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Deputy Morgan glanced at the Ranger, then at her, and Amanda realized she hadn’t introduced them. She quickly covered the bases and tugged on gloves
“Did you get anything from the phone?” Justin asked.
“Her last call was to a girl named Anise yesterday about ten a.m. After that, there were dozens of messages from the father and fiancé.”
Amanda took the phone and clicked to listen to a couple. Each message sounded more frantic and panicked. “Fisher and Lambert both sound worried,” she said.
“What about texts?” Justin asked.
Amanda checked the text log. “There’s a couple from Fisher. He sounds more and more anxious as the night wore on.”
“Fits with what they told us,” Justin commented.
She continued to scroll backward. “Wait a minute. There’s one here that came in yesterday about nine a.m. It’s from someone named Hailey. She asked Kelly to meet her at the cabins I saw on that rental sign. Something about a surprise for her fiancé.”
“We need talk to her. She may have had the last communication with Kelly.”
Amanda handed him the phone. “You want to call the tech team and have them trace that text?”
“Sure.” He glanced at the deputy. “Did you call a crime team in?”
The deputy nodded. “They should be here any minute.”
Amanda tried to recall if there had been a girl named Hailey in their graduating class, but couldn’t remember one. Maybe Kelly had met her at college instead of in Sunset Mesa. Or maybe she was a real-estate developer or event planner.
She shone her flashlight along the road as she followed the deputy, her heart hammering when he pointed out the blood trail near the car. Determined not to miss anything, she snapped photos of the car and surrounding area.
The driver’s door was open, the front window and bumper smashed, the weeds and brush crushed from the weight of footsteps—or a body.
Blood dotted the front seat and was splattered against the steering wheel.
But there was no sign of Kelly anywhere.
Except for her purse. It had fallen onto the floor, probably from the impact. Kelly’s lipstick, wallet and compact, along with other miscellaneous items, had spilled across the mat.
Amanda picked up the wallet and looked inside. Driver’s license and credit cards intact. Fifty dollars.
Not a robbery.
A cold chill swept over Amanda.
Judging from the blood on the seat, Kelly was injured. Although the amount of blood didn’t suggest there was enough blood loss to kill her.
But since had been injured, she’d been easy prey, too weak to fight off a kidnapper or escape.
Chapter Five
Justin looked up and down the road while he waited on tech to check the phone records. The tire marks needed to be photographed and studied—maybe they could discern the make of the car from the prints.
They might even get lucky and find some forensics evidence to help them.
The tech cleared his throat into the phone. “Okay, the text from Hailey came from a burner phone. There’s no way to trace it or find out who bought the phone.”
Dammit. “What about the fiancé’s phone records? He said he received a text from Kelly saying she was going to spend the night with a friend named Betty Jacobs. But Betty said she didn’t come over. Did Kelly call the Jacobs girl?”
A slight hesitation, and Justin heard computer keys tapping, then the tech’s voice again. “There’s a minute-long call to Betty Jacobs yesterday morning about eight o’clock but nothing afterward.”
Justin headed down the hill to examine the car, noting the blood splatters on the car door. “Check Fisher’s records.”
Another moment passed and Justin reached Amanda. She and the deputy were searching the trees surrounding the car crash.
He shone a flashlight and caught sight of a partial footprint to the left, then noticed a stiletto heel stuck in a patch of weeds.
“Sergeant Thorpe,” the crime tech said. “I just examined Fisher’s phone and you won’t believe this, but the text that Kelly received from the burner phone—well, that came from the same phone that sent the message to Fisher saying Kelly wouldn’t be home that night.”
“So Kelly didn’t send that text to Fisher. The kidnapper did.”
“I’m surprised Fisher didn’t notice that the number was different.”
“There are a lot of their friends in town for the reunion. Maybe he thought she was using one of their phones.”
The facts clicked together in Justin’s mind, giving him a good idea of what had happened. He told the tech to keep looking at all the phone records from Lambert, Fisher and Kelly, then hung up and called out to Amanda.
“Did you find something?” Amanda asked.
“A shoe.” He pointed to the foliage and Amanda raced over, then knelt to examine it. Her gaze shot back and forth from the car door to the wooded area and the trail leading back up to the road. “The driver hit Kelly’s car, then dragged her from the crash and forced her into his vehicle.”
Justin nodded. “That’s how it appears.” He sighed. “I just talked to tech. The text Kelly received asking her to meet this person Hailey was sent from a burner phone.”
“So Hailey could be a fake name?”
“Probably. The text Kelly supposedly sent Fisher saying she was going to her friend Betty’s house for the night—that was a fake. It came from the same burner phone.”
Amanda ran a hand through her hair. “I assume there’s no way to trace the number?”
“Afraid not. The texts were obviously a setup.”
Amanda winced. “Someone lured her out here with the intention of kidnapping her and doing God knows what else.” She gestured toward a shoe in the bushes. “The question is why? And if he went to all that trouble to lure her out here, then our unsub targeted her specifically.”
He admired her logical mind. “That’s true. Up until now, we wondered if the victims were chosen randomly. Now we know that someone specifically wanted Kelly Lambert.”
“But who?” Amanda asked. “So far Mr. Lambert and Fisher seem to be telling the truth.”
“Let’s talk to Kelly’s ex-boyfriend,” Justin said. “Maybe he wanted her back badly enough to kidnap her.”
