Chapter 3
3
D oug hated knowing Emily had been brought to this sleazebag motel but tried not to dwell on the reason why she’d been taken. He needed answers, and that idiot pimple-faced clerk was going to give them to him.
“Let’s go to the lobby,” he said. “I need to know who rented this room.”
Maya searched his gaze for a moment, then nodded and stepped back into the cold. “Come, Zion.”
He understood what she hadn’t said. That most of these rooms were given out for cash, therefore making it impossible to track those involved in criminal activity. But he had no intention of leaving without answers. He wasn’t a violent man by nature, but he would not hesitate to bring the full force of the federal government down upon this place if they didn’t cooperate.
Lengthening his stride, he pulled the lobby door open, letting Maya and Zion go in first. Following on their heels, he brushed past them to confront the clerk. “Here’s your key.” He slapped it on the counter. “I want to know who was in room six over the past twenty-four hours.”
“I can’t tell you that.” The kid quickly took the key as if anxious to hide the fact that he’d given it out in the first place.
Doug pulled out his badge again and held it up at the pimply kid’s eye level. “Do you really want me to get a federal search warrant to tear this place apart? We’ll shut it down for however long it takes to ensure no drug or human trafficking has taken place here.” When the kid blanched, he added, “Could be one week. Two. Maybe longer. Trust me, I’ll take my sweet time.”
“I-I want to cooperate, really. But I don’t know!” The kid visibly shrank back from him. “He paid in cash.”
Knowing the perp was male was a start. “Did you recognize him? Is he a local?”
“I—no, I didn’t recognize him.” The kid’s gaze darted to Maya, as if hoping she might intervene on his behalf. When help wasn’t forthcoming, he looked back at Doug. “I don’t think he was a local; he had a funny accent.”
“Funny how?” Doug demanded, doing his best not to reach across the counter to shake the truth out of him. “Like mine? From the Midwest? Or maybe a drawl like from the South?”
“Maybe the South.” The kid did not sound the least bit convincing.
Doug strove for patience. “Okay, what did he look like? Tall, short, fat, or thin? What race is he? Did you see what car he was driving? I need details. I want you to tell me everything about this guy you can remember.”
“I don’t know.” The clerk’s tone was whiny.
He narrowed his gaze and slapped his palms on the countertop. “Think! I need answers.”
The clerk took a hasty step back. “Okay, yeah, I uh, think he had brown skin and dark hair. He didn’t tell me his name, and I didn’t ask.”
“What else?” he pressed.
The whiny tone returned. “I don’t know. He was average. Not fat or thin. Not super tall either. I didn’t see his truck.”
“If you didn’t see it, how did you know he drove a truck?” Doug demanded.
“I, uh...” Again, he glanced toward Maya as if seeking help. “I think he had a pickup truck. It was near the front door. I didn’t really pay any attention.”
“Were there other people in the truck?” He thought about the Silverado that took off from the scene of the shooting.
The clerk scrunched his face. “I, yeah, I think so.”
Doug curled his fingers into fists.
The kid noticed, flinched, then said, “I didn’t pay attention! My job is to rent rooms while minding my own business. I’m not supposed to ask questions, you know? I’m just supposed to bring in money.”
Doug leaned forward, his gaze fierce. “Speaking of that money, how much goes into your pocket rather than being funneled to the owner?”
The clerk’s jaw dropped in shock, but he managed to recover. “None! I swear.”
Doug didn’t believe him. He briefly considered bribing him for more information on the brown-skinned guy who’d been in the room. Yet at the same time, he didn’t trust the kid not to provide false intel just to get the cash. He leaned even closer, getting into the kid’s face. “If I find out you lied to me, I’ll be back. And it won’t be with a search warrant. I’ll take care of you—personally.”
The implied threat had the kid swallowing hard. “I’m not lying about the brown-skinned dude. Not from the rez, but maybe Hispanic? He asked for a room for two nights. We don’t often get extended stays. I gave it to him. That’s all I know.”
