Chapter 5 #2
“We’ve established a timeline through our interviews.
We don’t have much,” he confessed, then confidently added, “Yet. At this point we have the usual. Interviews with friends and family. I’ve got three volunteers taking calls around the clock.
We’ve had a couple of hits from folks who saw her in town the day she disappeared.
Several hundred volunteers have been combing a five-mile radius around the scene where her vehicle was discovered.
About half an hour ago we called off the search for the night. ”
“Any marital problems?” Adeline had the presence of mind to ask as they moved along the corridor. It felt surreal being here . . . with him . . . listening to his voice. She was having far more trouble maintaining a professional bearing than she’d anticipated. “Spouse been cleared of suspicion?”
“No marital or family problems. Nothing out of the ordinary at work. Her husband is, of course, still a person of interest, but I don’t think he had anything to do with her abduction.
” Wyatt paused at the conference room door to let her enter before him.
“According to her friends, Cherry Prescott has the perfect life.”
“Nobody has a perfect life,” Adeline muttered. She’d been a cop far too long to believe that was even remotely possible for any human. “You just haven’t pushed the right friend hard enough yet.”
“I’m interviewing a couple of her closest friends for the third time tomorrow,” Wyatt said, his tone on the defensive side. “I’m familiar with the drill.”
“Girlfriends?” she guessed. Those were the ones who usually knew the most and held back any secrets the longest. A good, solid female bond was hard to crack.
Wyatt nodded. “I don’t have anything conclusive, just a hunch.”
Which meant he thought one or more of the friends was holding out on him.
The deputies poring over the material stacked along the conference room table glanced up as she and Wyatt entered the room. Adeline recognized Deputy Rex Womack from before. The female at his side, she didn’t.
“Womack,” Wyatt announced, “you remember Detective Cooper?”
Womack nodded. “Looks like you went and grew up, little girl.” Womack had been on the force since Jesus crossed over from Louisiana and hailed the plot of ground between it and Alabama as Mississippi . . . or so the story went.
“And you look exactly the same, Rex,” she offered with a genuine smile.
Rex Womack was one of the few who hadn’t completely turned on her nine years ago.
He’d been a wary sort of mentor to her despite the fact she was a woman when it wasn’t cool to be a woman in uniform in the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department.
Womack was as thin and wiry as ever. His thick head of hair had surrendered to age, gray claiming what male-pattern baldness hadn’t.
“Deputy Charlene Sullenger,” Wyatt said as he indicated the female deputy next to Womack, “is new to the department but damned indispensable.”
Charlene fluttered her long lashes. “Thank you, Sheriff.” Her goofy smile told Adeline that she had a major crush on her boss—which could be part of why she was so indispensable.
Retract the cat claws, Adeline. It’s unbecoming.
“You Tom’s little sister?” Adeline asked Sullenger.
The girl looked a whole hell of a lot like her brother and that wasn’t exactly a bad thing, but it wasn’t a compliment, either.
The Sullenger nose was her most prominent feature, but the big-ass boobs likely kept any one male from noticing much else.
Strawberry-blond hair and green eyes. Couldn’t be over twenty-two or -three.
Just stating the facts.
Charlene cocked her head and eyed Adeline. “I sure am. Tom told me all about you, Detective.”
Adeline would just bet that he had. Tom Sullenger belonged to Cyrus Cooper. If he was still in this department, then little had changed in Jackson County, Mississippi.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” Wyatt said, dragging Adeline’s attention back to him. He deposited the padded envelope on the conference table and pulled on a pair of latex gloves.
While he got a look at the evidence and the analysis reports she’d delivered, Adeline studied the timeline that had been created on a long whiteboard.
Prescott’s vehicle had been discovered at 5:17 p.m. on Tuesday.
Her husband had been contacted two hours later.
No purse, no cell phone found in the car.
The next item on the board stopped Adeline cold. The cut-and-paste letter. Why the hell hadn’t Wyatt mentioned this?
She was born a princess for all to see. Her light was so bright that they could no longer see me.
“Did she receive this letter by mail or anonymous delivery?” Adeline tapped the letter, which was safely encased in a plastic evidence bag and mounted with double-stick tape to the whiteboard.
According to the date and time annotated, Prescott had received her letter three days before Adeline’s had been left in her mailbox.
“Anonymously delivered about a week ago, her husband believes.” Wyatt joined Adeline at the whiteboard. He posted the evidence, including the Polaroid she’d brought, and logged the appropriate information. “When did you get yours?”
“The first one, about four days ago. The rest came today, as the chief explained on the phone.” She opted not to make a fuss that he hadn’t told her this before. This was already difficult enough.
Wyatt studied the Polaroid. “Damn.” He shook his head. “This makes it hard to hold out hope.”
“Definitely lessens the likelihood of finding her alive,” Adeline said, giving voice to what she knew he was thinking—what she herself was convinced of. “He wants us to know there’s a strong chance she’s dead and that there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“I briefed the family after our conference call.”