* * *
AMANDA CONSIDERED HIS comment. It was a very likely scenario. Especially if Terry Sumter was obsessed with Kelly and was desperate to win her back.
Although they had to look at all angles.
“That’s a possibility,” Amanda said. “But there’s another one that might fit.”
“What?”
“Maybe another woman wanted Raymond and decided to get Kelly out of the way so she could move in on him.”
Justin frowned. “We’ll talk to Kelly’s girlfriends and Fisher’s male friends. Hopefully one of them can give us some insight there.” He gestured toward the car. “We might luck out and find a print or hair that the kidnapper left behind.”
The sound of an engine rumbling echoed from the road, and they all climbed the hill together. The crime van rolled up, techs spilling out with their kits. Amanda thanked the deputy and asked him to go back to the office to man the phones and follow up with the bank. By now, Kelly’s photograph should have gone into the system. They could only hope someone would call in with a lead.
Another officer brought a police dog and began to search the area.
The head of the unit introduced himself as Lieutenant Gibbons, then pointed out the other workers by name. A redheaded woman named Petunia, a chubby guy named Larry, a rail-thin guy with funky glasses named Jerry, and the guy with the dog was named Herbert.
Amanda explained what they’d discovered so far and handed over the shoe to be bagged and sent to the lab. The next hour they scoured the area in case Kelly had somehow escaped, but finally even the dog team gave up.
“We’ll take a cast of the tire print,” Lieutenant Gibbons said. “And we’re going over the car with a magnifying glass.”
“Run the paint sample through the lab, too,” Justin said. “Maybe the paint was custom designed for a particular vehicle.”
Amanda checked her watch. “It’s getting late, but I want to talk to the bridal party tonight.” She removed her phone and called Fisher. “Call everyone in the bridal party and tell them to meet me at the sheriff’s office in half an hour.”
“Did you find something?” The young man’s voice warbled as if he’d been crying.
“We’ll talk when Sergeant Thorpe and I get there.”
She disconnected, dread balling in her stomach. Telling Kelly’s fiancé and father about finding the car would be difficult. If they’d harbored any shred of hope that Kelly had simply gone away for a couple of days without telling anyone, the fact that they’d found blood would kill that hope.
* * *
JUSTIN STUDIED THE group of young men and women who’d gathered in the sheriff’s office.
Kelly’s bridesmaids and best friends—Betty Jacobs, Anise Linton, Mona Pratt and Eleanor Goggins—were all attractive women in their twenties, although they were a mixture of brunettes, blondes and redheads.
Any one of them could have fit the profile of the victims who’d disappeared over the past few years. So far, the kidnapper didn’t have a clear MO, which had slowed down the police in connecting the cases in the beginning. Normally a kidnapper/killer chose a certain type—all blondes or brunettes or redheads. This unsub seemed to have no preference for hair color or body type or career choice.
Except they were all in their twenties and lived in Texas.
The groomsmen looked nervous as they settled into wooden chairs. Glenn Cates, Danny Latt and Lance Stephens. Fisher’s father, Ernie, was his best man. He stood beside his son with a hand on his shoulder.
Raymond looked even worse tonight, the strain of the day wearing on him.
Amanda had taken Kelly’s father to her back office to explain to him about the car and their findings.
“I want to thank you all for coming,” Justin said.
“Did you find Kelly?” Mr. Fisher asked.
Justin shook his head. “I’m afraid not, but we did find her car.”
Raymond jerked his head up, while the others exchanged worried looks.
“Where?” Ernie Fisher asked.
“Out on Old River Mill Road.”
“What was she doing there?” Raymond asked.
Justin crossed his arms, studying the group for their reactions—any sign that one of them might have already known about the car. But he caught no signs of deceit on their faces, only fear and worry.
“Our tech department studied the text that you received, Mr. Fisher, the one supposedly sent from Kelly telling you she was spending the night with Betty.”
“What do you mean, ‘supposedly sent’?”
“That text was sent from a burner phone, not from Kelly’s. That same phone sent a message to Kelly asking her to meet the person out on Old River Mill Road.”
Fisher’s eyes widened in horror. “Someone tricked her into going out there.”
“That’s correct,” Justin said. “Whoever it was sent you that text so you wouldn’t realize she was missing until the next day.”
Gasps and whispers rumbled through the group.
Raymond paced over to Justin, his breath wheezing out. “Someone kidnapped her, didn’t they?”
Justin swallowed hard. “It appears that way, Mr. Fisher. Her car had been run off the road and crashed into a ditch. We also found a small amount of blood on the seat.”
Fisher’s face crumpled with emotions. “Oh, my god. She might be...hurt or gone like those other women.”
“Why her?” Betty sniffled. “Everyone loved Kelly.”
“She was so excited about her wedding,” the girl named Anise said.
“And the shower,” Eleanor added. “She couldn’t wait to open the gifts and move into her new house.”
Mona wiped tears from her eyes and hugged Eleanor.
Justin made a low sound in his throat. “Can any of you think of anyone who’d want to hurt her?”
Heads shook, mumbled nos resounding through the room.
Amanda stepped from the back with Lambert who looked ashen-faced and distraught. “Please call us if you receive a ransom call,” Amanda told him.
He nodded, then looked over at Fisher, pain radiating from him. “Have you heard anything, Ray?”
Raymond shook his head no, rubbing his bleary eyes.
Amanda rapped her fingers on the desk. “Ladies, I’d like to talk to you individually.”
