“Paul! Zooey!”
Paul’s head whipped around to the front door at the sound of Abby’s shouting. She burst out the door, and instead of being full of fire and anger like he expected, there was wide-eyed realization painted all over her face.
“It’s Ryan Clay,” she said. “Cass’s killer is Ryan Clay.”
“What?” He stared at her, trying to make sense.
“The guy who checked out the evidence box?” Zooey asked, clearly confused.
“I just got off the phone with Jayden Michaels,” Abby explained. “That’s Keira Rice’s best friend. It turns out Keira was planning on running off with some guy she was seeing. Jayden didn’t know who it was, but she told me that he drove a yellow Karmann Ghia.”
Paul’s eyes widened. He remembered when Ryan’s father had gifted him the vintage car in high school. He used to park it sideways in the student parking lot, like an asshole. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” Abby said.
“Okay, but it’s just a car,” Zooey said. “There must be other people around here with the same one.”
“That’s not a common car around here,” Abby said. “Especially that color. And Ryan’s had the car since high school. Think about it, Paul,” she said. “Sheriff Baker, who by all accounts was honest as hell, decides to mess with evidence in the biggest homicide investigation this town has ever seen. Why would he do that unless he had some major external pressure?”
“From Mayor Clay, you’re thinking?” Paul asked.
“Yes.” Abby nodded eagerly. “And why would the mayor do that?”
“To protect Ryan,” Paul answered. “If it got out that Cass was pregnant, then everyone would’ve thought I was the father. They would’ve done a DNA test to confirm and when it didn’t . . .”
“They’d start digging into who else might’ve been with Cass—or assaulted her,” Abby finished. “Ryan must have gone to his father and gotten him to cover it up.”
“Ryan was the father of Cass’s baby,” Paul said. “That’s the easiest explanation here. Her pregnancy could’ve been the stressor that caused him to snap and kill her. He didn’t need to tell his dad that to get him to cover it up, all he had to do was say that the baby might be his. That would’ve been enough for a cover-up, because it would’ve made him a suspect.”
“There’s something in that evidence box,” Abby said with surety. “That’s why he took it. Not to mess with you or to be an ass. As soon as he found out you were looking into Cass’s case, he knew it was just a matter of time until you made the connection.”
“I need to call Sheriff Alan,” Paul said grimly. “We’ve got to find the connections between Clay and the rest of the missing girls.”
“Okay, wait a minute,” Zooey declared. “I agree that Clay is a good lead that we need to pursue. But we’re not factoring in one big thing here: Dr. X. Do we really think Ryan is X’s apprentice?”
“Wouldn’t that play into the idea of the leader/follower relationship you told me most killing pairs fall into?” Abby asked Paul.
“He would’ve had to get him really young,” Paul said. “He would’ve needed . . . practice.” He winced at the look on Abby’s face. Sometimes it was hard to remember a time when all this information about death, murder, and killers wasn’t in his head. But when he saw how she reacted sometimes, it all came rushing back; how desensitized he was to the horrors of the world. “What do you think, Zooey?”
“From what Grace has taught me about adolescent killers, he would’ve shown signs when you all were kids. You had a relationship with him, Abby. Was he violent? Controlling?”
“He wasn’t violent to me, but he was bossy. And he got into a lot of fights.”
“I had to pull him off a boy he was trying to beat to death with his cleats when we were in baseball,” Paul said grimly. “I don’t doubt he’s capable of killing someone.”
“He was also working on Cass, behind my back,” Abby said.
Paul frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“When Ryan broke up with me when we were seventeen, he said it was because you and I were too close,” Abby said, her cheeks pinkening. “And then he went to Cass and said the same thing. He got in her head because she confronted me about it. That’s the reason I didn’t go visit her at her grandma’s that year like I usually did.”
Paul’s stomach clenched. She was just telling him this now? Why had she held this back for so many years? This revelation suddenly made some of Cass’s behavior that summer make sense. She had been always asking about Abby and what she was doing when she was gone that month. And there had been a wariness in her voice whenever Paul had, in his teenage boy obliviousness, cheerfully recounted his days spent with Abby.
Had Ryan got in Cass’s head, making her think he and Abby had a thing on the side going on, and Cass turned to him only to find herself pregnant? Had that been part of this sick game of his, to set up Cass and then cut her down, literally and figuratively?
Jesus. His gut lurched, sickness rising in his chest. He needed to find this bastard. And make him pay.
“I’m tracking him down,” Paul declared. “He has some shit to answer for, no matter what.”
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialing Sheriff Alan’s number. It clicked to voice mail. Alan was probably out hunting the arsonist still. On a hunch, he dialed dispatch. And sure enough, it was Ted Phillips, an old friend of his dad’s, who picked up.
“Castella County Sheriff’s Dispatch, how may I direct your call?”
“Hi, Ted, it’s Paul Harrison,” he said.
“Paul! I heard you were in town.”
“Listen, Ted, I’m trying to track down Deputy Clay. You happen to know where he is?”
“Let me check the logs,” Ted said. There was a tapping noise. “Huh. Looks like Ryan had a shift today, but he didn’t show up. Or call in sick.”
Of course he didn’t. Fuck. He was already on the run. He’d had an entire day’s head start.
“Thanks, Ted.” Paul hung up. “He didn’t show up for work,” he said.
“What do we do?” Abby asked. “How do we find him?”
“He may be in the wind. Or he may go to ground,” Paul said. “Hide out somewhere.”
“If he’s keeping the missing girls for a two-year cycle, that means he needs a remote area. Somewhere he can keep them captive and alive and unnoticed,” Zooey said.
“You think he keeps them?” Abby asked, like the idea hadn’t even occurred to her.
Zooey bit her lip, shooting an uncertain look at Paul, who gave her the barest of nods.
“The two-year cycle between girls seems to suggest that yes, he keeps them alive for a certain amount of time,” Zooey said. “And when he’s . . . used them up, he disposes of them. And replaces them with a new girl.”
“This is sick,” Abby said, looking white as a sheet. “I dated him. Oh, my God.”
“It’s okay,” Paul said, reaching out, squeezing her shoulder softly, even though it was so far from not. He understood the fear and horror on her face. He was feeling it too.
Had Ryan raped Cass? Or had they had consensual sex? If it had been consensual, had it been the pregnancy that had triggered his rage? Paul knew Cass, she would’ve kept the baby. Had that been the thing that pushed Ryan over the edge?
Or had he been planning to kill her the whole time? Had seeding doubt in her mind about her boyfriend and her best friend been the first in a series of steps that were always going to lead to Cass dead under the olive trees? Was this all just a way for Ryan to show off for the man who had shaped him into a killer?
There were so many possibilities here. Too many possibilities. Until he was across an interrogation table from the bastard, he wasn’t going to get any answers.
They needed to find him. And fast.
“Where would he be?” Paul thought out loud.
“What about the Clays’ hunting cabin?” Abby asked. “It butts up right against the national forest. He took me up there a few times. There’s no one for miles.”