Chapter Twelve #2
“Maybe.” She knew firsthand how manipulative people could be. “But what if it’s true? Can you find out? She says the woman’s name is Betty Josephs and she thinks she lived in Texas.”
“Isn’t Betty her sister’s name?”
“Bettina. But she says this woman is too young to be her sister. The guard said she was twenty-eight when she was visiting Ledger, at least according to her ID. And she had bleached blond hair.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.” He pulled out his phone and made a note of the name. “I want to look for more information about Alice, too.”
“Why Alice?”
“Maybe we can put Debra on to her and she’ll stop bothering you.”
She laughed. “She doesn’t bother me that much. I feel sorry for her, really. I think her whole life is wrapped up in this quest to find out what happened to her sister.”
“Maybe you aren’t the only person Ledger has come after,” Dalton said. “One reason Alice may be so hard to find is that she’s hiding from him, too.”
“I know she was a victim of Ledger just as much as I was,” Roxanne said. “But the way she pretended to be my friend, then betrayed me, hurt as much as anything he did to me. I’ve never been able to forgive her.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m not judging you,” he said.
He never did, which made him so easy to be with.
She pulled him close in a kiss. Forget Ledger and Debra and Betty and Bettina.
She wanted to focus on the feel of his lips on hers, the way his five-o’clock shadow scraped at her cheek, the spearmint taste of him and the tremor that shook her as he traced his thumb along the curve of her breast.
She was thinking of climbing into his lap and straddling him when the rattle of the key in the front door sent them flying apart. Diane and George Ames stood grinning at them. “Don’t let us interrupt,” Diane said. She took her husband by the hand and pulled him from the room.
Roxanne put both hands to her heated face. “That was embarrassing,” she said. “I feel like a teenager who got caught making out.”
“We’re not teenagers.” He slid over and kissed her again.
A thorough kiss that banished embarrassment and had her wanting to pull him up the stairs to her room.
Maybe he felt a little of the same, because he groaned when he pulled away from her, a sound that had her arching toward him even as he slipped away.
“I’d better go,” he said. “I have a search and rescue meeting.”
“Let me know if you find out anything about Ledger.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Only after he was gone did she remember that she hadn’t asked him about talking to the sheriff or Aaron. Maybe she would do that on her own.
But even if Ledger did have someone helping him, what was his purpose in being here, near Eagle Mountain? She didn’t buy Debra’s reasoning that he wanted to see her again. William Ledger liked little girls. He had no use for a woman like her.
Saturday night, Dalton was hunched over the computer, music turned up in the background.
He would rather have been with Roxanne, but she was attending a lingerie shower for Bethany.
He was trying to distract himself from images of Roxanne in various lacy and diaphanous nightgowns when the door to his apartment opened and Carter walked in.
“Ever thought about knocking?” Dalton asked.
“Why knock when I still have my key?” Carter held up the small brass key. “Have you seen my guitar tuner? I can’t find it anywhere. Thought maybe I’d left it here when I moved in with Mira.”
Dalton turned back to the computer. “I thought you stopped playing guitar.” As he recalled, Carter had taken lessons just long enough to discover playing well was much harder than it looked.
“I’m thinking of taking it up again. Are you sure you haven’t seen the tuner? It’s red plastic.”
“I haven’t seen it, but feel free to look.”
Carter leaned over Dalton’s shoulder and peered at the monitor. “What are you working on? Your next million-dollar idea?”
“None of my ideas have made a million dollars,” Dalton said.
“I figure it’s only a matter of time.” He straightened, then moved away. Moments later, the click and thump of doors opening and closing announced Carter’s path through the apartment.
Dalton went back to scrolling through the list of names on the screen.
“I found it!” Carter emerged into the living room again, holding aloft a small red plastic box.
“It was way back in the closet in my old bedroom.” He plopped down onto the sofa, long legs stretched in front of him, picked up the remote and turned down the music.
“You really ought to clean this place up. Especially now that you have a girlfriend. She’s not going to want to sleep in a dump. ”
Dalton ignored him, but Carter refused to take the hint. “What is that you’re looking at?” he asked. “It looks like you’re reading a phone book—if people still used phone books.”
“It’s the state driver’s license database.”
“You have access to that?”
“Not officially, no.” But he knew a guy who knew a guy who had agreed to let him take a peek in exchange for cheat codes for an online game Dalton knew about.
“Then how—” Carter shook his head. “No, I don’t want to know.” He got up and came to lean over Dalton’s chair again. “Who are you looking for?”
“A woman named Betty Josephs. I found her in Texas, then I tracked her to Denver, but I can’t figure out where she went from there.”
“Who is Betty Josephs?”
“Supposedly, she’s William Ledger’s girlfriend.”
“Who is William Ledger?”
How much could he say without betraying Roxanne’s confidence? “He’s a guy Roxanne used to know. He may be harassing her now.”
“The guy who ran her off the road and broke into her house?”
Of course. Everyone in search and rescue knew about those things. Probably a lot of other people in town, too. “Yeah. I figure if I can find the girlfriend, maybe I can find him.”
“Does Aaron know you’re doing this?”
“No. And don’t tell him.”
