Chapter Eleven
Eleven
Leanne spotted Duncan’s pickup and whipped into the parking lot before she could talk herself out of it. She found a space in front, not far from the door. Easy in, easy out.
She checked her reflection in the mirror and tucked some loose strands into her ponytail.
Not that it mattered. Her beauty regimen consisted of moisturizing her skin against the dry desert air and keeping her hair pulled back so it didn’t look like a tumbleweed by the end of the day.
Anything beyond that was a waste of time.
As she clicked her key fob and headed for the entrance, she noticed a black Jeep Cherokee turning into the lot.
Dark tinted windows, chrome rims. She could have sworn she’d seen the same Cherokee this morning in Marfa when she was leaving the gallery.
Coincidence? Maybe. The SUV pulled around to the back, and she didn’t get a look at the driver.
Leanne pulled open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. The Javelina Cantina was full, but not nearly as packed as Sunday. No football tonight. The TVs were playing a Rangers game, but it was a rerun from their last trip to the World Series.
Leanne scanned the room and spotted Justin Carr at the dart board with some of his river guide friends. No Liam Moriarty this time.
Duncan occupied a stool at the far end of the bar, and he was alone, which was sure to be temporary. Leanne swooped in before anyone could beat her to it.
“Hey.”
He looked up from the phone in his hand. “Hi.”
“Boozing it up on a Tuesday night?”
“I just got here.”
He looked her over as she hitched herself onto the stool beside him. She hadn’t been home since work, and she felt grubby. He, on the other hand, looked like he was dressed for a night out in his snakeskin cowboy boots and a blue flannel shirt that matched his eyes.
Like Leanne, Duncan had started his law enforcement career in Dallas.
Unlike Leanne, he had moved out here as part of his strategic plan.
He’d joined the Chisos County Sheriff’s Office to jump-start his career and rise through the ranks more quickly than he would have been able to in a huge department like Dallas.
Leanne liked to give him crap about his urban roots, but she secretly admired him.
He was more open-minded than most of the people out here, more amenable to change and willing to embrace new technology.
So many cops she worked with were mired in the past.
“Saw you on TV yesterday,” he said with a sly smile. “You clean up nice, Everhart.”
“Ha.”
“What? You don’t like being used as a prop for the DA’s reelection campaign?”
“Where were you guys? I thought the sheriff never missed a chance to get in front of a camera.”
“Don’t think we were invited,” he said. “Novak doesn’t like to share the spotlight.”
Katie walked over and slid a pint in front of Duncan. “Get you a beer?” she asked Leanne.
“I don’t know.” She nodded at Duncan’s glass. “What’s that?”
“Black IPA,” he said.
Leanne made a face.
“It’s pretty hoppy. You’ll like it.”
“Your Dallas is showing.” She looked at Katie. “I’ll have a Bud Light.”
“You got it.”
She sashayed off, and Leanne turned to Duncan.
“I need a favor from you.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“Not that kind of favor. It’s about my case.”
He picked up his beer. “Yeah, I heard you’re leading up the train tracks homicide.”
“That’s what they’re calling it?”
“I don’t know that they’re calling it anything. I just heard the vic was found on the outskirts of town by the tracks.”
“She was.” Leanne took out her phone and clicked open a photograph. “We recovered some tire marks out there. You still have that friend at the state crime lab? The tire expert? I was hoping you could run this by him.”
One of the many things she liked about Duncan was that he kept up with people and had contacts everywhere. Leanne was allergic to schmoozing.
Duncan pulled her phone closer and examined the picture. “Not bad. There’s a lot of good detail here. Did you take this?”
“Izzy Huerta did, our part-time CSI,” she told him. “I made a plaster cast of this, too, but McBride doesn’t want to send it in. Thinks it’s a waste of money.”
Duncan studied the photo and pursed his lips. “He’s probably right.”
She bristled. “Yeah, I mean, why waste valuable resources on mundane crimes like rape and murder when we could be chasing down car thieves?”
Duncan shot her a look. “Don’t get your back up.
I’m just pointing out, tire tread is class evidence.
Best case, even if you ID it, all you’ll know is that it was made by some tire that’s on probably thousands of vehicles in the tri-county area.
Waste of funds.” He passed the phone back and picked up his beer.
“Why don’t you go for the jugular and push your chief to send in some DNA evidence? Do you have any?”
