Chapter One #2
The area they’d been actively searching for the last week was about three hours north of San Francisco.
It was four-cornered, with Mendocino and Fort Bragg to the west on the coast and Willits and Ukiah to the east in a valley.
It should have been trapezoidal in shape, but there were redwood forests and mountains and extremely twisty roads connecting west to east, so it was more like a bumpy squashed oval.
“Did they catch who did it?” Elle asked, genuinely interested.
“They did. They got the lead from someone in prison who traded the info for his freedom because he was dying, and then the former Angel who owned the land where the bodies were buried testified and went into witness protection. I’ve got lots of stories like that one, if you want to hear more.
Let’s keep going, though. There are still a few places I wanted to show you. ”
Elle tapped her mount with her heels, and the biddable mare resumed her easy walk.
They’d considered renting some ATVs or just driving up the road, but they’d encountered electronic gates and high fences, so they’d decided a guided tour would give them the lay of the land in the daylight without anyone asking them what they were up to.
They’d been able to get closer to the old Miller farm on horseback than by car.
They’d come back later that night to search on foot, now that they knew the property was home to growers. It really would be the perfect place for a fugitive to hide from the cops.
And from the bounty hunters.
“Why don’t the property owners get rid of the illegal growers if they know they’re there?” Sara asked as she and Elle followed Kasey to the next site on their guide’s list.
“They’re cagey, the growers. Move around a lot. Use camouflage so you can’t see them from the air. It’s pretty high-tech. There’s a lot of money at stake—from what I understand,” Kasey added hastily. “I don’t know anyone who has an illegal grow.”
Elle suspected that at least some of the property owners knew but either didn’t want violence or maybe got a cut of the profits. She didn’t want to meet any of the growers to ask them.
Sara made a frustrated noise, having retrieved her sat phone again. She sighed when she read the message. “I am so sorry, Kasey. We need to be going.”
“Already?” Kasey looked disappointed.
“I am so sorry,” Sara said again. “It’s an emergency.”
Elle glanced at Sara in concern, but there was no worry in her friend’s eyes. There was, in fact, a sparkle that said she’d had good news.
“We’ll pay you for the whole tour, of course,” Sara added. “I was having a nice time, too.”
Elle wondered if that was true. Elle had been having a nice time. It had been years since she’d had the time to ride, but Sara looked at most activities as a means to an end. They’d been looking for information on the Miller property, and Sara must have felt like they’d gotten what they’d come for.
Elle wasn’t so sure, but she wasn’t the boss. Sara was.
So she turned the mare around and headed back.
Mendocino, California
Tuesday, January 20, 9:20 a.m.
“Dammit.” Detective Ronan Clarke stepped back from the body, sorrow tightening his chest. “Who found her?”
The victim was Dianne Foster, the owner of the Navarro River Inn.
Ronan had known her since he was a bratty teenager.
She was in her late sixties, and running the inn had been her second career.
Her first had been teaching at the local high school.
She’d been Ronan’s teacher for freshman and senior English.
He remembered her crying at the sad parts in books.
In her spare time, she’d volunteered with the humane society, and she always had at least one hotel room readied for survivors of domestic violence who were on the run from their abusive spouses.
She was one of the kindest women Ronan had ever known.
But now she lay on the floor behind the hotel’s front desk, blood pooled beneath her head. The blood had begun to dry around the edges, but rigor hadn’t yet set in. She’d been here for at least a few hours. A bronze award statue lay nearby, covered in her blood.
Goddammit. She’d been such a gentle soul.
“I did.” Mary Walker wiped at her eyes. “I came in for my shift and called out good morning, just like I always do. But no one said anything. I noticed the cash register was open, but the money was still in there. Then I came round the counter and…” Her voice broke as she reached for a box of tissues.
Ronan had known Mary even longer than he’d known Dianne. Mary had babysat Ronan when he was in elementary school. She’d worked in the sewing store until Dianne had bought the inn and hired her as the manager.
Mary manned the desk during the day shift.
The two women had been best friends.
“What time?” Ronan asked. He slid the box of tissues out of Mary’s reach, handing her his cotton handkerchief instead. They’d take fingerprints from the tissue box, just in case Dianne’s killer had touched it.