The desolation in his tone tugged at long-buried emotions Adeline was determined not to feel. Relaying that kind of news was the hardest part of being a cop. “It never gets easier, does it?”
Wyatt shook his head, then looked from the Polaroid to her. “You know of any connection whatsoever between you and Prescott?”
“Nope.” Adeline studied the family photo that had been posted amid the other evidence. Prescott, her husband, and two kids. Wyatt wanted to keep the idea that the victim was a wife and mother, a daughter, in front of all the cops working the case. “But that’s why I’m here. I intend to find out.”
“You aren’t honestly considering staying for the duration?”
Adeline turned to face him. “Of course I’m staying.
” When he would have interrupted, she held up both hands and plowed on.
“I’m not going any-damned-where until this is finished.
You can exclude me from the investigation, but that won’t send me away.
I’ll work my own investigation. With or without your blessing. ”
Wyatt glanced at the other deputies, who had stopped their work to listen to her rant. “I think we should have this discussion in my office.”
“Doesn’t matter where we have it, the result will be the same.”
She knew the ploy. He was buying time to regroup.
He’d likely planned exactly what he would say if she stuck to her guns on the issue, but he hadn’t actually believed she would do it.
Now he was having second thoughts about his original game plan.
Not only would she be in his way, but he would also have to answer to Cyrus for allowing her to be a part of the investigation.
Just because this was Wyatt—a man she’d once loved with her entire being—he would not be immune to the old bastard who owned this part of Mississippi.
Once they were back in his office, Wyatt closed the door. “When Cyrus’s boys find out you’re here, the shit will hit the fan. You know this. This case demands all my department’s resources. I don’t have time to work this investigation and protect you.”
Adeline crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t need your protection.”
He laughed, but the sound held no humor. “When you left, I believe the exodus order from your uncle went something like, Set foot in Mississippi again and you’re dead.”
“That’s right,” she agreed. “But I’m not afraid of my uncle. I never have been. I haven’t stayed away because of Cooper’s law. I haven’t been back to Mississippi before now because there was nothing to come back for.”
Wyatt flinched.
Victory tore through her. She’d nailed him with that one. “Let’s get this straight once and for all,” she warned. “I’m here until this is done. Deal with it.”
Five, then ten seconds elapsed before the color of outrage faded from his face. He took a deep breath and said, “You’ll be staying with your momma?”
“No. I don’t want my presence to bring any trouble to her door. I’ll stay at the Shady Oaks over on Delmas.”
“Not a good idea.” He shook his head. “That place is even more of a dive than it used to be. There are other places.” He named a couple of the chain motels that had moved into the area since she’d left.
“I won’t be spending much time there, so it doesn’t really matter. A quick shower, a few hours’ sleep.” She shrugged. “Not a big deal. I’d rather be close to downtown.” The Shady Oaks was only a few blocks from the courthouse.
“Does your momma know you’re here?”
“I let her know I was coming, if that’s what you’re asking. She isn’t expecting me to stay at the house. The house is on Cooper land. She knows I won’t come there.”
He shoved the files on his desk into a drawer. “It’s been a long day. I’ll escort you to the motel, and we’ll convene at eight tomorrow morning to kick off the search and then we’ll go over the case.”
“You said you planned to conduct a couple of interviews.”
He rounded his desk, reached for his coat. “That’s right.”
“I’d like to sit in on those.”
“I’ll consider the request.”
Great. He wasn’t going to make a single aspect of this easy. “Do you mind if I take the file and read up on the interviews conducted so far?”
“I had a copy made just in case you asked.” He went back to his desk and picked up the numerous pages held together by a binder clip.
He’d gone to the trouble to make the copy but hadn’t offered to share until she asked.
Perfect.
Outside, the air was cool. But not as cool as back home in Huntsville. The Gulf weather was great in the winter, but in the summer it would be muggy as hell and the mosquitoes would carry your ass off.
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t taken the time to eat today.
She would pick something up later. It wasn’t like the Shady Oaks Motel had room service, but there was probably someplace close that delivered.
She would check once she had a room. No way would she ask Wyatt and have him insist on joining her for a sandwich.
If she mentioned food, he would feel compelled to do the gentlemanly thing.
Too bad he’d fallen down on the job nine years ago.
If she hadn’t been so deep in the past, she might have recognized something was wrong. But she’d been way down memory lane and hadn’t gotten her head out of her ass until she was halfway across the street.
Wyatt drew up short first.
Adeline halted as the reality of what her eyes saw was absorbed by her brain.
Her big old four-wheel-drive Bronco was her baby. Thirty-six-inch tires. Six-inch suspension lifts. Roll bar. Badass exhaust pipes. The world knew she was coming well before she turned a corner. She had spared no expense on her baby.
She snapped out of the disbelief and sprinted the rest of the way to where she’d parked. Walked all the way around her vehicle before she could speak. “Son of a bitch!”
All four tires had been slashed.
“Welcome home, Addy,” Wyatt muttered.