Frustration welled in her chest. “The ME collected a rape kit, but you know how that goes. It’ll be freaking Christmas before we get anything back. I figured your guy would be faster. And even if all we manage to do is narrow it down to a list of possible vehicles, that’s progress.”
Katie was back with a beer. Leanne picked up the glass and took a cold, bitter sip.
“So, will you talk to your guy for me?” she asked.
“Maybe. Sometimes he won’t answer when he knows I’m hitting him up for a favor.”
“Well, could you at least try?” She leaned forward so he’d have to look her in the eye. “I’m out on a limb here, and McBride’s being his usual self.”
“I’ll try. Shoot me that photo.”
“Try” was better than “maybe.” She took another sip and slid the glass away.
He was watching her now with those ocean blue eyes.
When it came to work, she and Duncan had a lot in common.
They’d been through the same training academy and knew some of the same people in Dallas.
But Duncan wasn’t from here originally, and he stood out.
It wasn’t just his looks; it was the way he talked, the way he carried himself, his whole approach to everything, including his job.
He had a degree in forensics, which made him an expert on topics Leanne had only vaguely heard about.
Duncan was smart, super analytical, and a thorough investigator.
In some ways, he reminded her of her dad.
“I have another question for you,” she said.
“I don’t have any ins with the state lab when it comes to rape kits, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“This is something else. Do you remember an MP case from a while back? Marisol Cruz? This would have been six years ago.”
“That’s before my time.”
“I know. I just thought you might have heard something.”
“Before your time, too.” He frowned. “Missing high school girl, right? She went to a keg party in Alpine and never came home?”
“Fort Stockton, but yeah, that’s the case. You heard about it?”
He tipped his head to the side. “I think so. Why?”
“I met her mother today.”
Duncan shook his head.
“What?”
“Six years, Leanne.”
“I know. But she’s still holding out hope. What did you hear about it?”
“Not a lot. I thought they’d pegged her for a runaway? She had an older boyfriend or something, and everyone figured she took off with him.”
“Not everyone. Her mom believes she was kidnapped.”
“Maybe she was. Like I said, older boyfriend.”
Duncan watched her, and the look on his face telegraphed what he was thinking.
The likely outcomes for a missing person case that had been cold for six years were not good.
Alma Cruz’s best hope was that her daughter had gone somewhere—either willingly or unwillingly—with a man she knew.
If she’d been taken by a stranger, the odds of her being found alive at this point were depressingly low.
Katie was back with a smile. “Y’all want another round?”
“I’m good,” Duncan said.
“Me, too.”
Katie dropped off a glass with their tab and walked away. Leanne glanced at Duncan, and he was watching her now with a look she recognized.
“Sorry about the other night,” he said.
She bristled again for an entirely different reason.
“It’s cool.”
“I was working. I’m still on that ICE op.”
For the past three months, Duncan had been part of a joint task force trying to roll up a human-trafficking ring operating in the region. ICE was officially calling the shots, but several local sheriff’s offices were providing extra boots on the ground.
“This is my first night off in weeks,” Duncan said. “They keep roping me in.”
“Forget it.”
Her stomach filled with nerves, as it always did when he talked to her in that low voice.
Maybe she shouldn’t have pulled in here when she spotted his truck.
It would have been smarter to have this conversation over the phone.
But she had a bad track record of doing anything smart when it came to him.
He kept watching her, and she wasn’t able to tell what he was thinking now. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a drink alone together and not as part of some off-duty cop group.
His phone vibrated on the bar, breaking the spell. He flipped it over and muttered a curse.
“I have to go in.”
She was already getting out her wallet. “That’s your office?”
“My task force lead.”
“How’s the op going?” She put some cash on the bar.
“You know how it is.” He took out his wallet. “It’s pretty much whack-a-mole. But it’s been going a little better lately. We’ve got some new surveillance tools.”
“The Trojan horse thing.”
He frowned. “Where did you hear that?”
She shrugged. “Around.”
According to rumors, the feds had managed to get hold of a few key cell phones and install some new spyware that enabled them to eavesdrop on several criminal networks.
Duncan gave her a look of disapproval. “You shouldn’t talk about that.”
“I’m not. I’m talking to you.”
“I’m serious, Leanne.”
“I know.”
He continued to frown as she slid off her stool and zipped her jacket. She walked to the door, and they stepped outside together.
