“Megan will be fine.”
“When? When she’s twenty-five? Thirty? I’ll be dead by then. I’m tellin’ you, she’s killin’ me. Killin’ me.”
Carter laughed. “I don’t think she has a chance against you.”
“Goddamn, I hope you’re right.” BJ opened her eyes and straightened. “So did you interview the boys?”
“Yeah. Along with Sparks and another officer from the OSP.” He remembered the sullen faces of Josh Sykes, Ian Swaggert, Anthony Perez, and Cal Waters, all of whom had kept up the bravado for hours before being released to their parents this morning. Only when faced with their disappointed mothers or furious fathers did the kids show any signs of cracking. If they’d been scared by being locked up, they’d managed to hide it. “I’d be surprised if any of them had any connection to the dead woman. I think it was just a case of showing off—driving up to the scene where a murder victim had been found, kind of a truth-or-dare kind of thing.” He rotated a pencil between his fingers.
“I’d like to break their necks. Especially that little prick Swaggert’s.”
“Better not. Might be considered police brutality.”
“He deserves it. They all deserve it.” A muscle worked in her jaw and she blinked rapidly. “Little jerks. Sex, drugs, and alcohol…that’s all they care about.”
“There are laws protecting underage girls.”
“I know, I know. But anything that was done was consensual.”
“She’s only sixteen.”
“Yeah, and they’re what? Seventeen, eighteen? Not a brain between all of ’em.”
“Is Megan okay?”
“If you ask her, she’s fine. Her only problem is her…let’s see…let me get the lingo straight…her only problem is her ‘stupid, overbearing, nosy, old-fashioned, out-of-it cop of a mother’—that would be me—who won’t let her do what she wants.” BJ closed her eyes again and touched her fingertips to her forehead. “I haven’t told Jim yet. He’d tear the boys limb from limb, which, let me tell you, is a fantasy of mine right now.”
“How is it that he doesn’t know?”
“Slept right through everything. Can you believe it? He’s on one of those breathing machines because of his apnea and he’s been sleeping in the spare room where there isn’t a phone. Didn’t hear it ring, me yell, or Megan slam her door. He took off for work around six this morning just like normal, and I figured I’d spare him the bad news until tonight. Maybe by then I will have cooled off and possibly have a few more answers about what those kids were doing.” She let out a long breath that shifted her bangs and stared straight at Carter. “Then the you-know-what is gonna hit the fan. In a major way. Jim has this antiquated attitude that his precious little daughter would never drink or do any drugs and that she’ll be a virgin until she gets married, which will probably be sometime in her thirties if Daddy gets his way.” BJ straightened in the chair. “I think it’s time for a reality check. For all of us.” She stretched her arms in front of her until her knuckles cracked. “Okay, so enough about my perfect fairytale family. What else is new?”
“Nothing good,” Carter admitted and brought her up to speed. “I was called over to the Tanner place about a break-in after taking Cassie Kramer back to her mother. Someone had ripped off some tools in his back shed. There were tracks leading down the hill to the road. Then I dealt with the boys, and I’ve spent the rest of the morning talking to OSP. The Jane Doe remains unidentified, and so far there’s not a trace of anything on Sonja Hatchell. I’ve talked to Lester twice today already and a search party has been scouring the woods around his place as well as near the diner again. They’ve come up with nothing. I’ve double-checked with the hospitals and clinics. No one’s seen Sonja Hatchell.”
“What about her car?”
Shane shook his head. “Haven’t found it. No citations issued against it. No record of it showing up in any repair or body shop. When the weather clears, the State Police will send up helicopters to see if she somehow drove off the road and her car is stuck somewhere.” He met her worried gaze. “But if that’s the case, there’s not much chance she’s still alive.”
“It’s a bitch,” BJ said, her troubles with her daughter temporarily forgotten. “People just don’t vanish off the face of the earth—there are no aliens in UFOs plucking citizens out of Falls Crossing, no matter what Charley Perry says.”
“She could have been kidnapped, not by aliens, but there’s always the chance someone was waiting for her with a weapon and forced her to drive somewhere.”
“Then where was his vehicle?” BJ asked, her face puckering as she thought hard about the crime scene. “How did he get to the diner? Was he on foot? Or did he come back for a car he’d hidden nearby that no one saw?” BJ was thinking aloud, her eyes focused on a corner of his desk, though Carter knew she was someplace else, envisioning what had happened to Sonja Hatchell.
“If she was kidnapped, and we don’t know if that’s the case, it might not have happened at the diner,” Carter pointed out. “He could have forced her off the road somewhere—flagged her down or something—and forced his way into her car. Maybe she even let him in—it was late and that wasn’t smart, but she might have thought she was helping someone stranded in the storm.”
“Somewhere he’s got a car or van or truck.”
“Somewhere close to where she was taken. But it’s been several days—he could have come back for it.”
“How, by walking? In this cold? Or hitchhiking?”
“Or with an accomplice.”
“Jesus, more than one guy?”
“It’s possible,” Carter said. “Sparks is working on that theory, too. He’s even suggested that the State Police might talk to the press, see if they can help us. I agree with him.” It was a thought that had been with Carter for a while. Reporters were usually a pain in the ass, always hanging around, looking for a scoop, speculating on what had happened. But at other times they helped rather than hindered an investigation, either warning the citizens of danger or asking the populace for help.
Left to his own devices, Carter would rather keep the Fourth Estate out of any investigation, but maybe it was time to ask for help from the local television, radio, and newspapers in order to find Sonja Hatchell. The State Police had already asked the public to come forward with any information they might have concerning her disappearance, only to learn that the last people to have seen her were Lou and his nephew, who worked at the diner. She seemed to have disappeared the moment she stepped outside after her shift.