Her Last Day (Jessie Cole #1)(36)

“That was my last compost area,” he said happily. “It was time to make a new one. Once I dig the hole, I’ll add newspaper clippings, wood chips, and dry leaves to get it started. After that I can put kitchen waste, food scraps, et cetera, into the pile, and it’ll all make for a wonderful fertilizer for my garden.” He pointed to his right, where even from here he could see juicy red tomatoes growing from a vine. He’d always prized himself on his green thumb.

She looked semi-impressed. But then, in the blink of an eye, she pointed to the house. “Is that where you live?”

He raked his dirty fingers through his hair. “Why are you here, Zee?”

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” she shot back, angry.

He wasn’t ready to tell her the truth, that he’d come upon a young woman stranded on the side of the road and couldn’t pass up such a golden opportunity. So he asked, “Can I be honest with you?”

“You know you can.”

“I was afraid that if I kept coming around, you would grow tired of me,” he lied. “I couldn’t let that happen.” He did his best to appear forlorn, as if he gave one shit about her.

She wasn’t the touchy-feely sort. He knew that because his hand had accidentally brushed against hers once in the park, and she’d had a conniption. But still, he thought she’d at least try to comfort him with kind words. Instead she started walking across the pasture, following the path toward the house.

Damn it! He grabbed the shovel and started after her.

Zee was only a few feet from the box when Erin decided to yell for help. Zee ran that way, stopping right outside the box. “Is someone in there?”

“Help! Get me out of here!”

Zee looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide and questioning.

He hated to hurt her, but she’d left him with no other choice. “This is your fault,” he told Zee as he raised the shovel and swung hard.

Bam. Zee fell to the ground.

“What’s going on?” Erin cried. “Who’s out there?”

“You should have kept your mouth shut,” he told the stupid girl in the box as he knelt down close to Zee’s crumpled body and watched the thin line of blood trickle down from the top of her head and across her nose. “Look what the bitch made me do.”

He dropped the shovel, grabbed two fistfuls of Zee’s hair, and dragged her toward the house.





TWENTY

After spending the afternoon going door-to-door talking to Arlo’s neighbors, Jessie wasn’t any closer to finding his daughter. Arlo had been right. His neighbors didn’t like him. More than a few of his neighbors had talked about the Gatleys as if they were a disgrace to humanity and deserved to be carted off and locked behind bars. Their reasoning had boiled down to the simple fact that Arlo and Zee looked and acted different than most “normal” people did. Zee wore dark lipstick, dark nail polish, and apparently a long dark coat that one of the neighbors described as “Goth,” and the other called “witchy.” Others had refused to answer the door at all, peeking through their curtains or telling her through the door to go away.

Back at the office, Jessie sat at her desk, staring at a long list of things to get done. There were subpoenas to serve and a deadbeat dad who needed to be hunted down. It had taken her years to acquire the skills needed to find her niche in the investigative business. She preferred to focus on looking for people, which included missing person cases, skip traces (people who owed a debt), or finding the birth parents of adopted children. Finding a birth parent could be rewarding but also emotionally draining. Sometimes parents were found who didn’t want anything to do with the people looking for them.

Her business had been growing at a nice rate, but the Parker Koontz incident had thrown her off her game. For the first time since starting her investigative business, she realized she needed help. If she had time to train someone, she might consider hiring an assistant. Although staying out of jail was her number one priority, she still needed to pay the rent and keep food on the table. As she picked up a subpoena and looked at the address, her cell phone buzzed. Distracted, she hit the “Talk” button and said hello.

“Hello. It’s Ben Morrison. I was wondering if you could head over with me to the Wild West in Auburn later this afternoon?”

The Wild West was the last place Sophie had been seen. Jessie had been there many times. “I’m neck-deep in work right now. A young woman is missing, and her father is frantic. I—”

“This could be an important lead. I think you’ll want to be there when I talk to one of the employees. She remembers seeing your sister there that night.”

“What’s her name?”

“Leanne.”

Leanne Baxter. Jessie remembered her well. “You’re wasting your time. I’ve talked to her multiple times over the years. She told me she left early the night Sophie was there. I showed her Sophie’s picture, and she was adamant about never having seen her before.”

“How long ago was that?”

“At least three years ago.”

“You need to come,” he said. “Leanne told me she’s been haunted by your sister’s story for years and wants to come clean.”

Jessie thought about Olivia and what her niece had said about needing to know what happened to her mom. Her chest tightened. “Why would Leanne decide to talk now?”