Two nights? That gave him pause. He’d assumed that grabbing Emily had been a crime of opportunity. An impulse to take a pretty girl. But two days made it sound as if the crime may have been premeditated.
Because of him? His stomach twisted painfully. Was the Hispanic perp someone he’d once arrested and tossed in jail for drug trafficking? Doug hadn’t anticipated that anyone would have made the connection between him and his half sister, Emily Sanders.
But their relationship wasn’t exactly a secret either. Anyone who was technically savvy could find birth, marriage, and divorce records. His parents had split twenty-seven years ago, when he was ten years old. His mother had moved away from Wisconsin to marry her old high school sweetheart, Tim Sanders, who lived and worked in the natural gas industry in Wyoming. They had Emily a year later. Now Emily was twenty-six and had been taken someplace against her will.
He had to force himself to turn away from the trembling clerk. He should feel bad for his threatening actions, but he didn’t. The trail was already growing cold. He desperately needed to find Emily before they...
No. Don’t. He took a deep breath, refusing to finish his dark thought.
“Would you like a ride back to Emily’s house?” Maya asked.
“Not yet.” He abruptly turned back to the clerk. “That room stays empty until I can get a crime team out here to check for fingerprints and DNA. Understand?” He lifted his hand, wiggling his fingers. “I need that key back. Now.”
“Sure.” The kid hastily retrieved the key and returned it to the counter. “Whatever you say.”
Taking it, Doug was forced to admit he’d gotten as much information as possible from the clerk. Which wasn’t much. And since the motel rented rooms by the hour, he didn’t have high hopes of finding prints or DNA that would lead to Emily’s kidnapper.
But he had to try.
“I need to call the Cody police again,” he said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I can’t leave until their crime scene techs arrive.”
“You don’t want federal crime scene techs to process the room?” Maya asked in surprise. “You didn’t give the locals your shell casing.”
“I know, but I should have. I didn’t realize the lab was so far away. And now we need this evidence collected too.” The charm of being near the Bighorn Mountains was wearing thin. He was beginning to resent the fact that Wyoming was such a spread-out state, with their largest cities hours apart. “Once they gather the evidence, and we get it to the state crime lab, we can fast-track it through federal channels. That’s the best I can do.”
“Makes sense,” she agreed. She bent to scratch Zion behind the ears. “Lie down,” she said. The dog obediently lowered her frame to the floor, resting her head between her front paws.
A stab of guilt hit hard. What right did he have to tie up a valuable resource like this? Zion had done her job; he didn’t really need Maya and her husky to wait around for the crime scene techs. “There’s no reason for you and Zion to stick around. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and Emily, but I feel bad taking up your time. Especially since you haven’t even let me pay for your services.”
“It’s okay.” Maya shrugged. “We don’t have anything pressing to do.”
A wave of relief hit hard, mostly because he felt a bit like a stranger dropped into an alien land. “Thank you. And please know I don’t mind paying your going rate. Whatever it takes. I just need to find Emily.”
“I want to find Emily too,” Maya said softly. “And if you insist on paying, I’ll take a bag of dog food.”
“A bag of dog food?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
“Yep. That’s the going rate. Dog food.” She smiled. “You have no idea how much food nine K9s go through in a week.”
Nine dogs? He had no idea there were that many K9s on the ranch. He shrugged and nodded. “Done. I’ll get that to you by the end of the day.” He turned away to make his call to the Cody police. He reached a different officer this time, one who didn’t sound enthusiastic about sending a crime scene team to the Wild Bill Motel until Doug mentioned his missing sister and his role within the federal government. And meeting the two officers earlier after there was gunfire outside his hotel.
“That was you? I heard about that call. Okay, I’ll send Cindy and Bart over ASAP,” Officer Johnson said.
Two people? He swallowed a groan. Wyoming had lots of mountains and big open spaces. But the personnel side of things was sorely lacking.
Lowering his phone, he caught Maya’s empathetic gaze. “I’ve worked a couple of cases with Cindy and Bart,” she said. “They’re very good.”