“Like you have to even say that.”
“I’ll tell him myself when I have more than a name.”
Carter pulled a chair close and sat. “So, what have you found out so far?”
“I’ve tracked her as far as Denver three months ago.
She got a speeding ticket and her address is an apartment on the south end of the city.
Then she disappears. She’s no longer at that address.
” He closed the file and pushed back from the desk.
“I think she’s using a different name. I think Betty Josephs was a fake identity, too.
At least, I can’t find evidence she existed before three years ago.
That’s when Ledger was moved to the federal prison in Seagoville, outside of Dallas, and she started visiting him. ”
“Maybe you should quit doing Jeep tours and become a private detective,” Carter said.
“Not interested. I just want to help Roxanne.”
“Is Roxanne okay?” Carter asked. “She seems pretty chill when I see her at Mom and Dad’s, but not being able to go back to her own place because some creep broke in must be kind of a downer.”
“She’s okay. She’s a strong woman.”
Carter studied him. Dalton was about to tell him to knock it off when he said, “Mom and Dad like her a lot.”
“She really likes them, too.”
“And you like her a lot.”
“Yeah.” No reason to deny it.
Carter nodded. “I figured it would be like this for you.”
Dalton shifted in his chair. “Like what?”
“You didn’t waste time dating around. You just waited until the one woman came along and wham! You two are together and that’s it.”
Carter was grinning like he’d won the lottery. Dalton glared at him. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m just saying—some people fall hard right away.”
“You fell in love with Mira pretty fast.” The two had known each other only a few months when Carter moved in with her and they started planning a wedding.
“Right, but I’d had a lot of experience with women. I knew what I was looking for by the time she came along.”
He made it sound like filling out a shopping list or ordering a custom car. Dalton knew that wasn’t true—Carter and Mira seemed to really love each other. “Neither of us is rushing into anything serious,” Dalton said.
“Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think you’re going to change your mind,” Carter said. “I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you look at her.”
“And you’re an expert.”
“More of an expert than you.”
“Thanks for your expert opinion, then.” He turned his chair back to face the computer. “Lock the door behind you on the way out.”
Carter left and Dalton started a search for Debra Percy.
She was easier to find than Betty had been.
He scrolled through several pages, then paused and double-checked what he had just read.
Huh. Debra had been in Denver at the same time Betty had been there.
She had left only a few weeks after all trace of Betty disappeared.
Coincidence, or connection? He pondered the question for a long moment, then took out his phone and punched in a number.
“What do you need?” Aaron asked when he answered.
“Can you come over to my place and look at a few things?” Dalton said. “I found some stuff you need to know.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“It’s about William Ledger.”
“I told you not to snoop around on the computer, to let us handle it.”
“Since when do I listen to you? Do you want to know what I found out or not?”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
Almost exactly ten minutes later, Dalton heard Aaron’s footsteps on the stairs. He opened the door to his brother, who was in full uniform. “Get in here before the neighbors think I’m in some kind of trouble,” he said, ushering his brother inside.
“What have you found out about William Ledger that you think is so important?” Aaron asked.
“Did you know he has a girlfriend? Or had one, at least until recently.”
“Betty Josephs,” Aaron said. “Yes, we know.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t expected that answer. “Has anyone talked to her? Does she know where Ledger is?”
“As far as I know, several law enforcement agencies are still looking for her. Why? Do you know where she is?”
“I’ve tracked her to Denver. She was there in July. I have an address. She isn’t there now, but maybe someone could talk to her former landlord, see if she left a forwarding address. And ask if anyone who fit Ledger’s description was around.”
“We know how to do our job,” Aaron said.
“Do you want the information or not?”
“I want it.” Aaron grabbed a notepad from Dalton’s desk. “What’s that address again? And the dates she was there?”
When he had finished writing, he tore off the paper, folded it and tucked it into his pocket. “How did you find out about her?” he asked.
“Do you know Debra Percy?”
Aaron nodded. “She thinks Ledger kidnapped and killed her older sister.”
“She also thinks—or thought—that Roxanne knows something about her sister. She keeps questioning Roxanne about it. But yesterday she visited Roxanne and told her she had found out about Betty Josephs. Roxanne passed the information along to me to give to you.”
“Except you had to do your own research first.”
“You’re welcome,” Dalton said.
“Yeah, thanks. Maybe we need to talk to Debra again.”
The maybe set Dalton’s teeth on edge. “Why haven’t you found Ledger yet? He’s just one man. He’s got to be somewhere close.”
Aaron’s mouth tightened. “Investigations like this take time. And we don’t have a lot to go on. And this isn’t the only crime we’re investigating.”
Dalton heard the frustration in Aaron’s voice and noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. “Sorry. I’m just worried about Roxanne. Do you have any news about Sarah?”
“No. None of us are getting much sleep, worrying about her.”
“Do you think Ledger has her?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to think. But it’s one more reason to find him. Sooner rather than later.” He put a hand on Dalton’s shoulder. “Let Roxanne know we’ll be following up on this. And you take care.”
Aaron left, and Dalton sank into his chair once more. Aaron said investigations took time, but it didn’t feel like Sarah—and maybe Roxanne—had much time.