The name meant nothing to him. He shrugged. “Someone he knows?”
“According to Parker, Indrid Cold is someone he met during a moment of great significance.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the event, Sergeant. I’m referring to the night Parker killed Hank Jeffries, and you shot Parker in retaliation.”
Caden walked into the sheriff’s office to find Ryan camped at his desk, his forehead cupped in his hands as he studied an open file folder. Overall, the room was subdued, only two deputies on duty, both engrossed in paperwork. If the quiet held, the station might eke through the morning without the usual burst of paranormal rumors stirring the pot.
“You look as disgusted as I feel.” Caden looped his jacket over the back of his chair.
“Huh?” Ryan glanced up. It took a second or two for him to focus; then his mouth flattened in a grimace. “I’ve got a license plate with no history.”
“What does that mean?”
“Remember that van I told you about? The one outside Katie’s house?”
“The one you think belongs to Lyle?”
“Yeah.” Ryan swiped a pencil from a cup holder at his elbow. He rapped the eraser against the folder. “It was back last night, only this time Katie got the tag number.”
“And?”
Ryan waved a hand over an innocuous-looking paper. “According to the DMV, it doesn’t exist.”
“Maybe she was off a digit.”
“I thought of that, but she seemed certain. And even if I buy that theory, there’s nothing remotely close in the sequence she gave me.”
“Huh.” Caden dropped into his chair. “Bogus tag?”
“Looks that way. How about you?”
“I just left West Central.”
“Yeah, I heard about Parker.” Ryan tossed the pencil onto the folder and linked his hands over his stomach. “The guys in the lab have been going over the film from the security cameras all morning.”
“Anything?”
“No go. I had a look myself. The hallway and exterior cameras didn’t pick up a thing.”
“What does that mean?”
“Based on what we’ve got, Parker never left his room.”
“What about the ceiling? Or the windows?”
“The ceiling is solid, and you’ve seen the windows. No way to get through them. Besides, they’re rigged with an alarm in the event of a breach.”
“Maybe the film was tampered with.”
“Possible, but it doesn’t look that way. Looks like our boy vanished into thin air.”
“Great.” More weird shit. “Did anyone talk to Floyd?”
“Pete had him in earlier for questioning. Said he was home all night, and didn’t know anything about it.”
If Pete had questioned Parker’s father, the interview would have been thorough. The sheriff was friendly with most everyone in town, but took his job too seriously to let camaraderie interfere.
“I kind of believe Floyd.” Caden wished it weren’t the case. With him out of the picture there wasn’t anyone left with a motive to aid Parker.
Ryan looked surprised. “What?”
“Nothing against Floyd, but he doesn’t have it together enough to break his son out of West Central. And, more than that, why now? Parker’s been there for two years. According to Nurse Brenner and the doctors I spoke with today, he was a model patient. Why decide to make a run for it all of a sudden?”
Ryan tugged on his bottom lip.
Caden could see the wheels spinning in his head. It was how they worked best, bouncing thoughts back and forth in a ping-pong match of ideas.
“His life was routine,” Ryan said. “Same schedule day in, day out with no complaints.”
“Same visitors too. Except for me and you.”
“And Jerome Kelly.”
The single wild card in the scenario. “Sure wish I knew what they talked about during those fourteen minutes when Jerome visited.”
“I might have something on that later today.” Ryan flipped the folder closed, abandoning the DMV report.
“What do you mean?”
“Katie has something she wants me to see. Some kind of paper she found in her jacket.”
“What’s that have to do with Jerome?”
“She gave the jacket to Jerome the night she found him off the road. He kept complaining he was cold.” Ryan paused, giving him a chance to connect the dots. “She thinks he slipped the note inside.”
“Cold, huh?” Caden rubbed his forehead. His thoughts spiraled back to the odd image taped to the hospital wall. How long had it taken Parker to create that life-size drawing and why had he bothered? “Does the name Indrid Cold mean anything to you?”
“No. Should it?”
“According to Nurse Brenner, it’s someone Parker talked about a lot.”
Ryan leaned forward. “So let’s run him through the database and see what it kicks back.”
“I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a waste of time.”
“Why?”
“Because according to Parker, Indrid Cold lives on a planet called Lanulos.”
Chapter 8
Katie was delighted when Ryan accepted her spur-of-the-moment dinner invitation. She’d half expected him to blow her off when she phoned and suggested they chat about Jerome and the van over pasta. A pitiful offer, but he’d seemed pleased. Maybe Eve and Sarah were right, and there was the chance of something more than friendship between them.
Trying not to read too much into their “date,” she rushed through work, then swung by a department store in Gallipolis to pick up a Halloween costume for Sam. He’d finally decided on trick-or-treating as Luke Skywalker. At home, Katie showered, changed into jeans and a sweater, then scraped her hair into a ponytail. No one would ever accuse her of being a glamour queen, but at least she didn’t spend an hour in the bathroom fussing with hair gels.
By the time Ryan arrived, she had dinner almost ready. Ten minutes later, they sat down to a meal of rigatoni, tossed green salad, and Italian bread in her dining room. Ryan brought a bottle of Cabernet, but she only had a little, the memory of Eve’s sleepover still too fresh.
“Have you heard anything more on Jerome?” she asked.