He appreciated her attempt to make him feel better. “Thanks. I’m just used to... bigger teams.”
“We manage to get the job done,” she said lightly. “Having more people doesn’t always equate to better outcomes.”
The local police had raved about the Sullivans’ K9 success rate, so he nodded without saying anything more.
He had never been much for praying, although he’d recently experienced that sort of thing firsthand with the Callahans, Finnegans, and Rhy’s tactical team. But maybe he should.
He stared out at the cloudy sky, silently asking God to keep Emily safe. For her sake, if not for his.
* * *
Maya had been surprised Doug had managed to get any information from Lewis Pally, the Wild Bill desk clerk. She remembered him from when she found the missing girl. He had not been cooperative then either. Maybe Doug’s federal badge had scared him.
Or his intimidating attitude. Watching Doug in action had been impressive.
Not that they’d learned much. Knowing their perp was Hispanic was helpful, but not to the point he would be easy to find. Many Hispanics worked on ranches in the area.
And she was convinced they were looking for at least two perps, maybe more. She believed Lewis had seen a second person in the truck. In her humble opinion, it would have taken at least two men to hold Emily against her will.
It didn’t make sense, though, that they’d brought Emily to the Wild Bill only to turn around and leave. Doug’s idea of checking motels had paid off, but she didn’t understand exactly what they were dealing with.
Sex trafficking? If so, leaving the motel so soon didn’t follow. If Emily had been taken to work as a prostitute, she’d still be here. Unless they had another place to hold the girls?
Back when she was a cop in Cheyenne, the girls snagged clients from the local tavern and used the closest motel as their workplace. Unfortunately, there were plenty of down-on-their-luck women who chose that way to make money. She hadn’t encountered any women who’d been forced into having sex for money.
But it had been several years, and maybe things had changed for the worst. She could tell Doug was struggling not to dwell the ramifications of Emily’s kidnapping.
“There they are,” Doug said, breaking into her thoughts.
She nodded, seeing the white van pulling into the parking lot.
“Wait here,” he said. “No sense in both of us freezing to death.”
She hid a smile as he strode out to greet the crime scene techs. When her phone rang, she frowned when she saw her brother Chase was calling. “Hey, what’s up?”
“You tell me.” His tone was curt. “I got a call from Angela, Dr. Andrew’s vet tech. She was concerned you rescheduled at the last minute when you were right outside the building. What’s going on?”
This was the curse of living near a small town. Their family ranch was located forty miles southeast of Cody, but news still traveled fast. “I’m fine. A federal agent asked for my help to find his sister. You remember when Kendra fell? Her nurse, Emily, has gone missing.”
“Federal agent?” Trust her brother to zero in on the least important part of the conversation. Even though he was one year her junior, Chase was protective over his sisters. Probably an ethereal directive from their late father. “From Cheyenne?”
“No, he’s here visiting from Wisconsin. His name is Doug Bridges, and he’s Emily’s half brother.” She tried not to sigh and decided not to mention the shooting incident targeting Doug. “I’m fine, Chase. And so is Zion. I’m still in Cody as Zion was able to track Emily’s scent to the Wild Bill Motel.”
“That’s not good,” Chase muttered. “Talk about a hot bed of crime.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not here now.” She glanced at her watch, somewhat surprised to note it was only ten in the morning. Oddly, it seemed later. “I’m not sure when I’ll get back to the ranch. Let the rest of the sibs know I’m on a case.”
“Yeah, okay. Anna will be upset if you’re not back for dinner, though,” Chase said, mentioning their housekeeper. It wasn’t so much that they couldn’t take care of themselves, but more that they were often called out on various calls especially during the peak tourist season. Anna helped keep the ranch running smoothly. “You know how she worries.”
“I’ll let her know if I’m not going to make it home,” she promised. Seeing Doug heading toward the lobby, she added, “I have to go. Later.”
“Later,” her brother said, before she ended the call.
Doug’s somber expression made her stomach clench. “What’s wrong?”
