Her Last Day (Jessie Cole #1)(18)

“Did you ever try to confront him after that first time?”

She nodded. “More than once. He was always far enough away to run off before I could catch up to him. I called the police a couple of times, hoping they could question him, but he always disappeared before they showed up.”

“So he never approached you or tried to have a conversation with you?”

“Never. But there is more to the story that I haven’t told you. Only because I thought I was being paranoid. As of last night, though, I knew it wasn’t my imagination. Someone has been in my house when I’m gone.”

“Did you call the police?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure I have enough proof.”

“How do you know someone has been inside your home?”

“Lots of little things,” Adelind said. “A brand-new carton of milk, opened and half-gone by the time I got home from work. The smell of my perfume in the garage. A dirty glass left in the sink. And pictures on the wall that had been reorganized. I was really starting to think I might be going crazy. But then I decided to conduct a test. I placed my workout clothes neatly on my bed. When I came home, they’d been moved, everything back where they belong.”

Jessie whistled through her teeth.

Someone exited the bank. “Adelind,” the woman called. “Jerry is looking for you.”

Adelind stood. “Jerry’s my manager. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

Jessie watched her take brisk steps back into the air-conditioned bank. About to get up and go, Jessie had a weird feeling she was being watched. She examined the cars parked at the curb: A Jeep with fancy hubcaps. Silver Acura with a dent in the driver’s door. Beat-up Nissan truck without a bumper or a license plate. And so on and so on. Every vehicle was empty. Her gaze drifted to the luxury apartments. Eight stories high. Some of the windows were covered with blinds or curtains. Some open and some closed. Her gaze roamed over the apartments until she spotted a shadowy figure. Her skin prickled. Someone was standing at the window in the center apartment on the sixth floor. If she’d had her backpack with her, she would have pulled out her binoculars to get a better look.

But this wasn’t her day. She didn’t have her backpack, camera, or anything else of any use, so she stood and walked away without so much as a backward glance.





TEN

“Not now. I’m busy,” Ian Savage said without looking up.

Ben Morrison ignored his boss and took a seat in front of Ian’s rough wood desk, which he’d made from a fallen oak tree. Tall and reed thin, the man was nearing seventy. In a crowd, or anywhere for that matter, you couldn’t miss his abundance of silver hair. Old woodsy cologne came off him in waves, which always made Ben think the old man had more than one gargantuan bottle of the stuff hidden away at home.

“This will only take a minute,” Ben told him.

Ian continued to search through files and papers stacked in front of him, ignoring Ben completely. He was always misplacing something, always grumpy and seemingly discombobulated.

“I want to do a serial story. Just enough words every week to keep readers wanting more.”

Ian’s reply came out sounding like a grunt, which motivated Ben to continue. “I want to investigate the disappearance of a young woman who went missing ten years ago,” Ben said. “But first some backstory. Two sisters are abandoned by their mother. Father takes to drinking. Teenage daughter gets pregnant. After one DUI too many, Dad goes to jail. Older sister drops out of school to try to help her younger sister with baby. Younger sister goes out one night and never returns. Ten years later, she’s still missing.”

“Just like more than half a million other missing people in the United States,” Ian muttered as he placed all the papers and files back into one tall stack and started his search again.

“No,” Ben said. “This is different.”

“How?”

“We’re the number two rated paper in Sacramento.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“CSI and Cold Case TV are two of the most popular shows right now,” Ben continued. “The Cole sisters were born and raised right here in Sacramento. Sophie Cole disappeared and was never heard from again. Her older sister, Jessie Cole, never returned to school to get her degree. Do you want to know why?”

“No.”

“Because she never stopped looking for her sister. For the first two years, she worked closely with the police. Then she became a private investigator. Ten years after her sister disappeared, she’s still a PI. She works out of an office not too far from here.”

Ben knew Ian well enough to know he was interested because he kept glancing his way before pretending to examine the same piece of paper. He was curious but determined as always to play hardball.

“Yesterday,” Ben told him, “Jessie Cole was following Parker Koontz through Capitol Park. Koontz fired off two shots, and Cole fired back. Koontz is in critical condition.”

Ian looked up. “That’s the woman you’re talking about, huh?”

Ben nodded. “Koontz is a criminal defense attorney. From what I’ve read about him, he’s well respected in the community.”

“So, what exactly are you selling here?”

“This would be Cold Case TV on paper and all over social media. This will be a story about a family, two sisters born and raised right here in Sacramento. One’s missing. The other won’t stop looking.”