawled into bed, it might have been days before she emerged. Unacceptable. She had to find out the truth about Suzanne.
How could Michael print another story about Jack? She shook her head. The article was accurate, of course. Michael wouldn’t print a story without first triple-checking every fact. At least the article had been in the paper’s late edition. Its circulation was a fraction of the morning edition. Lacey crossed her fingers that a new flashy story would push Jack’s name off tomorrow morning’s front page.
Michael had been more than a little irrational when he’d stormed out of her house after seeing the kiss on the disc. She’d chased him out to his vehicle and banged on the window, but he’d simply shaken his head at her, obviously not wanting to talk, and had driven off.
Michael was lucky he was out of state tonight. She was going to throttle him next time she saw him. He was acting like a spoiled kid who didn’t want anyone else playing with his toys.
Little arms wrapped around her thighs and Lacey bent down to give Megan a hug. She’d been teaching tiny tot tumbling once a week for three years now and loved every minute of it. Four-year-olds percolated with energy and life. Each week Lacey would create a different obstacle course that involved basic tumbling skills and games. Zealously, her class would tackle the challenge as she spotted them at the trickier spots. Leaping into the giant pit of sponges, jumping on the trampoline, skipping on the low balance beam.
They always made her laugh. It was always the highlight of her week.
“Hey.”
Lacey turned to find Kelly Cates regarding her with a touch of trepidation and curiosity. Kelly and her husband Chris owned the gymnastics academy.
“How are you doing?” Kelly’s voice was soft as she pulled Lacey close for a long hug. She’d always been a quiet person. Over the years the woman had lost that conditioned gymnast look. She’d rounded out slightly but still had the pixie face and bobbed blonde hair from long ago.
“All right, I guess. I don’t know what the hell is going on from one minute to the next,” Lacey answered.
Kelly had been on the Southeast Oregon University Gymnastics team with Lacey and had discovered her bleeding on the sidewalk as she’d run to catch up with Lacey and Suzanne. Kelly was supposed to walk to the restaurant with Chris, but he’d changed his plans, so Kelly had been far behind the two girls that dreadful night. She was still one of Lacey’s closest friends. Up there with Michael and Amelia.
What would’ve happened if Kelly and Chris had been right behind them that night? Would Suzanne still be here?
She dropped the thought. Been there, done that.
She smiled at Kelly and greeted another child begging for her attention.
Resentment at Kelly and Chris for not being there when she needed them was something Lacey had struggled to overcome for years. Deep down she knew it wasn’t their fault, but at one time she’d been looking for anyone to blame.
Lacey was envious of the relationship Kelly shared with Chris. They’d dated all through college, just like Lacey and Frank. They’d had their rocky moments in the beginning of the relationship, but Chris was a wonderful man and their marriage lasted. He worshiped the ground Kelly walked on.
Kelly glanced around and lowered her voice. “The police called me about my testimony in the DeCosta trial.” Kelly never saw the attack or the man. All she had testified about was Lacey’s condition when she’d found her. “They think I need to be careful. They said this killer seems to be working down a list of those involved in the DeCosta trial.” Her eyes dilated and her voice wavered the slightest bit.
“Definitely be careful, Kelly. Don’t go anywhere alone and keep your doors locked tight. Might be a good time to go visit your mom in Nevada?”
Kelly nodded. “I’ll mention it to Chris.”
“I’m having a security system installed as soon as possible and I’m staying at my dad’s tonight.”
“Aren’t you scared?” Kelly asked.
Lacey didn’t get a chance to answer. A tall muscular man had snuck up and wrapped his arms around both women’s shoulders, squeezing them in a bear hug. “How’re my two favorite women?” Lacey stiffened and her breath shot out of her. Chris.
She was jumping at shadows.