Cold as Hell (Haven’s Rock #3)

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

I start heading for Kendra, still standing just inside the door, but Yolanda catches my arm and points to the seat.

“At least sit while she talks,” Yolanda says. “We both know that this might not be an emergency.”

When I hesitate, Yolanda lifts her brows, and I get it. What has Lynn been looking for since she got here? A night—or at least an evening—in a bed other than her own. I remember seeing her in the store with Thierry. Was that only yesterday?

I lower myself into my seat and wave for Kendra to come in.

“Lynn’s missing,” I prompt.

Kendra nods as she unwinds her scarf. “The general store wasn’t open, and a couple of people were milling around, hoping to get supplies. They figured it was closed because of the blizzard. I was walking past with Nicole and the boys. We were taking the kids and the dogs for a walk before the storm hit again. I said I’d check on the store situation while Nicole took the kids. They weren’t going far anyway.”

She moves farther into the room. “I went to talk to Lynn first. I don’t know whether it’s even her shift, but I figured she’d know what was going on. She wasn’t in her apartment, so I had to keep looking. No one had seen her. Finally I bumped into Grant helping with a tree that fell in the storm. He said he hadn’t seen Lynn since last night.”

I have my pad and pen out, already making notes, even as Yolanda’s look says I’m overreacting.

“When last night?” I ask.

“Before the storm.”

I frown. “Grant didn’t raise an alarm when Lynn failed to come home during a storm?”

“Grant is a fucking asshole, pardon my language.”

“Agreed and seconded,” Yolanda says. “I’m not sure how I feel about Lynn, but if she gets any sympathy points from me, it’s because she’s married to that dick.”

“Did he say why he wasn’t concerned?” I ask.

“He snapped something about checking Thierry’s bed and stomped off.”

“Shit,” I say.

Yolanda looks at me.

“Thierry came into the store yesterday when I was leaving,” I say. “There was definitely some tension there. Positive tension. Then I saw Grant heading for the store, and I considered intervening but…”

“They’re all adults,” Yolanda says. “Your police duties don’t extend to enforcing marital vows.”

“Yes, but this might fall under general peacekeeping.” I look at Kendra. “Have we found Thierry?”

She nods. “He’s been helping with the kitchen for the past hour. He says he hasn’t seen her since around noon yesterday.”

“Any chance he’s lying and Lynn is in his room? Waiting for him to come back?”

She hesitates. Then she says, carefully, “I really don’t think so. I know Lynn can be…” She clears her throat. “A bit of a joke for some people.”

“Not for me,” I say. “It’s awkward, because it’s such a small town.”

“And she’s not exactly discreet,” Yolanda mutters.

“She’s just really lonely,” Kendra says. “And she’s obviously never done this sort of thing before.”

“ Is she lonely?” Yolanda says. “Or trying to get Grant’s attention? Because in my experience, cheating isn’t always about finding someone new. It can be about getting the attention of the person you have. The totally wrong way to go about it but…”

“All I can say is that she’s unhappy,” Kendra says. “I know she hasn’t been discreet, but she, uh, believes she is. She’s trying to be. I don’t think she wants to hurt Grant, and I really don’t think she wants to upset him.”

My hands tighten on the chair arms. “Has he been physically abusive? We’ve been watching for signs. Like Yolanda said, I can’t enforce marriage vows—or interfere in unhappy marriages—but if there’s abuse, that’s grounds.”

“If I saw it, I’d say so. That’s the reason I started being friendlier to Lynn in the first place. I don’t know what’s happening there. I don’t see any signs of physical abuse either, and that’s really the only grounds we can use to get involved. All I can say is that I can’t see her intentionally provoking Grant by staying out all night.”

“But the storm could provide an excuse,” Yolanda says. “She can say it hit, and she had to hole up somewhere, maybe the store.” She shrugs. “No one would know any better. She fell asleep at Thierry’s, and now she needs to find a way to sneak back to the store and come out saying ‘Whoops, I drifted off and lost track of time.’”

I push to my feet. “Whatever has happened, I shouldn’t be sitting here debating possibilities. I need to look for her.”

“Yolanda and I can do that,” Kendra says.

“I spoke to my obstetrician this morning, and I’m still cleared for walking and standing in one-hour stretches. Just no hikes or runs, which are impossible in this weather anyway.” I turn to Yolanda. “Do you want to help? Or stay here and man the station?”