The temperature had dropped, and it felt like a thousand cold pinpricks on her face. She glanced up at the sky, the rare dark sky that was the subject of Zach Olmstead’s artwork. She thought of the Virgin Mary mural and the pink adobe house. What a long, strange day it had been.
She turned to Duncan.
“Let me know about—”
“I will.” He stared down at her, and the moment stretched out.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He headed off toward his truck, clicking his key fob as he went.
Leanne slid into her pickup and watched him in her rearview.
She waited until his taillights were tiny dots of red.
Then she pulled onto the highway and buzzed her windows down, letting the wind whip through the cab until her cheeks went numb.
She neared the sign for Desert Star Campground and glanced at the side mirror.
The Cherokee was back. It was way behind her, but she recognized the headlights.
“Son of a bitch.”
The Desert Star sign drew nearer. Instead of slowing, she hit the gas.
“Come on,” she muttered. “Let’s see what you got.”
· · ·
Max stared at the empty highway.
“I lost her,” he said over the phone.
“You what?”
“She’s gone.”
“I thought you said you had her.”
“I did.” He looked left and right into the empty desert. There wasn’t a house in sight, never mind a pair of red taillights.
“Listen. Get a bead on her, ASAP.”
“I will,” Max said.
“Execute the assignment, or I’ll find someone who will.”
“Got it,” Max said, but the line was already dead.
He tossed his phone on the seat beside him.
He didn’t have time for this. He stomped on the gas, squinting at the sign in the distance as he raced down the highway. Madrone, five miles. Fort Stockton, fifty.
Headlights lit up his rearview. He twisted to look over his shoulder. A truck loomed behind him, blue and red grill lights.
“No fucking way.”
Max checked the speedometer. Eighty in a seventy.
The headlights zoomed closer.
He put on his turn signal and tapped the brake. The truck behind him slowed. He pulled onto the shoulder and rolled to a stop.
He watched with amazement as Leanne Everhart slid from the pickup and approached him, her slender body silhouetted in the headlights.
She flashed her badge and rested her hand on his roof as he lowered the window.
“License and insurance.”
“I wasn’t—”
“License and insurance.” She shined a flashlight in his face.
Squinting at the glare, Max pulled his wallet from his pocket and fished out the driver’s license. He handed it over, then reached for the glove compartment. The Maglite beam followed his hands as he rummaged through it.
“This your vehicle, Mr. Scott?” She handed back the driver’s license.
He passed her the insurance paperwork, and the flashlight beam shifted to the clipped papers.
“You’ve been following me for two days,” she stated.
“I wasn’t—”
“Why?”
Max cursed inwardly. Then he reached for the laminated card stashed in his cup holder.
“I’m with the Dallas Morning News,” he said, handing her the press pass.
The beam shifted to his face again.
“I’ve been trying to reach you since Sunday,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about an interview.”
Silence.
He squinted into the glare. “Hey, do you mind—”
“Yes, I do mind. An interview about what?”
She leaned closer. The blinding light made it impossible for him to make out her expression, but the tone of her voice told him she was not happy.
“You’re Lee Everhart’s daughter, correct?”
No response.
“And you’re with Madrone Police Department now, where your father spent his career, right?”
Hostility radiated from her. But still no response.
“We’re doing a feature on the Sean Moriarty case, and we want to talk to you about—”
“No.”
“—your father’s legacy—”
“No.” She shoved the press pass at him. “I don’t give press interviews. Talk to our PIO.”
He stared up at her. She’d lowered the flashlight now, and he could make out her face enough to see the fierce scowl.
Did she believe him or not? Unclear. But they both knew the Madrone Police Department didn’t have a public information officer. So maybe she thought he was full of shit.
“We’re doing an in-depth story about Sean Moriarty’s exoneration, whether you talk to us or not,” he said.
“Listen up.” She rested her forearm on the roof and leaned closer. “If I see you on my six again, you will be sorry.”
“You can’t—”
“Are we clear?”
“Sure, whatever. But our coverage will detail your father’s role in Sean Moriarty’s wrongful conviction. Things will go better for you if you work with us, not against us.”
She scoffed. “Are you threatening me?”
“No.”
“I repeat: I do not give press interviews.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I will.” She stepped back. “I advise you to go back to Dallas, Mr. Scott. And if I catch you tailing me again, you’re going to find yourself in handcuffs.”