Winter Kill - lanyon Josh (электронные книги без регистрации TXT) 📗

Reinforcements arrived, and for awhile Rob was kept very busy with the briefing and debriefing—though brief was a misnomer if there ever was one. By the time he finally managed to radio Frankie, there were all kinds of crazy rumors circulating: Deputy Haskell had found a cache of weapons beneath Gibbs’s cabin, no, the FBI agent had captured a domestic terrorist, which was his real reason for coming to Nearby.

“Just tell me the girl is safe,” Frankie demanded. “Tell me you found her.”

“Negative. She’s not here. There’s no sign of her.”

“Then what the hell are you doing up there?” Frankie shouted, and in all the time Rob had known her, that was the closest he’d come to hearing her sound frantic.

He tried to explain yet again what they had been doing.

“What about Gibbs? Did he get away?”

“Hell no, he didn’t get away. I already told you he’s in custody.”

There was an intelligible burst of words, and then Frankie said clearly, “Back to base…we’ve got worse trouble.”

Worse trouble?

Rob felt someone’s gaze. He looked up. From the other side of the room, Adam was watching him. He said crisply into his radio, “Copy. What worse trouble?”

Frankie’s voice was harsh. “We’ve got another dead girl.”

Chapter Eight

So much for never being able to find a cop when you needed one.

The streets—street—of Nearby was crowded with official and government vehicles. Everywhere you looked there was a man or a woman in uniform. Far from reassuring the citizenry, the police presence seemed to escalate tension and anxiety.

Although two, possibly three, dead women in nearly as many days probably had something to do with people in Nearby feeling under siege.

“This needs to be kicked upstairs ASAP,” Russell had told Adam when they reconnected back at the search staging area. In the distance they could see the museum and crime scene technicians moving back and forth between their vehicles and the Joseph house. The property was being searched front to back for hairs, fibers, anything that might give a clue what had happened to Tiffany.

“That’s not our call,” Adam replied. Frankly, it was the last thing he wanted. If the Bend Satellite Office was brought in, it would be only a matter of time before the Portland Resident Authority was involved, and then he and Russell would be on their way back to Los Angeles.

“We’ve got a suspected terrorist responsible for the deaths of three women—”

That was a leap even for Russell. “Hold on. First of all, Tiffany may still be alive. In fact, there’s every reason to believe she’s still alive.”

“Every reason? Give me one.”

“Let’s start with the fact that there’s no body. Secondly, suspected terrorist? What hat did you pull that rabbit out of?”

Russell’s blue gaze flickered.

All the weeks of putting up with Russell’s dismissive attitude were coming to a head. Adam had not allowed himself to react or respond to Russell’s constant challenge of his authority. He strove to keep it professional and impersonal at all times, and he was generally pretty good at that, but he suddenly realized how much he disliked Russell.

And how much Russell disliked him.

It was personal, and now that they both knew it was personal, it was going to be hard to keep the cracks from showing.

Russell said, “The hat where Sandy Gibbs was screaming anti-government doctrine after spending a couple of hours trying to kill us? How about that rabbit out of that hat?”

At that point Rob had yelled from his SUV, “Adam, are you with me?”

“Adam?” repeated Russell.

There was no reason Rob—Deputy Haskell—shouldn’t call him by his first name. Adam’s face warmed all the same.

“Be right there,” Adam had called. To Russell he said, “This is not the time or the place to start throwing the weight of the federal government around. We do not have jurisdiction here. This is not our case.”

“It needs to be our case,” Russell said.

Oh. Right. Now it made sense. Russell was starting to see the career-making potential of the situation in Nearby. Well, good luck with that. It was going to take one hell of a lot of PR maneuvering to turn an anti-social gun-toting hermit like Sandy Gibbs into a political movement.

The second murder was a different matter. Adam was worried about the second slaying. And when he jumped into the SUV, Rob’s words did nothing to reassure him.

“Zeke doesn’t know yet. Frankie’s going to tell him herself. The dead girl is Azure Capano.”

“Azure?” The name was faintly familiar.

“She’s—was—the hostess at the Lakehouse restaurant. She and Zeke have been on and off for a few years.”

“Were they on or off now?”

“Off.” Rob threw him a grim look. “Zeke is going to take this hard.”

Maybe. Or maybe Zeke would pretend to take it hard. He didn’t say it aloud. He knew Rob would be shocked and probably angry at such a suggestion. Adam knew he possessed a jaded world view. That was the trouble with their line of work. You couldn’t help being suspicious of everyone. Even the people closest to you. Adam had been a shy, quiet boy, but anytime he’d been late or failed to call when he was supposed to, his father had accused him of everything from sneaking out to meet girls—which was actually pretty funny—to embarking on a career of juvenile delinquency.

Zeke had struck Adam as kind of a prick, even so he liked Rob’s concern for his fellow deputy.

In fact, he thought Rob was a very decent guy. He had been impressed by the way he’d handled himself on the mountain. This had not been just another day at the office. Rob had stayed surprisingly cool under fire. Adam had met plenty of big city cops who hadn’t been nearly as calm once the bullets started flying.

True, Rob’s decision to explore the tunnel beneath Gibbs’s cabin indicated an impulsive streak. He was probably too soft-hearted. A man could have worse flaws.

“A couple of Medford deputies found her down by the lake,” Rob was saying.

Adam’s heart sank. “Where by the lake?”

“Near the restaurant. She was floating half under the dock.”

“You don’t have time of death yet, I suppose?” The SUV hit a pothole and Adam winced at the reminder of the day’s collection of bruises. And it looked like the day was going to get a lot worse.

Rob threw him a disbelieving look. “You suppose right. Sometime during the night. That much they could tell. She was nude and,” his face grew grimmer still, “her throat was cut.”

* * * * *

Rob was right. Zeke did not take the news of Azure’s death well.

By four o’clock Sunday afternoon, Sandy Gibbs was cooling off in a jail cell, the search for Tiffany had moved south, forensic anthropologists were excavating the remains Adam had discovered, and Frankie had given her first press conference.

Nearby was beginning to look like the crime capital of the northwest.

Shortly after the gentlemen of the press—or at least the Medford Mail Tribune, the Klamath Falls Herald and News, and the Nearby Nickel—were dismissed, Adam met with the Nearby Sheriff’s Office for a war council.

Crime scene technicians were still combing the Joseph house. So far there was no indication that Tiffany had met with foul play.

“Well, there’s no way that she went off on a ski weekend,” Frankie said. “I think we can rule that theory out once and for all. Our best bet now is Bert Berkle’s dogs and the teams searching the Back Bend area.” She cleared her throat. “We only have the preliminary findings on Azure, but we do have to consider the similarities between her case and Cynthia’s.”

“Was there a connection between Azure and the Josephs?” Adam asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Frankie said. “It’s a small town. Everyone knows each other. So in that way, I guess there’s a connection.”