She sighs. “What I want is a snow day, but the sooner we find Lynn in Thierry’s apartment, the sooner everyone can admit I was right.”

This might be the most awkward search I have ever undertaken. We conducted scores in Rockton and already a half dozen in Haven’s Rock. Someone’s reported missing, and we need to look for them. They could turn up in someone’s bed. They could turn up passed out drunk. They could turn up in the forest, having lost their way while drunk. Most situations are resolved so quickly that they never become an actual missing-person case. This is the first time, though, where the most likely answer is that our missing resident is in someone’s bed and really doesn’t want to be found there. Add in the fun of her husband hovering nearby, feigning disinterest in the search while constantly finding excuses to come close.

I’ve quietly spoken to Dalton and Anders, but I’ve asked them to keep working on storm damage. If Lynn is in someone’s bed, we want this handled with an absolute minimum of embarrassment for her and Grant. Not that I care about Grant—I just care that he could vent that humiliation on her later.

Dalton has given me his skeleton key, and we’re very discreetly using it. Yolanda stands guard outside the building, mostly keeping Grant at bay. Kendra stands guard in the hall. I knock and then enter.

For Thierry’s apartment, I check everywhere, including under the bed. Same goes for a few other bachelors. For guys much lower on my list—like Gunnar and Anders—I only pop open the door, listen for the sound of someone scuttling away, and take a quick look. Yes, I check Anders’s apartment. I have zero expectation of finding Lynn there, but I must to avoid later accusations of bias.

“Nothing,” I say when I come out of Kenny’s apartment, holding shut the door against the wind.

Yolanda shakes her head. “You realize the only person you’d find in there is your sister.”

“I keep hoping,” I say.

Kendra and Yolanda move in to block the wind. Snow swirls about, but it hasn’t reached storm status again yet.

“That’s everyone,” I say. “We have now checked every single guy’s apartment, as well as the general store.”

“Time to panic?” Kendra says.

“I hope not,” I murmur. “Let me talk to Eric first.”

I’m having trouble reaching panic status. My head keeps insisting this is just a misunderstanding. Lynn is safe and holed up somewhere, and the problem with turning this into a full-scale search is that the one who panics could be her.

Exactly how scared of Grant is she?

Scared enough to go into defensive overdrive when she hears we’re all looking for her? Scared enough to set up some kind of elaborate explanation? Lock herself in a storage area and pretend she’d been there all night? Play possum in the forest, as if she hit her head?

Dalton and I are on the edge of the forest with Storm. We left Anders at the kitchen, and we’re trying to look as if Dalton and I are just taking the dog for a walk.

“No point searching out there,” Dalton says, peering into the woods. “We should still circle the town, in case she went out and happened to choose a spot that hasn’t been covered in snow, but…” His gaze scans the area. There are no spots left bare enough for footprints or scent trails.

“A long shot,” I say, and we head out to make that sweep as we talk. “The only way she’s ending up in the forest is if she lost her way in the snow.”

Or she was dragged in. Drugged and abducted. Like Kendra.

Neither of us says that. Of course, we can’t help thinking it, but we also can’t imagine anyone doing that in the middle of a snowstorm.

“I’d like Kendra, Yolanda, and Will conducting discreet inquiries,” I say. “Asking around to see if anyone’s spotted her. I don’t want to raise the alarm yet. In the meantime, I need to figure out when she disappeared.”

“Who saw her last, where she was, what she was doing.”

I nod. “I know I’m going to push it over an hour on my feet, but I don’t feel right taking a break. This isn’t Kendra, safe in the clinic. We have a missing person. I’ll sit whenever I can, but I need to power through this.”

“Can I come along?” He glances over. “To help, not to nag.”

I lean my head on his arm. “If I need the nagging, go ahead. But I’m still hoping we can wrap this up fast.”

The first person we need to interview is the one I least want to interview. Dalton asks me to rest at the town hall while he tracks down Grant and brings him in.

I expect Grant will be easy to find. He certainly was while we were searching the residences. But it takes twenty minutes for Dalton to return with Grant, both of them scowling and grumbling.

