Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
WILLIAM (NOW)
We’ve just returned from an MVA, the sunrise beginning to soften the sky’s colors when my cell vibrates in my pocket. NO CALLER ID flashes across the top of my screen, but I think I know who’s calling me.
I walk outside while the rest of my crew filters into the station, and answer.
“William? It’s Special Agent Luke Ballard.”
“Hey, Luke.” I’ve only met him once, but I feel like I know him from all the stories. And what we have in common—an unexpected career change thanks to an injury no one could fix.
“Is now a good time?” he asks.
I squint past the parked cars to the jagged silhouette of the Bitterroots beyond, backlit by the rising sun. “I’m on shift, so I might have to cut it short if we get called out.”
“Got it.” The soft tapping of keys fills the background. “Zach told me you bought The Limelight.”
I blink at the quiet street, confused. “Uh, yeah.”
“I’m working something that may be, well, nothing. The bureau doesn’t usually dig into cases like these, but…” He gives a measured sigh. “…I convinced them to. Like I said, it may be a bust.”
Color me intrigued. “Happy to help however I can.”
“Dagney Cole played at The Limelight six years ago. It was before she’d made it big.”
This is what he called to talk about? “I wasn’t even in Finn River then.” And Dagney’s from the Midwest, if I remember right.
“Did you know that Ari Pullman also played at The Limelight?”
“Who’s Ari Pullman?”
“The nineteen-year old lead singer for a band called Tenderhook.” He types a few more keys. “She disappeared almost seven years ago.”
Disappeared. “From The Limelight?”
“No, from Maple Canyon. She was on her way home from a friend’s but never made it.”
Now I’m really confused. “Isn’t that where you’re from?”
“Yep. Most of my family’s still there too.”
Pieces fall into place. This is the reason he’s taken an interest in this, and why he’s fishing. “You knew her.”
His voice sounds tight when he answers. “She was close friends with my sister.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“When she went missing, it shook our small community. She was a good kid, a little wild, but talented, and driven.”
I don’t miss his use of the past tense. I don’t even know this girl, and I already feel for her family. And Luke.
“The team also found a link to another venue called Creekside. It’s up north.”
The name’s familiar, but I can’t place it.
“Ms. Cole performed there also. Along with two other young women we’re taking a look at.”
This doesn’t sound good. Ballard deals with the sickest of the sick.
Serial murderers and rapists. People who commit the absolute worst types of harm against others.
Why would he be looking at rising music stars who overdosed or disappeared?
“So you think these girls were all connected in some way?”
“The day after Ms. Cole’s overdose, we received an anonymous tip. Let’s just say it connected a few dots for us.”
He’d tell me more if he could—something I’ve learned from Zach over the years.
“An interesting bit of info popped up in my digging. Dagney and Ari played at both Creekside and The Limelight, and so did one other artist…Morgan Hannah.”
My curious thoughts jerk to a stop. “Uh, okay.”
“There are privacy laws in place, laws I will absolutely respect, but I’m pretty good at reading between the lines. I also know where she is right now.”
Even though he’s friends with Hutch, Zach, and Everett, they wouldn’t be able to confirm this. So where did he get this intel? Though maybe being FBI gives him access to all kinds of information.
Or was his anonymous tip about Morgan?
I take a step back and lean against the building.
I realize Ballard’s still waiting for my reply. “You know I can’t share anything about what happened on that call.” And Morgan’s not dead, or missing, so how does she fit the pattern?
“Yes, I’m aware. And that’s not what I’m looking for anyway.”
I huff a breath and wait.
“What if these girls landed on some sicko’s radar?
Maybe it’s nothing, but…” He gives a tight sigh.
“It could be a person they met. Someone who targeted them. Because they all played at either The Limelight or Creekside or both, it would likely be someone in the music industry. A producer. A manager. An obsessed fan.”
Creekside. That’s how I know it. That was the venue where Boxcar Doves played. Some kind of summertime jam thing. I wanted to go, but I was in the middle of pre-season football training in Oregon.
“The team’s trying to find anything else they had in common,” Ballard continues. “I’m coming at it from the criminal behavior side. Trying to understand what kind of person would coerce young musicians like Ari and the others. And what he might do next.”
Coerce them to do what though? “Morgan’s…” I search for the right word “…out of pocket right now, but did you ask Ray?”
“I’m still waiting on a call back from him.”
