As Kane walked through the jostling crowd toward Miller’s Garage, he noticed Emily Wolfe strolling beside Aimee Fox ahead of him, the pair stopping occasionally to check out the rows of stalls cluttering the sidewalk. After Jenna had informed him both girls should be spending the afternoon at the Fox residence, he pulled out his cellphone and called Wolfe. “Hey, I’m not sticking my nose in your business, man, but I’m heading toward Miller’s Garage and Emily is ten feet in front of me. Jenna mentioned she was at the Foxes’ house this afternoon.”
“Thanks, I’ll give her a call. Keep your eye on her for a few minutes—for her to break one of my rules, she must be onto something. I’m leaving the lab now, ETA ten minutes.”
“Roger that.” Kane disconnected and ambled along the sidewalk as if he had all the time in the world.
He stared into storefronts, keeping his attention locked on the girls. Aimee, it seemed, had a lot more friends than they had anticipated. The girls wore serious expressions as they stopped to speak to a few different teenagers, but when they strolled into Miller’s Garage, he noticed they went straight into the workshop. Stupid! Of course, they know Derick Smith. He had failed to add him to their list of friends.
He purchased a bag of cookies from a stall then spent so long gazing into the window of the bakery that the proprietor came out to speak to him. Embarrassed by the huge box of donuts pushed into his hand, he came close to missing the girls heading out of the garage. He dropped the carton into the plastic sack with the cookies and slipped it over one arm. Following a discreet distance away, he made a mental note of the girls’ interactions. They checked all the stalls, bought cookies, then met Lucas Summerville outside the computer store.
Kane’s cellphone vibrated in his pocket and he found a fuming Shane Wolfe barking into his ear.
“Yeah, hold on, what’s wrong?”
“Emily isn’t taking my call and I’m stuck in traffic.”
“I’m eyeballing her now. She is with Aimee and Lucas Summerville outside the computer store. They are deep in conversation.” Kane cleared his throat. “I’m heading over there; whatever he is saying to them is upsetting Aimee but Emily is taking it in her stride.”
“My daughter is tough, probably too tough for her own good. She would probably slip into your old occupation without blinking an eye. She thinks outside the box.”
“I’ll hang with the kids and wait for you.”
“Do me a favor. Tell her you need her back at the station. She won’t appreciate me hauling her ass out of there.”
Kane bit back a laugh. As tough as Wolfe was, his daughter had him tied around her little finger. “Roger that.” He disconnected and crossed the road.
As he approached the group, he could hear Lucas telling the girls to be careful of strangers if they planned to go to the rodeo dance. Walking up behind him, he slapped him on the shoulder. “Afternoon.”
“What’s going on, Deputy Kane?” Lucas’s mouth turned down. “It’s all over town you arrested Steve Rogers this morning and searched his house. Is he involved in the deaths of our friends?”
Kane rolled his shoulders and looked down at him. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss ongoing investigations with members of the public.” He sighed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to Emily. She is needed back at the sheriff’s office.” He walked out of earshot and she followed him. “What is going on? Your father is frantic.”
“Not now, I think I’m onto something. One thing for sure, the teacher didn’t do it.”
“How could you possibly know that? He is our prime suspect.”
“Because, I know.” She crooked one dainty finger and beckoned him to bend down, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Dad told me the victims were raped, and I overheard Mrs. Fox speaking on the phone about Mrs. Rogers. She was saying she didn’t know why Mrs. Rogers believed her husband was seeing other women because he couldn’t get it up and hadn’t been able to for five years. He’d seen a specialist and tried everything. How could he have raped those girls if he was impotent?”
Swallowing the lump in his throat from Emily’s candidness, he rubbed his chin. “So, I’m guessing you have a suspect of your own?”
Emily gave him an ice-gray stare. “Aimee has been speaking about their online friends, and Lionel Provine is closer to the group than you realize. Apparently, he asks some of the girls to go upstairs to his room to show them ‘stuff.’” She wiggled her blonde eyebrows at him as if to exaggerate the word. “I’m in the inner sanctum now. Give me ten minutes and I’ll see what he is doing. Tell Dad if Lionel invites me upstairs, I’ll hit my security tag so he can listen in.”
Astounded, Kane shook his head. “No way, he’ll go ballistic if you act as bait. It’s a stupid idea. It takes seconds to kill and no one would get to you in time.”
“Oh, doh, I’m not stupid. I have a can of mace in my pocket and I’ll use it if I have to.” Emily’s gaze bore into him. “Not even a mass murderer would risk killing me with twenty kids in his shop, and Aimee will be there too. I’m the best bet to find out if he is the killer. I’m doing it and that’s final.”
Hackles rising, Kane glared down at her. “Not one hope in hell. You haven’t seen what this monster can do.”
When she nodded slowly and met his gaze, his stomach did flip-flops. He shook his head in denial. “Nah, I don’t believe Wolfe would show you his files. It would be unprofessional.”
“He didn’t show me anything. I examined the file this morning at the sheriff’s office. You really need better security on your filing system.” She tossed her fair head and her hair fell straight down her back like a silk scarf. “I looked because I’ve been studying forensic science for two years; not officially, but I have completed two online courses.” She glanced over one shoulder at her friends. “I have to go. Call my dad and tell him what’s going down.”
He watched her move into her circle of friends and they headed into the computer store. Grabbing his cellphone, he relayed the information to Wolfe, who went ballistic as predicted but moments later broke through the crowd and joined him. He shrugged, feeling useless. “Sorry, she refused to listen to me.”
“Yeah, I know. She has been a handful since she could speak. I think she has the fear gene missing, unlike me. Right now I want to march in there and slam the pervert into the next life.” Wolfe rubbed his blond whiskers and sighed. “We should get out of sight away from the computer store.” He led the way down an alley between the stores and leaned against the wall. “I did a sweep of the entire Rogers house and have reason to believe someone was struck on the head or had their throat cut in his family room. After spraying luminol, the amount of blood would indicate the victim would have little chance of survival. The carpet you mentioned was missing correlates with the evidence. I found drag marks consistent with a woven fabric, carpet fibers, and blood traces. The luminol highlighted a path leading from the family room to the backdoor through to the garage.”