Sara's Game Part 15

"Watch," he said, throwing the blanket off the cage, revealing the room.

Teddy was a crumpled ma.s.s, bloodier and covered with extra bruises. His body purple and limp. Unconscious, unaware of his impending death.

The tall man lifted his gun, pointed, and paused.

Paused.

Paused.

Paused.

Sara screamed, "Don't-" as he pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 17.

DJ.

DJ sat at his desk, going over a list of LightPulse's female employees while Barker went to check out Rutherford's car for any evidence. The initial feedback had been discouraging, but the Bloodhound was on a trail, and there was no convincing him otherwise.

There were nine women at LightPulse, including Sara, and he'd turned up nothing significant on the first five. Mostly clean, a traffic ticket or two, one instance of a Minor in Possession. Young women fresh out of college. Still in party-mode, first real job, first real paycheck. None of them fit the profile of what he was looking for, but then again, did a sociopath ever reveal her true nature? And since Oregon didn't list eye color on driver's licenses, he examined their ID photos, enhancing them for clarity as much as possible, trying to discern different-colored irises. Considering any one of them could've been wearing contacts to hide that fact, he could almost hear Barker over his shoulder, telling him how pointless it was. Yammering on with some proverb that he'd heard hundreds of times over the years.

What I need, he thought, is an outlier. Something that stands out.

The next two proved to be as unrewarding as the rest. Grandmothers in their sixties. He didn't bother going through their information. It was unlikely either of them could be misconstrued as an attractive twenty-something with a possible b.o.o.b job like the Ladyfingers bartender had suggested.

The last employee didn't come up in his Oregon DMV search. He checked the spelling of her name again. Hmm...still driving with an out of state license, are we? How long have you been here? A couple of months...where are you from...where are you from...California.

There you are, Sh.e.l.ley. Sh.e.l.ley Ann Sergeant. Formerly of San Diego...registered a tan SUV...California driver's license says your eyes are...green.

"s.h.i.t." DJ hurled his mouse at the nearby wall, the cheap plastic shattering into a dozen pieces. Heads whipped around, examined him, and then went back to their calls and case files. Amongst the cluttered desks, with keyboards clacking and phones ringing, frustrated outbursts were common enough that n.o.body paid much attention. As long as you didn't hurt anyone in the process, you got it out, you moved on. Standard norm for a group of people chasing wisps of information, trying to put jigsaw puzzles together in the dark.

Regardless, it'd been a long time since he'd had an outburst like that, and the embarra.s.sment of losing his composure left his cheeks flushed. He crawled across the floor, scooped up the remnants and tossed them in the trashcan. Put his back against the wall.

We screwed up. Chased too many s.h.i.tty leads. I'm wrong, Barker's been wrong about everything.

Sergeant Davis ambled up to DJ's desk, tossed a file down. "Judge denied your request, JonJon, not enough circ.u.mstantial to search the car rentals. Better luck next time, huh?"

DJ stared at the ceiling and beat the back of his head against the wall as Davis waddled away.

He called Barker, hoping he'd made some progress.

"Go for Barker."

"Any luck?"

"Waitress across the street saw a tall guy park the car sometime this morning. Said he left and never came back."

"Tall guy, huh? Think it's the same one?"

"Has to be. Too convenient."

"Can she identify him?"

"Dressed in black, dark hair. That's about it. Sent some blood samples back. Hope we'll be able to identify Rutherford from it, but we've got another clog in the drainpipes."

"What's that?"

"Found two receipts from yesterday in the center console. Guess where the first one's from?"

"Where?"

"No, really. Guess."

"Barker."

"Ladyfingers, for eighty-four dollars."

"d.a.m.n it. I was sure he-"

"Hold up now, don't get your panties in a wad. Time-stamped at eight-fifteen, so he was there, but considering the amount of blood in his car and the second receipt, I'm about to give in and say you were right."

"About what?"

"About Rutherford not being involved with Miss Stardust. Not directly, anyway. Ladyfingers is a connection, but the second one is from Hotel Llewellyn. Our boy may not have been home last night."

"Easier to frame somebody when they're not home."

"Doesn't mean he wasn't removing himself from the situation."

"If the connection's there, it's there, but I won't say I told you so about him not being involved."

"Wild a.s.s guesses don't make you a genius, cowboy, but your instincts are getting better."

"Wouldn't worry about me being a genius. Came up empty on the heterochromia."

"The what?"

"The different colored eyes thing. None of the women at LightPulse have it, from what I can tell."

"Hate to break it to you, but I didn't figure she'd be that close to home. Where are you with the rental records?"

"Denied. Not enough evidence."

"No s.h.i.t? I figured Carson would be all over this one. He's usually Quick Draw McGraw when it comes to missing kids."

"Guess it takes more than a stripper in a hospital bed. So, what's next?"

"Face time, JonJon. Ask questions. No more chasing ghosts. Gotta pound the ground before this one gets too far away from us."

"Like it hasn't already."

"Finish this one for me. When one door closes..."

