A chill raced up her spine.
If he’d known Sophie, his name would have come up at some point in the past decade, wouldn’t it? After her sister had disappeared, she’d done everything possible to get the media involved, but there was always something more interesting going on in the world, and the police received hardly any tips. Since Jessie had been taking care of Olivia during the day and working nights, she didn’t know who Sophie hung out with other than a woman named Juliette. And Juliette had told her that Sophie was a loner and had few friends.
She still didn’t know the identity of Olivia’s father. There were only two men Jessie had talked to in the past ten years who admitted to having spent time with Sophie. One of those men told Jessie outright that her sister liked sex, plain and simple. He said she would hang out at one bar or another, looking for someone to show her a good time. And it never took her long to find what she was looking for. The other guy she’d talked to hinted at the same thing. Both fellows agreed to take a lie-detector test and have blood drawn. Neither ended up being Olivia’s father, and both were telling the truth about not having seen Sophie in the weeks leading up to her disappearance.
“Are you there?” Ben asked.
His voice gave her a jolt. “I’m here.” Her mind swirled with speculation. “Can you tell me where you met my sister?”
“It’s complicated.”
If he knew anything at all about Sophie, then she needed to meet with him.
Jessie looked at her calendar. “How about tomorrow at ten o’clock in my office?” She gave him the address.
“I’ll see you then.”
She hung up the phone and turned on her computer. She typed his name into the search bar and hit “Return.” The name Ben Morrison popped up in a long list of search items.
She clicked on the first link.
Just like he’d told her, he worked for the Sacramento Tribune. His bio talked about him being a family man who’d been married for nine and a half years. He and his wife had two children—a boy and a girl. Apparently he’d been in a horrific car accident near Blue Canyon, past Colfax.
Wow, Jessie thought. Six months after his accident, he married the nurse he’d met at the hospital where he’d been recovering. Interesting.
She read on. He’d escaped the burning vehicle but suffered severe head trauma along with third-degree burns on more than half of his body. He was eventually diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, which prevented him from accessing memories prior to the crash. But he’d said he might have known Sophie. Did that mean his memories were returning?
She clicked on images of Ben Morrison.
He was a big man, broad-shouldered and tall, at least three inches over the six-foot mark. He had a square jaw and hooded eyes. He would be hard to miss in a crowd and easy to recognize tomorrow when he came to visit. Something about him, though, gave her goose bumps. Maybe it was the hawkish stare or the fact that he wasn’t smiling in any of the pictures. Whatever it was, she told herself she would have to be cautious.
Did she really want a stranger’s help?
Yes, she wanted answers. Yes, she wanted to know where her sister was. But the idea of having her family’s story dragged through the mud and left wide-open for public scrutiny when Olivia was starting high school didn’t sit well with her.
Damn. She never should have agreed to meet with the man.
She thought about calling him back, then changed her mind. If Ben Morrison knew anything about her sister’s disappearance—anything at all—then she needed to know what it was. Not a day went by that she didn’t wonder whether her sister was dead or alive.
TWELVE
Colin stood on the side of a frontage road that ran parallel to Highway 80. This morning’s briefing concerning the Heartless Killer case had been short. A career criminal apprehension team (CCAT) would continue to work surveillance and talk to witnesses from past crime scenes connected to the killer in hopes of coming across a new lead.
Unlike mass murderers, whose rage often erupted in one catastrophic act of vengeance, serial killers did whatever they could to escape detection. Even with the advancement of investigative techniques, there was only so much forensics could accomplish. Unless the killer was betrayed by an accomplice, identified by a relative, or grew overly confident and, in turn, increasingly careless, he could go on killing for years to come. It had been documented that about 20 percent of all serial killers were never brought to justice for their crimes.
It was times like this that Colin felt for every detective who’d worked the case and would never get back time missed with loved ones.
Six years. Thirteen victims—that they knew of—and one frustrating dead end after another. He’d known what he was getting into when he’d become a police officer and then an investigator. He knew about the potential dangers, the long and irregular hours, and the stress that came with such a position. But chasing after a killer who’d been plucking victims from the street for years on end made him feel powerless.
Shortly after the briefing, Colin had gotten word of a missing girl from Elk Grove, a city in Sacramento County south of the state capital. As he stood there now, he watched the tow truck drive off with Erin Hayes’s Subaru attached to the flatbed. The girl had been missing for forty-eight hours. Her car would be taken to the lab, where they would check for fingerprints, traces of blood, and hair and fibers.
There wasn’t much traffic in the area. No witnesses so far. Footprints outside the driver’s door appeared to belong to Erin. They would know more later.
Levi Hooper with the forensics unit finished talking to the photographer, then headed Colin’s way. “No trace evidence as far as I can see with the naked eye.”
“If those are Erin’s footprints,” Colin said, following the path with a pointed finger, “which is likely, she never walked to the back of the car to check out the flat tire, and she didn’t walk along the side of the road, either.” He pointed at the distinct prints in the dirt. “The shoe prints disappear onto pavement, which tells me someone showed up and gave her a ride immediately after she got the flat.”
“Agreed. Nothing here has been disturbed. No signs of a struggle. No personal belongings left behind.”
“The question we need answered,” Colin said, “was someone following her, or was it happenstance?”
For a moment the two men stood there quietly.
Colin’s stomach turned at the thought of a young girl being out there somewhere needing their help.
“I better get to the lab,” Levi said after a while.
“I’m going to head over to Elk Grove to talk to the girl’s family,” Colin said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
First thing the next morning, Jessie headed for the offices of Roche and Koontz. It was easier for her to walk than drive. As she passed by the rose garden in Capitol Park, every muscle tensed. Feeling weirdly out of breath, she stopped and looked around. Her heart pounded inside her chest, and her breath caught in her throat as she was brought back to the moment she’d shot Parker Koontz.
What was wrong with her?
It wasn’t just the Koontz incident that was bothering her. It was everything, and it all hit her at once. She walked to a nearby bench and took a seat.
What was she doing with her life? Thirty-four years old, and yet she still didn’t have her shit together. After Mom left, she’d done everything she could to try to keep her family together. But Dad had been unable to bear living without the woman whose only excuse for leaving was that she couldn’t handle the pressure of raising two daughters. After Dad started drinking, Jessie found out her sixteen-year-old sister was pregnant. It had been up to Jessie to pull everyone together, but she’d failed at every turn. First her father. Then Sophie.