Dead in Her Tracks (Rogue Winter #2)(17)

A dozen people hustled about in the big grange hall, following Patsy’s orders as they set up for the New Year’s Eve party in two days. Somehow Zane had been assigned duties that required muscle. That was fine with him. His brain was preoccupied, and it felt good to follow someone else’s orders for a change. “Pull that table out from the wall,” Patsy ordered Zane. “People need to be able to walk behind it. We’ll need access to the food from both sides of the table or it’ll take forever for everyone to get fed.”

Zane grabbed the long banquet table and slid it out. Patsy nodded her approval, covered it with a red tablecloth, and pointed at a second table. “That one too.”

Patsy could deftly command a crew, and the people didn’t realize they were working their tails off. The big hall was being cleaned from top to bottom, the decorations were going up, and the sound system and band stage were coming together. Stevie was on decoration duty.

“Eyes on your work, son,” Patsy said.

Zane grinned at the petite woman. She’d caught him eying her daughter’s jeans-clad ass as Stevie stood on a ladder, stretching to attach a banner. “Yes, ma’am.” He slid the second table into place and then followed Patsy to the storage area to bring out more chairs.

Tonight he could pretend Solitude wasn’t deep in the middle of unsolved murders. Yesterday he’d talked to a Medford Police Department investigator about the two missing women from his town. The detective had admitted they’d exhausted all their leads. One of the women had struggled with depression and drug addiction, and he believed she might have left town on her own. But the other young woman had been active in her community and had left behind a boyfriend and family who were distraught and confused.

“You’re looking at the cases as being related, right?” Zane had asked.

“I am,” the detective had replied. “But I’m telling you, there’s nothing similar about these two women except their ages.”

“And that they’re both missing,” argued Zane. “I’ve got one missing young woman and two dead. You’re less than an hour away, so I have to look at the big picture.”

“But you said your suspect is dead and you’ve linked him to only one of the cases.”

“Right, but we’ve got him footage of him putting a different young woman in the back of his vehicle. Most regular guys don’t do that. I think it’s just a matter of time before we discover his tie to the rest of these women.”

“Well, let me know when you’ve got something concrete. It’s like these women were abducted by a spacecraft. We can’t find any sign of outside involvement in either case.”

Zane had spent the rest of the day and this morning poring over the case files from Medford. The police work looked solid, but he disagreed with the investigator that the only thing the women had in common was their age. He’d immediately noticed they both had long wavy hair. Just like Vanessa Phillips. And Samantha Lyle.

If the abductions had all been committed by the same man, he definitely had a type.

“Put the chairs in small circles so people can talk, Zane,” Patsy directed. He obeyed, unfolding the chairs and arranging them in circles.

Bruce immediately sat in the first chair Zane unfolded, setting his crutches down with a sigh.

“They’re allowing you to walk around already?” Zane asked. The young man looked exhausted. He’d lost weight and his facial bruises had moved to a horrible yellow-brown stage.

“I begged. I couldn’t sit still any longer.”

“You’re lucky you can’t move furniture,” Zane joked.

Bruce gave a weak smile. “My mother knows how to get things done.” He winced and rubbed at his ribs.

“When are you due for your next pill?” Stevie instantly appeared next to Zane, her focus on her younger brother.

“Lay off, Mom.”

“Are you taking your pain medication? There’s no reward for trying to be stronger than the pain,” Stevie pointed out.

“I’m almost out. I’m trying to stretch what I have left.”

Stevie frowned and scanned the room. “Donald couldn’t fill the whole prescription when I picked it up. He said he’d call when he got more in. I saw him here somewhere.”

“I haven’t heard from him,” Bruce said.

“He’s setting up the sound system,” Zane volunteered. Stevie marched toward the stage, clearly on a mission.

“She’s a lot like Patsy,” Zane observed as he watched her go. “Only taller.”

“Yeah,” Bruce replied, sounding less than pleased. “Two moms. Three when Carly is around.”

They watched Stevie corner the pharmacist, who took a quick step back at her direct questions. She gestured at Bruce across the room, and Donald pushed up his glasses with one finger, nodding as he listened to her. He spoke earnestly for a few seconds, and she seemed to accept his answer. He had an armful of cords and shyly held out a microphone to Stevie, pointing at the speakers scattered through the grange hall.

“Time for a sound check,” observed Bruce. “I guess Donald knows how to handle women better than I gave him credit for.”

Stevie accepted the mic, ran her other hand down the cord like she’d always carried one, and moved to the center of the stage. She looked over her shoulder back at Donald, asking a question. He shrugged and held up a palm in a questioning motion. She turned back to the room and took a breath, lifting the mic to her mouth. The first line of Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” filled the room and everyone stopped in their tasks to listen. The throaty lyrics oozed from the speakers, and the hair on Zane’s arms stood up.