Chapter 38
JEREMIAH
“The good news is, Lennon only has four female subs,” Mateo said.
“The bad news is that none of their names are familiar. We’ve got Allison Watts from Maine, Emery Ballston from Illinois, Dana Matthews from Texas, and Lisa DeWalt from Florida.
None of them have any connection to Wyoming, as far as I can tell.
I can keep digging, but we might have hit a dead end on Lennon’s subs. ”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Dammit. What kind of self-respecting stalker turns up his—”
“Her,” Holly corrected.
“Her nose at having that kind of access? Lennon made herself available to subs three times a week, and you’re telling me her stalker had no interest in that?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ll keep digging.” Mateo spun his chair back to his computer. “Maybe I’m missing something.”
I pulled up the tracker app on my phone. Lennon was still in the kitchen. My breath came a little easier. “Maybe Ciaran sent us on a wild goose chase. He could be wrong. Maybe the stalker isn’t a woman and we’re wasting time focusing on the wrong thing.”
“He’s not wrong,” Holly said. “He’s never wrong.”
Mateo pushed up his glasses and squinted at the screen. “Everyone’s wrong sometime. But we haven’t ruled out this theory yet.”
I leaned over Mateo’s shoulder. “See if you can pull up their driver’s license. Maybe their faces will be familiar.”
“I already crosschecked their names with our guest records and former employee records. No hits. But I should be able to hack into the DMV and find their photo IDs. The Russians do it all the time. How hard can it be?”
Holly snorted. “Wow. I feel so safe.”
“No one’s information has been safe since 1999. You know that.”
Anxiety got the better of me. I pushed to my feet. “Can we fucking focus, please? We have a goddamn stalker to catch. Before he catches Lennon,” I added pointedly.
“She,” Holly corrected automatically.
I ground my molars together. Lennon’s stalker was a fucking woman? I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around it. It hadn’t even occurred to me. What else hadn’t occurred to me? What else had I missed?
I checked my phone again. Lennon was still in the kitchen. At least she was safe.
Seb burst through the door. “Lennon—”
My blood turned to ice. “She’s not here. She’s in the kitchen.” I looked at the app again to verify. Still hadn’t moved.
Seb’s gaze swiveled around the room like he didn’t believe it. “She’s not in the kitchen. Fuck! Amos is down. Liam is calling paramedics. There’s a man—he’s dead. I don’t know who the fuck he is, but he’s dead.”
Lennon. My lips parted but I couldn’t force her name past them.
“Lennon is gone. Cecily, too. I don’t know if they managed to hide, or if someone took them. But they’re gone, Jay.”
Panic punched my chest hard and fast. I tried to breathe around it and only managed a shallow gasp.
In through the nose, hold, out through pursed lips.
I repeated the instructions to myself that I had given to others countless times.
Lennon needed me to focus. I wasn’t any good to her if I passed out.
I breathed.
And then I was on the move, Holly at my heels. “Stay,” I barked to Mateo. “Keep looking. We need faces.”
I burst through the kitchen doors at a run. My head swiveled as I took in the scene. A body on the floor. Blood everywhere. Amos slumped against the wall, holding an ice pack to his head, his knees drawn up to his chest and his feet flat.
Liam stood next to him, his phone pressed to his ear. He covered the mouthpiece with his palm. “Sheriff,” he said.
I nodded and kept moving to the back door.
There were a few cars parked in the gravel lot behind the lodge.
I took a photo of what was there to check against our records.
My gaze roamed over the ground. Gravel didn’t tend to leave footprints, but I could make out the faintest disturbance leading away from building.
I followed it, my gaze sweeping back and forth.
And then I saw it, two feet away, glinting in the sunshine.
Lennon’s phone.
Everything in me seized. For a moment I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. All I could do was feel. Terror. I was consumed by it.
Focus. My training kicked in. I picked up her phone and scanned the area again. No blood that I could see, other than the little patch by the door. It was from Amos. On autopilot, I headed back inside.
“Amos.” I dropped to a squat next to him. “You okay?”
He grimaced. “Got hit from behind. Didn’t see him. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Was Cecily here?”
He nodded, wincing. His eyes closed. “She was here. If he hurt her, I’ll kill him.”
I glanced over at the body. “I think that’s been taken care of. Looks like someone whacked him with a ham hock.”
His eyes squinted open. “My ham hock? I had plans for that.”
His words were slurred. I straightened and looked at Liam. “Concussion.”
He nodded. “His eyes couldn’t follow my finger.”
“Come get me when the sheriff arrives.”
I stalked back to the office. My throat felt like it was closing up. My limbs felt heavy and numb. Where the hell was Lennon?
Mateo looked up as I entered. “I printed out three IDs. Didn’t recognize any of them. Working on getting into the Texas DMV now. Here we go—I’m in.”
Mateo’s fingers moved quickly over the keyboard, and a moment later, Dana Matthews appeared on the screen.
All the air left my lungs.
“Fuck,” Mateo whispered.
The license said Dana Matthews.
But the face was Cecily Shepherd.