Grant doesn’t make any attempt to remove his outerwear. He starts barreling toward me until Dalton grabs his parka. Grant wheels, hand lifted. He thinks better of that and settles for yanking from Dalton’s grip and kicking off his boots.

“Happy?” he says. “Or will you be happier when you find my wife and publicly humiliate me by having let everyone know she spent the night in another guy’s bed?”

“You seem very sure of that,” I say.

He turns a hard look on me. “I am, because I’m not as clueless as everyone here seems to think. My wife is hell-bent on cuckolding me, and I just wish she’d get it out of her system.”

“That’s an… interesting approach.”

His glare sharpens. “Don’t patronize me, Detective. My marriage is none of your business, but I’m going to get this over with, so we can move on to finding Lynn. I screwed around, okay? She found out right before we came here, and she wants revenge. I’m letting her have it.”

I bite my tongue against saying that’s very generous of him.

Grant slumps into a chair. “I don’t expect you to understand. What happened to us back home is confidential. Let’s just say my wife got herself in trouble, and she was so wrapped up in it that she started forgetting she had a husband. I got frustrated. I stepped out. She wants her turn, and then we’ll be square.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. I really don’t know why Grant and Lynn are in Haven’s Rock, but that doesn’t seem germane to her disappearance.

“You and Lynn had agreed she was entitled to a fling.”

“What kind of guy do you think I am? I’d never have agreed to it. I’m just looking the other way until she’s done. Apparently, she picked the worst possible time—middle of a fucking blizzard—and instead of her just getting it over with and us moving on, I have to deal with this bullshit.”

“Has it occurred to you that she could actually be missing?”

His jaw sets. “She’s not.”

“We’ve checked all the apartments. You saw us checking.”

“How does that prove anything? She just ducked out before you got there, and now she’s lying low until she can come slinking back.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

He crosses his arms. “I don’t know.”

I turn to Dalton. “Please note that if Lynn is actually missing, her husband refused to cooperate—”

“Yesterday,” Grant spits.

“Any chance you can be more specific?”

“I went to the store to see her. It was nearly noon. I caught her with Thierry.”

My chest tightens. Damn it, I should have followed my gut and interceded. “You caught her with Thierry doing what?”

“Giggling.”

I stare at him. “Giggling?”

“My wife is thirty-six, Detective. She doesn’t giggle unless she’s flirting.”

That’s a fair point, but I keep any acknowledgment out of my face and only busy myself making a note. “You found her in a conversation with Thierry that you deemed to be flirtatious and you did what?”

“Walked out. Like I said, I’m giving her space to get this thing over with. Better Thierry than…” He waves a hand that might be indicating Anders’s apartment above. “Seems she’s finally scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

My jaw tightens on Thierry’s behalf, but I say nothing.

“You left the general store shortly after entering,” I say. “Did you see Lynn later that day?”

“No.”

“Communicate with her in any way?”

“No.”

I watch him for a moment before continuing, “Where were you when the storm hit?”

“I was at work when Will came by with Marlon. They were rounding up help to close shutters. I did that, and then we were sent home.”

“We,” I say. “Who else was helping?”

He waves at Dalton, still standing inside the door. “Ask your husband, he was there.”

“I’m asking you.”

He reels off the names as fast as he can. “The sheriff, Will, Marlon, Kenny, and one of the guys from the bakery—I forget his name. We all paired up. I worked with Kenny.”

“What time did you get home?”

“Around six.”

“Lynn wasn’t there?”

“No.”

I make notes, stretching it out before asking, “You weren’t worried?”

“We went from a little blowing snow to whiteout conditions within minutes. I barely found my way back. I figured she was at the store. Around nine, when the wind died down, I went to check on her. She was gone. Someone said they saw her walking with Thierry just before the storm.”

My head jerks up. “Who said that?”

“A guy in a parka. That’s all I know. I was peering in the windows of the store, and he was walking maybe twenty feet away. Shouted that if I was looking for Lynn, Thierry had escorted her home before the storm hit.”

When I don’t comment, Grant crosses his arms. “Let me guess. Thierry didn’t mention that little tidbit when you questioned him. ”

I haven’t officially questioned Thierry. Before we checked his apartment, I’d asked whether he’d seen Lynn, and he repeated what he told Kendra—that he hadn’t seen her since yesterday. She’d believed him. So had I. Time to take another run at Thierry.