Chapter Ten
Amy Sue spent the afternoon and evening tracking down more people who had attended the same conference as Jack Marshall. She’d fibbed and said she was doing a story on the conference. She found people opened up better if they thought she was writing an article for a business magazine.
Jack had done a presentation earlier in the day during the conference, but few people recalled seeing him later that afternoon.
One man remembered him in the bar after lunch talking with another man.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know the other man’s name and suggested she ask Jack since it had appeared to be animated conversation about flying.
Could that be the man Jack had gotten to fly him back and forth to Billings that afternoon? Probably not, she decided. He would have planned everything long before the conference, right?
Learning little except that the conference had been large and while many of the people remembered seeing Jack, they weren’t sure when it was. No one could definitely say they saw him the evening of the murder. Again, she had produced no real evidence.
Discouraged, she got off the phone and went to the airport, hoping to learn something more. The news there was worse. She couldn’t get anyone to talk about the private planes or their owners, let alone tell her anything about Jack Marshall on the night of the murder.
Wondering if she should just give up and go home, she called her sister, who was finally out of court. “I think you might be right about me not being a detective,” she said when Josie answered.
Her sister laughed. “You knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
“I’ve found out a few things, figured out some others, but we need evidence. We need that woman’s name. Better yet, Russ says, we need her body.”
“That sounds so morbid.”
“It is.”
“We? I’m assuming that’s you and Detective Tate? Am I sensing that the two of you are getting close?”
Josie had never asked about her love life because it had never been worth asking about. But after Amy Sue had chosen wrong and almost paid the ultimate price for it, her sister worried.
“You don’t have to worry about the cowboy detective. It’s not like that.”
“I’m not. I’m worried about you,” Josie said.
“You don’t have to do that either. It’s been strictly professional. His department frowns on him fraternizing with the eyewitness, even the one they don’t believe. Tell me about the trial,” she said hoping that was the end of that particular conversation.
“It’s going well. I should be home next week. What about you?”
Amy Sue looked out at the day turning to dusk. “I might be home by then, too.” She hated the thought. It felt like giving up. But what more could she do?
“Just be careful, please.”
“You know me.”
“That’s just it, I do,” Josie said solemnly. “If you quit, it isn’t because you gave up. This time it’s because the odds were just too much against you.”
The small house was outside of town on a dirt lane and not near any others.
Jack was glad not to see anyone around as he pulled into the empty parking spot next to the house Whitney Clark had rented.
One of the first things he had done after their last night together was report her car as abandoned and have it towed to the junkyard.
If her one and only friend in the area came out here worried about her, he’d hoped she would think Whitney had left town.
It had been another example of Whitney not doing what he’d told her to.
Instead of driving her car to the construction site, she’d taken an Uber.
He’d already planned how he was going to get rid of her car that night.
She’d complicated things for him, not to mention, she hadn’t done what he’d specifically told her to do.
An Uber driver had Whitney’s information, but the only way that would become a problem was if her body was found or her photo made the news.
In retrospect, though, it had worked out better since Amy Sue Brand had surprised him by showing up unexpectedly. Still, too many things had gone wrong that night. Now he found himself questioning what else he might have missed. He’d been confident that no one knew about the two of them.
But he was beginning to realize that she might not have kept her promise to keep them secret given the things he’d learned after he killed her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be sitting in the nondescript, older trade-in he’d borrowed after-hours from the back car lot, dreading going into her rental.
He could no longer trust Whitney Clark. Or his luck.
Had the universe been trying to warn him to abort his plans that night when an Uber pulled up and let her out?
He’d been even angrier with her, even more determined to end it permanently.
Was that why he hadn’t seen the car parked in the dark on the other side of the apartment building?
Now, as he glanced around, he wondered if he was about to make another mistake.
Her house was far enough away from anything and everyone that it should have been safe, but he’d only come here with her once.
From then on, they met at hotels far from the city.
He’d been so careful that this should have been over by now, he thought with growing frustration.
Even though he hadn’t expected to see anyone around, he’d dressed in the older jogging clothes he kept at work. With the hood up, he could hide his head of thick dark curly hair and pale blue eyes—his two most distinguishing features.
“Quit stalling,” he muttered to himself and, pulling on the gloves he’d brought, he used the key he’d taken from her key ring to open the front door. He was hit with the scent of her perfume as he turned on the overhead light.
He’d been surprised how neat and clean the small house had been the other time he was here, so wasn’t surprised to find it looked the same.
He’d liked that she had brightly colored pots of flowers and nice linens in her bath and on her bed.
He now knew just how much she liked nice things and how far she’d go to get them.
Glancing around the small house, his fear was that she’d left something around like a diary or letters that could incriminate him.
Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of places to hide something, he thought as he removed a large garbage bag from his pocket.
The plants were wilted. He’d leave those, taking only what he thought she would have grabbed before hitting the road.
He had no idea when her rent was due, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He didn’t think anyone would be surprised that she’d skipped out and left town without telling anyone—maybe especially her landlord.
In the bedroom, he took most of her clothes, leaving behind ones he’d never liked.
He checked under the bed and in the closet but found nothing more of interest. As he turned to her bedside table, he opened the only drawer.
Nothing exciting. As he started to close the drawer, he noticed the framed photos.
There was one of Whitney and an attractive redhead, the local friend? Whitney & Liz. Best Friends Forever! was written on it along with Love You Roomie. Whitney looked much younger than Liz. College roommates?
He stared at the photo before breaking the frame to see if she’d written anything on the back of the snapshot.
Blank. Again he considered the snapshot, wondering just how good friends they still were and if Whitney had told Liz about him.
Urging himself to hurry, he couldn’t help thinking of the ways Whitney had deceived him.
He’d told her he wasn’t looking for a relationship.
She’d said she felt the same way. She’d lied.
Laura Whitney Clark had even lied about her name he’d realized when he’d gone through her purse.
Whitney was her middle name and she was thirty-two—not twenty-four like she’d claimed.
She’d been in great shape and had certainly passed for much younger, but another lie.
What else had she lied about? He realized he was still holding the photo of her and her best friend. Of course she would have told Liz about them. The only question was did Liz also know his name?
Furiously, he threw the broken frame and the photo into the garbage bag. As he reached for the only other framed photo next to the bed, he froze.
It was a candid selfie of Whitney and a man. It appeared to have been shot at a hotel pool patio. In the photo, the man was checking his phone while she was smiling at her cell camera with him off to one side and slightly behind her. Clearly, she hadn’t wanted him to know she’d taken the photo.
He let out a curse as he picked up the framed photograph.
He’d told her absolutely no photos, and yet here they were together, and he was definitely recognizable as the man in the shot.
When had she taken this? Not that it mattered.
Another lie, another deceit. He smashed the frame against the nightstand, the glass shattering.
He banged it a couple more times, then jerked out the photo and tore it to shreds, dumping all of it into his trash bag.
Trembling with rage at what a close call this had been, he reminded himself that he’d dodged the bullet by coming here.
His instincts had been correct. If this best friend and former roomie became worried about Whitney and had seen this photo and gone to the cops, he would never get them off his back.
His pulse pounded as he thought of how Whitney had manipulated him almost from the beginning with her lies.
Feeling a new urgency to cover his tracks, he moved quickly through the house, taking things he thought she would have taken if she’d been in a hurry to leave town. He broke some things, left drawers open and tossed clothes on the floor. Fortunately, the house was small and minimally furnished.