He stood for a moment, as if soaking in the warmth. “Looks like the room was pretty much wiped clean. And get this, the bed linens and a few of the towels were taken too. Your techs, Cindy and Bart, are going to look in some of the more remote places, like inside drawers and the toilet paper roll, that sort of thing.” He blew out a breath. “They may find something, useful, but it’s not looking good.”
“That’s odd. It’s not a common practice for small-time criminals to take the time to wipe down a motel room,” she said thoughtfully. “And for sure they wouldn’t steal bed linens.”
“I wondered about that.” He scrubbed his chin. “It makes me think these guys were smart enough not to leave any DNA evidence behind. I still have the shell casing. Maybe I should drive to Cheyenne. If nothing else, I wouldn’t mind talking to the federal agent there myself.”
“Do you want me to drive you there? I’m familiar with the area.” She couldn’t blame him for wanting to talk to his colleague here in Wyoming. Getting the shell casing fast-tracked was their best option for getting information.
“No need, I can drive myself.” He crossed over to toss the key card on the counter. Lewis Pally was doing his best to pretend to be working, avoiding Doug’s gaze. When Doug slapped his hand on the counter, Lewis startled badly. “What?”
“This is my business card,” Doug said, pushing it across the counter. “I need you to call me if you see the brown-skinned Hispanic man again. Or the truck. Understand?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” When Lewis didn’t immediately take the card, Doug scowled and took a menacing step forward. That was enough to force Lewis to hastily grab it. “Okay. Okay, I’ll call,” he said.
“You better. Don’t make me follow through on my threat.” With that, Doug turned back toward her. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Come, Zion,” she said. Her partner jumped up, stretched, then trotted alongside her as they went back out to her SUV. She hit the button to open the back hatch. Zion didn’t hesitate to gracefully leap in.
As they waited for the engine to warm up, Doug said, “Before we go to pick up my SUV, I need to stop by Emily’s house again.”
She shot him a curious look. When he didn’t expound on his reasoning, she shrugged. “Okay, I’m not sure where she lives, though. My sister Kendra has been there, but I haven’t.”
“She’s not far from the hospital, which isn’t far from the veterinary office.” He paused, then asked, “Your sister Kendra knew Emily?”
She forgot she hadn’t given him any information about the family. “I’m the oldest of nine siblings.” She pulled out of the motel parking lot. “Kendra is the youngest and fell down a ravine during a search and rescue operation last month. She spent several hours in the emergency department, and your sister, Emily, was her nurse.” She drove back toward the hospital. “They became close during that time, probably because they’re close in age. Emily was new to the area, and Kendra wanted to make her feel welcome here.”
“Nine?” He gaped in shock. “I know one other family that has nine kids; their last name is Finnegan. What are the odds that I’d run into another large family on the other side of the country?”
“I have no idea.” She glanced over at him. “Our family is pretty much an anomaly out here.”
“I can imagine.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s probably a fool’s errand going back to Emily’s place, but I was struck by the fact that the brown-skinned possibly Hispanic perp rented the room for a few days. Makes me think he targeted my sister on purpose rather than just coming across her outside the hospital and acting on impulse.”
“I had the same concern,” she agreed. “But why does that require a ride back to Emily’s house?”
“I should have thought of this earlier, but I installed a camera doorbell as a Christmas gift. Emily thought I was crazy, as there isn’t much crime out here, but she lives alone, so I insisted. I’d like to review the video, see if I can catch a glimpse of a truck or car passing by.” He frowned. “I don’t have her doorbell software connected to my phone or laptop since I don’t live in the area. But I can bring it up on her computer. She gave me her password so I could set everything up.”
“Great idea.” She didn’t have a lot of experience with that level of security. Nine overly protective dogs were far more effective than cameras in keeping intruders at bay. Especially since having a nine-hundred-acre ranch meant they didn’t have any neighbors.
“It’s driving me crazy that we don’t have anything more to go on,” Doug said. “Up ahead, take a left turn at the intersection. Emily’s house is a half mile down the road.”