They’d fingerprint damn near everything in the hotel. Many of the officers in the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department had grown up here on the coast, including Ronan. Most of them had known Dianne. They’d find who did this.
Mary wiped her red and swollen eyes. “It was about quarter to nine. I work nine to five, Monday through Saturday. Dianne worked the night shift.”
“I thought she hired Ben Stone to cover overnights.”
“Ben moved to Santa Rosa about two months ago. Got a better-paying job. Dianne was trying to hire someone, but…” She trailed off with a shrug.
Santa Rosa was the closest major city and where so many of their young people were going. There or San Francisco or LA.
Sometimes they came back. Most of the time they didn’t.
Ronan was relieved that his own daughter didn’t plan to move away. Penny was going to work for the clinic in town when she finished her RN degree. Just a few more months to go.
He dreaded telling her that Dianne was dead. She’d loved the innkeeper.
Everyone had loved Dianne. Except whoever had killed her.
“Did you touch the money in the cash register?” Ronan asked.
Mary shook her head hard. “No. I know better. I saw her and called 911 right away. But I don’t think any of the money is missing. I know how much cash we keep. If they took anything, it wasn’t much.”
“Why do you think the register was open, then?”
“I’m not thinking straight. I’m sorry. I should have led with that. We have a panic button inside the cash drawer that calls 911. She must have been going for that.”
“All right. I’m going to need a list of all the employees and the guests.”
“Back how far for the guests?”
“A week for now. Also, I’ll need access to your surveillance cameras.”
“Of course.” Mary squared her shoulders. “Anything you need. What should we tell the current guests?”
“That Mrs. Foster has passed away. Tell them all questions should be directed to the sheriff’s department. Don’t talk to the press, please.”
“As if I would. Dianne was my best friend. I want to see whoever hurt her punished.”
“Same here,” Ronan said grimly. “Let’s go take a look at the surveillance footage.”
Mary led him to the office, opening it with her key, as the door was locked. Then she froze in the doorway, staring in dismay.
The room had been thoroughly searched. File drawers were open, folders and papers littering the floor. The desk had also been emptied and the desktop computer was now just fragments of plastic and glass. Someone had smashed it to pieces.
“Oh no,” Mary murmured. “I wonder if she caught them in here and they killed her.”
That had been Ronan’s first thought as well. “Please tell me your files are backed up to the cloud.”
“No. Sorry.”
Well, shit. “Where is the surveillance system?”
Please don’t have been in that empty space on the bookshelf. It was the most conspicuously empty spot in the room.
Of course, Mary pointed to the empty space on the bookshelf.
“It was there. It was an older system. Dianne kept meaning to replace it with one that recorded to the cloud, but there was always something more urgent to repair or replace. This system recorded to a hard drive. It was all in the same place. The whole thing is gone.”
Ronan held back a sigh. “Where were your guest files?”
“On that desktop computer.”
Ronan bet that the hard drive had been taken from the computer’s shattered remains. “Can you write down the names of your employees and any guests you remember?”
“Yes, of course. We haven’t had too many guests. Most of the tourists won’t start coming till May or June. But you know that. I’m sorry, Ronan. I’m babbling.”
“Don’t you ever apologize to me,” he said gently.
“Why don’t you wait outside? It’s not an awful day.
Just misty. Not too rainy.” A miracle considering they were in the rainy season.
“You’ll stay dry on the porch.” Where there were cozy rocking chairs made by local artisans.
Mary would be more comfortable there, he hoped.
And she wouldn’t have to keep looking at Dianne’s body.
Mary nodded dully. “Okay.” She paused to look at her friend’s body, then made an angry noise in her throat. “Her brooch. It’s gone.”
Ronan followed her gaze to the lapel of Dianne’s jacket.
He knew exactly what she meant. Dianne had worn that brooch every day since he’d met her as a fourteen-year-old high school freshman.
Probably years before that, too. A simple amethyst brooch, it had been a gift from her late husband and she’d cherished it.
“It is. I’ll make sure it goes into the report. We’ll check out the pawnshops.”
Mary cleared her throat. “Will you notify her nephew?”
Oh, you bet I will. “Yes. I’ll do that as soon as I get the crime lab out here to start processing the scene.” Mary’s nephew would be Ronan’s first stop. The no-good SOB was a waste of space. Spent all day getting high and all night scrounging for the cash to get high again.