"Another one opens?"

"No. You kick that son of a b.i.t.c.h off its hinges. Now get your chin off your chest, put your helmet on, and get back out there for the second half, got me?"

"Got it, coach."

"Back to the basics, DJ. I'm sticking with the car and the giant for now. Check for witnesses around the schools, check the babysitter-h.e.l.l, check garbage cans. Check out anybody who's tweaked your whodunit instinct. We're missing something simple, I can feel it."

"Will do." DJ hung up, thinking, If it were simple, Barker, we'd have figured it out already.

DJ took out a notepad and began to draw a mind map of everything he knew about the case. Sara Winthrop and her three missing children were at the center of it all. The outward lines connected to Teddy Rutherford, Jim Rutherford, her a.s.sistant, Sh.e.l.ley, and the seven other women who worked at LightPulse. Willow Bluesong, the babysitter who hadn't been home when they'd stopped by. Reluctantly, he added Brian Winthrop, but only because he knew Barker would've demanded that he be included. He added the schools, their principles, the ice cream shop. The tall man, the mystery woman. Ladyfingers and Stardust. By the time he was finished, it looked like a never-before-seen constellation and sparked no new sense of direction.

He came up with a reason to draw an X over each person and place on the chart. Jim Rutherford had behaved oddly because he was trying to protect his son. Teddy Rutherford was either missing or dead. They knew almost nothing about the tall man or the mystery woman, except that they were working together. The schools had already told them everything they knew. He wrote 'Ghost' underneath Brian Winthrop's name and 'Collateral' under Anna Townsend's.

He crossed out everyone with good reason.

Everyone except Willow Bluesong and Sh.e.l.ley Sergeant.

He decided to start with them, and if neither one could provide anything fresh, he'd move on to friends and family. Beyond that-as much as he hated the idea, and Barker loathed it because it made him feel inadequate-they would have to get the press involved.

The last they'd heard of Sara Winthrop, she was on foot, running away from the Rose Gardens. If she were still playing this game- Are you ready to play the game?

-and if she were still racing around Portland, surely someone would've spotted a distraught and harried woman. They'd have to get pictures of her and her kids on the news, issue an alert.

It felt good to be going in a concrete direction, regardless of the fact that he had no idea where it was heading. The case hadn't gotten away from them yet, not completely, and he left for Willow Bluesong's house, excited that something tangible might be on the horizon.

She wasn't what he had expected.

"Mrs. Bluesong?" he asked when she answered the door.

"Yes?" she said, pushing her waist-length, graying braids over her shoulder. "Miss, actually," she added, smoothing down her tie-dyed dress.

The hesitant smile and ratty Birkenstocks screamed innocence, and DJ had to remind himself not to a.s.sume. a.s.s out of you and me. "Detective Johnson, ma'am."

She smiled. "And I'm Miss Willow, sir."

"Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"What's this about?"

"Sara Winthrop."

Her smile disappeared, her hand rushing up to cover her gaping mouth. "Is she okay?"

"May I come in?"

"She's not dead, is she?"

"Not that we-we're trying to-I think it's best that we sit down."

"How'd it happen?" She fell against the doorjamb.

"I'm sorry-I didn't mean-she's not dead...that we know of. Missing. She and her children."

"That you know of? What does that mean?"

He sighed. It never got any easier. A couple of wrong words and the message drifted like a rudderless boat. "We're a.s.sessing the facts. If you could give me five or ten minutes, I could use your help."

"But is she okay?"

"I-we don't know yet. But whatever you can offer-"

"I just saw her this morning. Oh G.o.d, okay. Come in, come in." She pushed the door open further and motioned him inside.

DJ stepped across the threshold, greeted by incense blended with the scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. He followed her down the hallway, shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor. Dusty picture frames sat on dustier shelves. Miss Willow in her younger days, smiling beside a thin, scraggly man with a hippie mane and a ZZ Top beard. No children, except for the couple of recent photos where she posed beside Sara's kids, all of their smiles beaming. At a park, one perched above the other on a slide. Another with her balancing opposite them on a seesaw.

She led him into the living room, offered him tea and cookies as he sat on the brown, forest-print couch. He declined. She insisted.

And a couple of minutes later, DJ bit into one of the best chocolate chip cookies he'd ever tasted.

Miss Willow sat on the edge of her recliner, sipping her tea. "How-how serious is this, Detective?"

DJ sat the plate of cookies down on the coffee table, licked his fingers. "Unfortunately, we're treating it as a multiple kidnapping and a missing person, at least for now."

"Kidnapping? What happened?"

"Like I said, we're a.s.sessing the situation. As of right now, all four of them are missing. Under-we think under different circ.u.mstances."

"That's horrible."

"You said you saw Mrs. Winthrop and her children this morning?"

"She stopped by before she took them to school."

"And she sounded okay to you? Mention anything bothering her?"

She shook her head, blew cool air over the tea. "She was rushed. Who isn't with three kids? Don't get me wrong, I love the three of them like they're my own, but they're a handful."