“I hope you were joking about beating Lewis to a pulp,” she said as she made the turn. “He’s a scumbag, but assault is still against the law.”
“I was joking. Mostly.” He grimaced. “I have never taken my anger out on a perp or a reluctant witness. But I can’t deny he made me angry. It was like pulling teeth to get him to talk.”
“Yeah, I know.” She decided her initial instinct regarding Doug being a decent guy was on track. Not that she had been concerned about him physically attacking her. His angst over his missing sister and the fact that he was targeted by gunfire were key indicators that Emily was in danger. “Do you think this is related to one of your DEA cases back home?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a possibility we can’t ignore.” He gestured with his hand. “That’s Emily’s place, the third one down.”
She identified the small home and pulled into the driveway. “Do you want us to wait out here?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “You better come inside where it’s warm. I don’t know how long this will take.”
“Okay.” Giving Zion more time with Emily’s scent couldn’t hurt. Zion was good, but every so often her partner became distracted by other new and interesting scents. Huskies had a high play drive, which made them good search dogs. Keeping them active, though, could be a challenge. She hit the button to open the back door, then pushed out to join her K9.
She told Zion to get busy—the phrase they used back at the ranch, which basically meant go to the bathroom. Zion was well trained enough to pee on command. Then she and Zion followed Doug inside Emily’s house.
It was small, and she quickly found Doug in the second bedroom turned office, booting up the computer. She turned and took Zion into Emily’s bedroom. She didn’t like invading the young woman’s privacy, but this was the best way to keep Zion focused.
Crossing to the laundry hamper, she bent over to pull up a woolen sock. “Emily,” she said, offering the sock to Zion. “This is Emily.”
The husky obliged by pressing her nose into the sock. Then she looked up at Maya with her pale-blue eyes as if to say, Yes, I remember .
“Emily,” she repeated, placing the sock in the bag with the gloves. In her experience, socks were a better scent source than gloves. One of the reasons dogs loved chewing on socks and shoes is that those items held the strongest scent of their owners. “We’re going to find Emily.” She didn’t use the search command, as it was clear the small home was empty. And Emily’s scent was everywhere.
Zion wagged her tail in agreement.
She moved through the small house, then returned to the office. Doug had shrugged out of his coat and was hunched over the computer. His intense gaze was focused on the screen. He didn’t even look up as she and Zion entered.
“I’m almost finished,” he said, proving her assumption that he hadn’t noticed her wrong. “I’m fast-forwarding through this and have yet to see the Silverado truck. Or anything thing else remotely suspicious.”
“No problem.” She turned to head back to the kitchen.
“Wait! Look at this!” His voice rose with excitement. “Yesterday morning shortly after Emily came home from work. See it? Is that the same black Silverado truck?”
She came around the corner of the desk to peer over his shoulder. “It could be. To be honest, I didn’t see it as clearly as you did.”
“Twenty-four hours ago, the black truck is going past her house. Then we see someone jump inside after firing at me.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“Maybe, but it’s not much of a clue either,” she felt compelled to point out. “There are a lot of big trucks out here. Ranchers and residents prefer them, especially for our unpredictable wintery weather.”
“Yeah I know, but still.” His fingers danced along the keyboard. “I’ve sent the video to my email. Maybe my tech guy back home can do something with it.” He pushed back from the desk. “Let’s go. Before I head south, I’d like to buy you lunch. I haven’t eaten since last night.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. There was no reason for her to go with him to Cheyenne, other than she couldn’t ignore the strange urge to stick close. It wasn’t logical, but finding Emily was their primary goal. Doug seemed determined to reimburse her in some way. She had no intention of mentioning how she and her siblings had inherited several million dollars after her parents were killed.
She followed Doug to the doorway, giving Zion the hand signal to come. Doug opened the door, turning to say something when another crack of gunfire rang out.
“Down!” he shouted hoarsely, ducking to the side and slamming the door shut. The shooter didn’t stop at one round this time. Several bullets peppered the door.
Then there was nothing but silence.