Chapter Eleven
Rochelle didn’t realize she was tapping her foot impatiently until Camden glanced in the back seat. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said. “I do the same thing when I’m deep in thought.” He paused a beat. “You were saying you agreed with me about Kage, right?”
“Something is way off in this investigation,” she said. “It’s the reason for the foot tapping.” She’d switched to tapping her thumb on the armrest. Realizing the shift, she clasped her hands in her lap.
“I know,” he agreed.
“But what?”
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” he said with a small laugh. Something needed to break the tension.
“We can’t ignore the fact Kage was photographed leaving the nightclub with Justina on the night she disappeared,” she finally said.
“We’ll take him with us to the Laundromat and see if the owner caught the victim talking to or leaving with Kage,” he said.
“It’s a strange coincidence, isn’t it? Kage visiting both places.” What other reason could there be except the obvious one. Kage was responsible. “And he seemed different this time.”
“The gravity of what he could be charged with hit,” Camden said.
“I noticed that too.” She realized she’d been clenching her fingers together. Breathe.
“Is there any way he could be right about having a doppelg?nger?” Camden asked.
“You always hear people saying that everyone has one,” Rochelle said, compressing her lips. “Not sure that I believe it one hundred percent but the footage of Kage coming out of the club is somewhat grainy.”
“The bartender said he acted differently when he came back inside the bar a second time,” he pointed out. “Could be something there.”
“We can study the footage again once we get home,” she said, but then corrected, “Get to your place.”
“It can’t hurt, right?” he asked, but the question was rhetorical.
“You’re still bothered by the baseball caps, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“You don’t think it could be used to throw people like us off the trail?” she asked.
“I don’t have proof,” he said.
Rochelle studied the path to Kage’s apartment. “He should be back by now.”
“Or at the very least walking toward us,” he said as they both exited the truck in a flurry.
The front door was ajar. Weapons drawn, Camden shouted Kage’s name as they stood at the entrance.
“We’re coming inside,” Camden shouted before entering.
The one-bedroom apartment had old brown carpeting that looked like it belonged in an office in the 1970s. The couch was almost as worn and pitiful-looking. There was a flat-screen TV sitting on wooden crates.
The decor left a lot to be desired. However, nothing was out of place. The kitchen to the right was tidy.
Weapon leading the way, Camden pushed farther inside toward the door leading to what had to be the master bedroom.
The scene inside was similar. Brown carpet. Brown curtains. Brown everything. Nothing out of place.
The window, however, was still open and the curtains were blowing in the wind.
Rochelle bit back the same curse Camden said out loud as they cleared the room before running to the opened window.
There was no sign of Kage. After quickly clearing the whole apartment to make one-hundred-percent certain he wasn’t hiding or trying to pull one over on them, they exited the window and split up.
There was a neighborhood with chain-link fences backing up to the apartment complex.
At the end of the alley Rochelle took, there was a strip shopping center.
She remembered there being a clothing recycling store, phone repair, and furniture consignment.
Spin Cycle was in the opposite direction, the direction Camden had taken. Would Kage go to the Laundromat? Why?
To destroy evidence if there were cameras. It made logical sense.
The fear in his eyes earlier wasn’t as simple. There’d been real fear, like he was suddenly aware of the gravity of the situation and expected to be accused of kidnapping and murder. Now he knew someone had been abducted from the place where he did his laundry.
He’d denied being responsible. Rochelle wanted to believe him. Otherwise, he was one helluva good actor.
She continued jogging, listening for the roar of an engine in case he had a motorcycle stashed somewhere, or the loud barking of dogs that would signal a direction change.
The dogs started barking in both directions, which meant they might not be too far behind Kage.
Running didn’t make him look innocent. Dammit.
Had her instincts been dead wrong? She’d hoped to be able to bring him into the Laundromat.
Rochelle picked up the pace to a light run.
She didn’t want to go full out until she saw him.
Saving some of her energy had paid off when she’d found herself in similar situations in the past.
If they could pin the kidnappings on him, what would happen to the victims while he sat in jail? Would they die of starvation? Were they bound somewhere? Locked in a shelter?
Frustration had her pushing her legs a little harder, a little faster, to the point that her thighs started burning. She couldn’t let these women die. Their blood would be on Rochelle’s hands. Just like when she wasn’t there for Victoria.
Clamping her eyes shut to block out the images of her helpless friend and now, these ladies, Rochelle almost tripped over a large rock in the alley. Dammit.
With a few deep breaths, she managed to push on.
Her foot was going to hurt like the dickens, and she would most likely lose a toenail or two.
There wasn’t time to worry about small injuries even though she had to hop a few times due to the pain.
At least she’d been injured on her left foot instead of her dominant side.
There was no sign of Kage in the alley. Had he outsmarted them by hiding in shrubbery near his apartment? He would know the area better than either of them. A skilled criminal would definitely map the area around his or her home for situations like these, looking for an escape route.
Had they been outsmarted by Kage?
Why did her gut say no?
Kage could be running away so he could search for the doppelg?nger he swore was at work. This fact was all the more reason she wanted to talk to the man. Did he have any idea who this other person could be?
Rochelle slowed her pace as she approached the strip mall. A blast of cold air made her wish she’d worn a heavier jacket.