I haven’t seen Ray since he handed me the keys to The Limelight last week.
“Morgan’s sister Charlotte is in town. She played at The Limelight, and Creekside too.
Their band is”—I catch myself—“ was called Boxcar Doves. Charlotte’s a violinist now, but she might have information.
” It reminds me of the ticking clock that is her audition.
Will she be able to do it remotely, or is she planning to return to Seattle?
I grit my teeth. She’s only been in Finn River for six days, but I feel like I’m not any closer to convincing her to stay.
What is it going to take for her to believe in us again?
“That’s helpful,” Luke says, pulling me back to our conversation. “If I send you the list of names, do you think you could check The Limelight’s records for the nights they all played? See if there’s a list of people or staff who may have had contact with them?”
I’m sure Ray kept some kind of organizational paperwork, but I have no idea how to find it. “I’ll do my best.”
“Zach says you were close to Charlotte growing up.”
We were more than just close , but Luke doesn’t need to know that. “Yeah.”
“Morgan and Theo too?”
“Theo’s my best friend. And Morgan…all of us looked out for her when we were kids.”
He gives a thoughtful hum. “Looked out for her how?”
“She liked to push boundaries and take risks. Sometimes it got her in trouble.”
Another hum. “I know you can’t share anything protected, so I won’t ask, but…
there’s a couple of things that stand out…
I mean, Morgan’s got this horse rescue, and hundreds of acres.
How’d she get a hold of all that land? An operation like that isn’t cheap.
My family’s been running cattle for three generations, so feel free to ask me how I know. ”
“I think the property was an old horse breeding and riding facility. Morgan started working there in high school, kind of like a work study program? She got school credit for it, or something.” I rub my forehead in thought.
I only know bits and pieces of this story from Zach and Sofie.
Morgan started the horse rescue when I was still in Eugene, focusing on football.
“Maybe the owner left it to her? Or she inherited money or something?”
“Maybe,” he replies, though his tone is laced with doubt. “Any idea what caused the sudden shift in her mental health?”
I release a heavy sigh. “I wish I could help you there, but I don’t know.” I think back to that one-minute conversation in the cereal aisle months ago. Was Morgan struggling then or did life throw her a curveball—this trigger Ballard’s hinting at?
The tones go off from inside the building. “Hey, I gotta run.” I hurry inside, mentally shifting gears.
“I’ll email you those names, and my direct line,” Ballard says, barely audible over the rumble of engines kicking on and the shouts from the guys suiting up. “Call me anytime if you think of anything.”
I jump into the ambulance with my shift partner, Linden. “I missed most of the broadcast. What’ve we got?”
He pulls out of the station. “A fifteen year old female in active labor at the Gold Nugget Motel,” he says.
Fifteen? I flip on the lights and sirens, unease trickling into my gut.
Rumsey gives me a side-eye. “Ever deliver a baby?”
In EMT training, we spent exactly one whole afternoon on the subject. Ask any firefighter about the type of call they dread and it’s almost always about a laboring mother in distress. The stakes are just so fucking high.
“Uh, negative,” I tell him.
The Gold Nugget is just off the freeway, behind a large and brightly lit gas station with an attached parking lot for long haul truckers to crash out. It’s not exactly seedy but it’s not vacation material either.
I check in with our dispatcher, Sam, as Linden turns into the motel lot.
“She’s in room 108,” Sam rattles off. “Deputy Hayes is on scene. There’s a young male with the girl in labor but no info on him.”
The Gold Nugget looks even more outdated up close. Thin gold letters on the doors and flimsy-looking doorknobs and yellowing curtains in the windows. Above, from the second story, a handful of spectators in their pajamas are leaning over the twisted metal railing, gawking.
Zach’s rig is parked just past the room, but my initial relief that he’s here vanishes the second we back up to the walkway and he slips outside, eyes tense.
He peels off his nitrile gloves as we meet up at the back of the rig.
“Something’s not adding up here,” he says, breathing fast. “Apparently the kid with her is her brother. They were trying to make it to a great aunt’s place in Driggs.
They’re both scared, and not just because she went into labor early. ”
Forty minutes of terrifying chaos later, Mom and baby have been safely handed off to Evergreen’s ER and I draw my first deep breath since we pulled up on scene.
Zach calls as Linden pulls away from the hospital, and I put him on speaker. “My hunch they were running from that cult was correct,” he says over the hum of his engine.