Pescoli looked at the case files stacked on the corner of her desk. Deeter Clemson’s fall to his death, Jimbo and Gail Amstead’s domestic violence case where each had ended up in the hospital, Ralph Haskins’s suicide, as well as the new, deceased Jane Doe. Throw her personal life into the mix, and she really didn’t have time to dig into a long-closed suicide just because the ex-wife and beneficiary of the life insurance policy wanted her to. As Pescoli understood it, the insurance company had balked at paying the benefits to Hattie and her twin daughters as it was determined that Bart had taken his own life.
Pescoli really shouldn’t bother with Bart Grayson’s death. The case had been investigated and closed, but Hattie’s final words echoed through her mind. If it makes you feel any better, Detective, don’t do this for me. Do it for Dan.
“Oh, hell,” she muttered and knew that she’d dig through the case file. Just a cursory look, then maybe her guilty conscience would be assuaged.
Then again, probably not.
Ryder gassed up his truck at a station-convenience store with the unlikely name of Corky’s Gas and Go. Sounds bad any way you cut it, he thought as he replaced the nozzle and, hands deep in his pockets, dodged a minivan and a Prius parked beneath the broad canopy covering several pumps. A fuel truck had pulled around back, ready to refill the underground tanks, and a woman in a long coat and boots nearly ran him down as she pushed open the glass door to the market about the time he was walking in.
“Watch where you’re going,” she said as she hurried outside.
Ignoring her, he walked past her to where the heater was cranked to the max, a wall of hot air meeting him as he strode down the aisles to the back case and grabbed a beer and a couple bottles of water as the H20 that flowed from the tap of his room at the River View wasn’t exactly pristine.
A girl in her early twenties was manning the register in a tank top; it was that warm inside. “Hire anyone yet?” he asked, motioning toward the HELP WANTED poster taped to the glass just inside the door.
“Nuh-uh. Don’t think so.” She rang up his purchases. “You get gas?”
“Pump six. Any applicants?”
“Corky, he’s the owner, just put up the sign this mornin’. It’s still pretty early.”
“What’s it for?”
“You interested?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, you have to take a drug test and submit to a background check.” She rolled her eyes, indicating that was a pain. “Then, you start helping out at the pumps. Some people don’t like to pump their own, y’know?” Another eye roll. “Corky’s a stickler,” she said.
Ryder decided Anne-Marie wouldn’t take a chance on a background check. No, she’d find a job where the owners of the establishment weren’t as conscientious as Corky.
Of course, there was always Grayson.
Ryder could go right to the source.
But he didn’t want to spook her and there was more than a little bad blood between Cade and himself. And there was that little problem about Cade just losing his brother. The man might be hair-trigger touchy and who knew how it would go down if Ryder just showed up and Grayson was harboring Anne-Marie. If she caught wind that he was on to her, no doubt she’d bolt again.
For now, Ryder needed the element of surprise, so he had to be careful.
He bought a couple maps of the area that he’d study then keep in his truck, as the Internet service was often spotty, especially when he was driving in the hills. Besides, sometimes he got a better feel for the land with an old fashioned map rather than wireless Internet service. Climbing into his truck, he drove through town again.
Three times already he thought he’d caught a glimpse of Anne-Marie in the small town, and three times he’d been wrong. He’d gone through Craigslist, the want ads, and any Internet Web site that listed houses, rooms, and apartments to rent. He’d scoured through ads from a few weeks earlier, but had come up with nothing. At the same time, he’d gone through the motions of checking listings for job opportunities, marking off those that he thought would require background checks.
In the past, he’d always been one step and three or four weeks behind her, nipping at her heels, only to reach the town in which she’d landed to realize, after a week or two, that she’d taken off again. It always took a while to discover her next move.
This time, though, he believed he’d gotten the jump on her.
Of course, he’d missed her by several days in Denver, but had gotten lucky and found a bar where she’d poured drinks for six weeks before getting spooked. Wanda, one of her coworkers, had recognized her, even caught her adjusting a dental appliance and had figured out she was on the run. “Anne-Marie? Huh. I knew her as Stacey.”
“Not Heather Brown?” That was the name she’d used in Omaha.
Wanda had shaken her head. “She’s Stacey Donahue. She go by somethin’ else, too?”
“Yeah.” A lot of something elses, he’d thought
“That happens a lot, y’know. People changin’ their names and runnin’ from their pasts. Husbands, ex-boyfriends . . .” She’d skewered Ryder with a suspicious glare, then shrugged as if she’d determined he wasn’t dangerous. “As I said, happens all the time.”
Ryder had then interviewed all the workers at the establishment and discovered no one had really known where she lived. He’d ended up in a confab with Wanda and a couple other employees.