Chapter Twenty-Five
Sharp’s mind whirled with possibilities. He’d been a detective long enough to know people were capable of truly horrible things. “Is it possible Zoe and Jacob saw Tim kill Evan?”
Harold froze. “That never crossed my mind, but it would explain the kids’ shock and panic. Tim could have put his brother and his vehicle into the lake.”
Sharp’s phone buzzed with a weather alert. He read it aloud. “There’s a flash flood on Jenkins Road. The bridge is out. Where is that?”
“Other side of the mountain.” Cradling his ribs, Harold crossed the room and turned on a TV mounted on the wall. He found a weather report, and they read the breaking news scrolling across the bottom of the screen. “If this rain continues, more bridges are going to be underwater.”
“Is this house safe?” Olivia asked.
Harold eased back onto his stool, placing the ice pack on his side. “It’s withstood storms for seventy years. We’re at the base of the mountain, but on high ground. I have a generator and plenty of supplies.” He paused to take a few shallow breaths.
“Are you all right?” Olivia asked. “Could you have broken ribs?”
Harold grimaced. “It’s possible, but I’ll be fine.”
Olivia didn’t look convinced. “You didn’t go to a doctor?”
“No.” He coughed, and his face tightened in pain. “A doctor would ask questions I couldn’t answer.”
Sharp pulled Olivia aside and whispered, “Between the weather and inherent dangers of chasing Tim Brown, I don’t want to take Nicki with us. Also, I think Harold should call the police.”
“I agree.” Olivia nodded. “She’ll be more agreeable if you ask her to stay here and take care of Harold. She’ll try to butt heads with me.”
“OK.” Sharp wasn’t inclined to take no for an answer, so he didn’t ask. “Nicki. Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure.” She followed him into the hall.
“I’m worried about Harold. I think he’s hurt worse than he’s saying, but Liv and I need to go find Zoe.”
Nicki frowned. “You want me to stay here with the old dude?”
“I would appreciate it,” Sharp said.
She nodded. “OK. He seems cool.”
They went back into the kitchen. Sharp faced Harold. “Nicki is going to stay here with you. I want you to call the police and tell them what happened. They need to put out a BOLO on Tim.”
Harold shook his head hard. “No. He said he’d hurt my grandkids.”
“Tell the police that he threatened them.” Sharp wasn’t taking no for an answer from Harold either.
“He needs to be stopped. If he’s out on parole, he’s already violated his requirements by breaking and entering, assaulting you, and threatening your family.
Once they catch him, they’ll march him right back to prison.
Besides, do you want Tim’s presence hanging over you and your family for the rest of your life?
The sooner he’s back in custody, the sooner you can all relax.
If he gets away, you’ll have no peace, and your family will be in danger forever. ”
Harold sighed. “You’re right. I’ll call them.”
Sharp would feel better if Nicki was armed. “Do you have any kind of weapon here?”
“I have a shotgun under my bed,” Harold said.
Pleasantly surprised, Sharp asked, “Shells?”
“Plenty of them. For the record, I stored the gun at my gun club when there were kids in the house, but now that I’m alone, I brought it back home.”
“I’m glad.” Sharp jogged upstairs and found the weapon and ammunition. He brought both down and set them on the kitchen island. “Keep it handy.”
Olivia pulled Nicki aside and whispered, “Will you be OK? You feel safe here?”
Nicki waved off her concern. “I’ve got this. Dude’s like, eighty. My biggest concerns are him dying on me or making me reset his Wi-Fi. Keep me in the loop. I want to know where you two are, OK?”
“OK,” Olivia agreed.
Sharp brought Nicki’s overnight bag inside. Not that he was planning on being gone all night, but with the flooding, he couldn’t promise they’d be back by nightfall either.
“Make sure he calls the police,” Sharp said to Nicki.
“Will do,” she assured him.
Sharp herded Olivia toward the door. She seemed reluctant to leave Nicki.
Outside, he said, “She’ll be safer here than with us.” They were looking for a killer.
“I know.” Olivia climbed into the SUV.
Behind the wheel, Sharp called Jenny Kruger, who got him Jacob Brown’s address in two minutes. He entered the address into the GPS. “Jacob’s place is closest. We’ll go there first. Harold’s cabin is higher up on the mountain.”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll find Zoe with Jacob and we’ll be done.”
But Sharp wasn’t so optimistic. The way he saw it, Tim would have looked for Zoe at Jacob’s place too. Jacob was his nephew. He’d know where he lived.
As he shifted into gear, Olivia’s phone blared an alarm. She read the screen. “Another flash flood warning.”
“Let’s not waste any time then.”
The rain remained light as they drove, and Sharp crossed his fingers it stayed that way.
Puddles accumulated at the edges of the road, forcing him to straddle the yellow line at times.
Vehicle headlights approached. He eased back to the right.
The tires hit water. The vehicle hydroplaned, and he eased off the gas pedal.
“They need wider roads.” Olivia gripped the chicken strap with white knuckles.
“Yes.” A truck blew past, hitting a puddle. Water cascaded over the hood.
“Shit.” He squinted through the windshield, waiting for the wipers to catch up and clear the glass.
“This is miserable,” Olivia said. “Maybe we should just go back to Harold’s place.”
Sharp glanced at the GPS. “We’re almost there.
” His eyes ached from straining to see the road.
“The weather app says it’s going to rain for the next few days, so the conditions up here are not going to get any better.
” He eyed the roadside water. “I’m glad we saw Conway Hamilton when we did.
This storm system is huge. If they’re getting rain like this, their road will be impassable. ”
“So will these roads,” Olivia said. “We’d better not waste any time.”