A dog barked to her right as something jumped out from behind the building on her left.
She gasped, pivoted, and took aim at the moving object. “Police. Freeze.”
Lungs burning, thighs on fire, Camden realized he’d taken off in the wrong direction. After turning around, he sprinted. Could he catch up in time? Had Rochelle already caught Kage?
In Camden’s career, he’d faced plenty of felons with nothing to lose. It wasn’t good and he sure as hell didn’t like Rochelle being in that position if she’d caught up to Kage.
Pushing himself to run faster, he finally caught up to Rochelle, who was in the middle of a serious conversation with a pair of tween-looking boys.
As he located them, he realized she was giving them a dressing-down over startling a police officer.
He had no idea what had just gone down, but decided the boys weren’t likely to make the same mistake in the future after Rochelle finished with them.
Once she excused them, they apologized and took off for what he assumed would be home.
“They could have been shot,” she said, turning to Camden with a panicked look on her face. “And they distracted me from continuing, so I lost Kage. Though, to be fair, I’m not sure I really had him in the first place.”
“He knows this area better than we do,” Camden said, trying to offer some reassurance. He felt her frustration though. “We didn’t have a fair chance. Not once he got a head start.”
“I was beginning to be convinced of his innocence until he pulled a Houdini.”
“Same here,” Camden said. “I did wonder if he was convinced that we were about to arrest him, so he took off to find this doppelg?nger himself.”
“We think too much alike,” she said with a small smile.
Camden shouldn’t like that as much as he did. “Shall we head back to my truck?”
“We should probably stop by and close Kage’s front door before an animal or more tweens get inside,” she said.
“Okay.”
On the way back, Camden’s thoughts kept churning. He glanced at the time. “Victim number two should be with Sandman soon. Are you hungry? We didn’t eat much breakfast.”
“I could eat but, honestly, I’d rather swing by the Laundromat first,” she said. “Give Sandman a little time to do his work before we interrupt.”
“Good points,” he said.
“Plus, there’s no way I could eat and then go directly to the coroner’s office.”
Camden had an iron stomach. It was easy to forget not everyone did. Plus, he’d become a little too good at compartmentalizing his emotions. Stuffing them into drawers, locking them and tossing the key had been his go-to. Rochelle made him want to slow down and figure life out.
Back at the truck, they took their seats and buckled in after closing Kage’s door.
“We were inside his apartment and I didn’t see one single sign that he could be the person we’re searching for,” Rochelle said as he started the engine and then navigated out of the neighborhood.
“We cleared the whole place in the course of trying to locate him too.” He made a right-hand turn. “What sounds good to eat?”
“I should probably say something healthy like a salad or a bowl from one of the many vegetarian places in town, but Torchy’s sounds like heaven right now,” she said.
“Torchy’s it is.” Camden pulled over to check for a close location. Once he found it, he was back in the action, dodging vehicles and trying not to hit pedestrians that came out of seemingly nowhere. Austin streets were like an ant farm.
Shouldn’t students be home for Thanksgiving yet?
On second thought, they might be in the middle of exams. No wonder many appeared like they were sleepwalking. Some most likely hadn’t slept last night. University of Texas at Austin had a reputation for having a rigorous curriculum and being a party school, an odd mix to be sure.
He pulled across the street from Torchy’s, giving up on finding parking in the lot.
A quiet meal while sitting outside on the patio gave him the second wind he needed. Outdoors had a way of replenishing his soul. It was one of many reasons he worked in law enforcement and not at a desk somewhere. He understood and respected his friend Ace’s decision not to become a desk jockey.
When he glanced up, he realized Rochelle was studying him.
“What you said before was right,” she began. “Everyone in law enforcement has a story. What’s yours?”
A distraction could keep him from overthinking the case.
“The person I looked up to the most was a US Marshal long before I was a gleam in my father’s eye,” he said. “On Sunday nights after a barbecue, we’d sit around a fire, and he’d tell us stories about his time in law enforcement.”
“Why did he leave the job?”
“He missed his wife,” he said.
“That might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Rochelle said, dropping her gaze. Those thick, long lashes of hers hooded her hazel eyes.
“They’re something when they’re together,” he said with a smile, unsure he would ever find a love like that in his life. He hadn’t in thirty-five years. Was he getting too old for young love? “Grandpa Lor didn’t romanticize the job, but I could tell he had a healthy respect for his profession.”
“Your grandmother didn’t like him working in a dangerous job?” she asked. It could be difficult to find someone who was willing to be in a relationship with a person who didn’t make it home for dinner every night. Or, if a case really went south, ever.
“It was more like he wanted to be with her, so they saved enough money to buy land and then started the business together,” he explained.
“Grandma Lacey did most of the heavy lifting around the place for years before Grandpa Lor was able to leave the job. He had a foreman he trusted, so that helped with the more physical aspects of horse ranching.”
“Sounds like they figured it all out,” she said.
“All except for their sons,” he said. “My father was a good person who died young. My uncle was a jerk who walked out on his kids after his wife died following childbirth.”
“What about your mom?” she asked.
“She left before Dad died,” he said. He didn’t normally talk about the past with anyone. It was a little too easy to talk to Rochelle. That made her more dangerous than felons with guns. His body could take the hits.
Could his heart?