According to the GPS map, Jacob Brown lived about halfway up the mountain. Thankfully, all the roads they’d driven on so far had been paved. Sharp turned left. The country road narrowed and serpentined. They rounded a bend, and the car announced, “You have reached your destination.”
“Where?” Olivia’s head swiveled as she looked right and left.
Sharp slowed the car to a crawl. Thick forest covered the area on one side of the road. Open ground sprawled out on the other. There was no shoulder to pull onto, just a ten-foot expanse of weeds and mud before the tree line.
“There!” Olivia pointed to a mailbox.
Sharp turned in to a driveway that bisected a meadow the size of a football field. At the end of it, a small house huddled in the rain. A dim porch light glowed weakly, barely cutting through the gloom. “Do you see any lights on?”
“One around back.”
“Somebody’s home.” He parked the car in front of the front door. He wanted to talk to Jacob, but he also wanted to get off this mountain before the visibility went to zero. “I’d rather not be on this mountain after nightfall.”
“Same.” Olivia stepped out.
Sharp joined her, hurrying to the covered front stoop. From around back, a dog barked.
“He left his dog out in the rain?” Sharp scowled and banged an angry fist on the door. What kind of man left an animal outside in this weather?
No one answered.
“He’s ignoring us.” Sharp banged louder. “We know you’re in there!”
“He might not be home,” Olivia said. “Also, angry knocking and yelling doesn’t open doors.”
“Right. Sorry.” Sharp cracked his neck. “I’m just mad about the dog.”
“I understand. They might have a doghouse. It might be a working dog. This is the country. Things are different here.”
Sharp didn’t look convinced. “It sounds like an ankle biter, not a working dog.”
Olivia rapped on the door. “Mr. Brown? My name is Olivia Cruz. I’d really like to talk to you.”
Nothing but silence.
Sharp raised a fist and gave the door a few more solid thumps—and it opened a few inches.
Olivia mouthed, “Now what?”
Sharp leaned toward the opening. “Mr. Brown?”
Nothing.
“I don’t like this,” Olivia said.
“Me either.” Sharp used a forefinger to push the door farther open.
“We shouldn’t go inside.”
“Of course not.” But he’d driven halfway up the mountain in a storm.
He wasn’t leaving without finding out if Zoe was here.
He stepped over the threshold. A night-light glowed at the end of the hall.
They walked through an empty living room toward it.
They entered a kitchen at the back of the house.
Their wet boots squeaked on the tile. Through glass patio doors, they saw a small dog on a covered patio, yapping at them.
“At least it’s out of the rain,” Olivia whispered.
Sharp backtracked to the other hallway, which likely led to the bedrooms. His belly knotted as they crept along.
A floorboard creaked under his boot. The first few rooms were empty.
The doors stood open. The last door stared at them, firmly shut.
The hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
His instincts had kept him alive for twenty-five years on the police force. They’d never failed him.
He stepped in front of Olivia. Something was wrong here. He could sense it. He motioned for her to move to the side of the hall. Then he took the opposite side.
She should go. Run. Get out of this house.
But he was compelled to keep going, and he knew Olivia wouldn’t back down.
His heart thudded. His pulse echoed in his ears. He could still hear the dog, but it seemed far away. Cold, clammy sweat broke out on his palms. He wiped them on his thighs before reaching for the doorknob.
It turned. Not locked. The hinges protested with a squeal as he pushed it open. Coppery and foul odors that he knew all too well hit his nostrils. He automatically covered his nose and mouth with the collar of his jacket.
Olivia gagged.
The room was dark. Sharp pulled out his flashlight and switched it on. He shone the beam across the room and flinched. He’d seen plenty of crime scenes, but he’d never become immune to the shock.
“Oh, my God,” Olivia said, her voice flat, as if she couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
A man was tied to a chair in the center of the room, ankles secured to the chair legs with zip ties.
His arms were bound behind his back. His face had been beaten, but Sharp recognized him from one of the articles from when Evan Brown’s vehicle had been pulled from the lake. “Looks like Jacob Brown.”
“Is he still alive?” Olivia started forward.
Sharp knew from the smell that he wasn’t, but he should make 100 percent sure. He grabbed her elbow. “Wait. We don’t want to destroy evidence.”
Olivia stopped in her tracks.
He moved the beam of light lower. A vast splotch of dark red encircled the area around the chair. Blood. A lot of blood. Was it his? He’d been beaten, but the damage to his face didn’t explain the sheer volume of blood.
Or had Zoe been here? Could the blood be hers?
It felt as if every organ inside Sharp’s body curled inward, like a fist clenching ever tighter.
He didn’t want Zoe to be dead. He also didn’t want Olivia to find her friend’s corpse.
He didn’t want that memory for her. He focused the light on the blood.
He couldn’t step in it. He’d compromise the evidence.
Even worse, he’d leave his own boot prints in it.
He could become a suspect, which would just make the case even more complicated.
He shone his light around the room but didn’t see another body.
“Wait here,” he said.
“I intend to,” Olivia answered.
Sharp stepped closer to the man. He stopped at the very edge of the stain and reached forward. Stretching, he could barely reach him. He pressed two fingers into the side of his neck. The skin was cold and stiff. Clammy. No pulse beat under his fingertips. “He’s dead.”
“Can you tell when he died?”
Sharp shone his flashlight on the corpse, giving it a once-over. “Looks like he’s been dead a day or two.”
He stepped back, careful with his footsteps, light shining on the floor. He examined the dried blood puddle, moving his light in a grid pattern. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Olivia asked.
He stared down at the spotlight. Stuck in the crusty, dried edge was a long blond hair. “Zoe was here.”