Vulnerable (Morgans of Nashville 4)

Her explanation didn’t jibe with Marlowe’s reaction to the affair. His body language had exhibited deep shame, not anger. “How long did the affair last?”

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Mrs. Reed was still out of earshot. “It was just a few times.”

“How long are you planning to stay in Nashville?”

“Not much longer. Mrs. Reed is great, but I can’t keep living here. It’s not fair to her. And I’ve got my job and apartment back in Dallas.”

“And you’ll put all this behind you again?”

“I came back to get answers. And now it looks like we have them. You have Bethany and Mike. And soon, the killer.”

“We don’t have him yet.”

Her eyes sharpened. “I have confidence in you, detective. You won’t need me to find the man in the photograph. It sounds like he’s your killer.”

“It does sound like that,” Jake said.

Mrs. Reed entered the room with a glass of water and a couple of aspirins. She gave both to Amber, smiling as the young woman swallowed the pills and chased them with a gulp of water.

A sigh shuddered over her lips. “Thank you, detective.”

“For what?”

“For working this case. For five years Mrs. Reed, Mr. Marlowe and I have suffered. And now we have answers.”

Her expressions were flawless. Nothing raised red flags. Nothing. “Have you had any more of your memory return?”

Her brow wrinkled. “The nurse in the hospital said I was having a dream. That I mentioned Mike. But I don’t remember anything.”

“A dream?”

She raised her gaze to his and smiled. “Just a dream of Mike running in the woods.”

“He say anything?”

“Nothing. I’ve struggled to remember, but the more I reach for it the faster it fades.”

Jake imagined her dropping a thin trail of bread crumbs hoping he’d follow. As much as she smiled, as much as she said the right things, he tried to picture her losing her temper.

* * *

Jake waited on the line as the secretary connected him to the CEO of Davis Marketing, where Amber Ryder worked in Dallas. He pulled onto I-40 and was headed east back toward Nashville. “Harvey Davis.”

“This is Detective Jake Bishop. I’m with the Nashville Police Department.”

“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I’m calling about an employee of yours. Amber Ryder.”

Silence crackled for a second. “She’s on leave right now. Had a family emergency.”

“Yes, sir. She’s here in Nashville.”

“Is she in some kind of trouble?”

“Why would she be in trouble?”

Another pause. “No reason. Why the call?”

“Tell me what you know about Amber.”

He cleared his throat. “What do you want to know?”

“She’s tied to an old case. Just doing my due diligence. What can you tell me about her?”

Silence crackled. “Smart as a whip. We hired her part time in our accounting department while she was in college. We offered her a full-time job a couple of months ago.”

“What does she do?”

“She works closely with our accounting director and assists with the company books.”

Jake had the sense the man was guarding his words closely. “She’s just out of college and it sounds like she has a lot of responsibility.”

“Like I said, she’s smart. She’s saved us thousands of dollars. She has taken very aggressive postures that she’s certain she can defend against an IRS audit. Nothing intimidates her.”

“She gets along well with everyone?”

A pause. “For the most part. She’s tough. Doesn’t mince words. That doesn’t always sit well with everyone.” A subtle tension vibrated around the words.

He sensed more below the surface. “She’s not been in any kind of trouble?”

Hesitation. “None. Detective, why are you calling?”

“She’s a material witness in a cold case.”

“I heard she got mixed up in something in high school.”

“What did you hear?”

“Two kids vanished. One was her friend and the other her boyfriend. She was found badly injured.”

He wrote the word boyfriend on a clean page in a small notebook he carried. The teacher at the high school suggested Amber and Mike were dating, yet Amber had denied it. “She ever talk about it?”

“No. It came up when we did the background check during the interview process. I did ask her about it, but she only answered with a yes or no. I got the sense it was still a sensitive topic for her.”

“Anything else you can tell me about her?”

“I’m only qualified to talk about her as an employee. I’m unfamiliar with her private life.”

Jake tapped the tip of his pen on the paper. “Well, sir, thank you for your time.”

“Sure thing. Did Amber say if she’s coming back to Dallas?”

“She gave me the impression she was returning.”

A long pause. “Great.”

He placed the phone in its case on his hip. “Interesting.”

“How so?” Rick asked.

“Can’t put my finger on it. Based on what he said, he liked her and her work.” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s the unspoken between-the-lines message that always catch my ear.”

“And that would be?”

“Don’t quite know yet.” He had run a police background check on her to see if anything popped. Nothing had.

So what was bothering him about her?

* * *

Amber paced the bright sunporch, her nerves drawn tight. She picked up her cell phone and redialed the number she’d already called five times.

Mrs. Reed had left the house shortly after the cops to run errands. There was a maid floating around the Reed house somewhere so she was mindful as the phone on the other end of the line rang five and then six times and kicked into voice mail.

“Where the hell are you?” she whispered into the receiver. Frustrated, she tapped the phone gently against her thigh as she paced. Tim promised to answer the phone whenever she called, but he let the last two calls go to voice mail.

She raised the phone, preparing to redial. “Don’t do this to me. Us. You said you’d be there. You promised you wouldn’t let me down.”

She dialed the number again and listened as it rang and rang. No answer this time sent her temper rising and her thoughts in a different direction. If she could not rely on Tim, she

could always find another man. She was good at finding men.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Wednesday, October 11, 3:00 P.M.

Searching surveillance footage was meticulous and mind numbing but a necessary task that couldn’t be overlooked. Jake had amassed footage from ten different cameras lined up along the coffee shop’s street, as well as a couple of side and back streets. Each picked up a different angle and provided a piece of the puzzle that made up Elisa’s last days.

A dry cleaners shop down the street had a camera that faced east away from the shop. He didn’t expect to see much, but on the day Elisa vanished, the camera picked up a partial shot of a red truck headed toward the shop. The truck stopped at a traffic light before moving along with traffic. He backed up the tape and froze the screen at the moment when the camera caught the best view of the driver. The footage was grainy but he could make out that the driver was a bearded male with dark hair and a muscular build. Just like Scott. And the man in Austin.

Jake checked the date stamp. This was ten minutes before Elisa had left the shop for the last time. He printed off the picture.

He continued to move through the footage frame by frame searching for glimpses of Scott Murphy as well as the man from Austin. There was a thin woman with long black hair who stood across the street. She wore large dark sunglasses and a big coat that covered her frame. She stood at the dress shop window across the street seemingly staring into the store. He froze the frame and realized her head was tilted up, almost as if she was studying the reflection in the glass. He watched the woman linger and then move down the street out of the frame.

He reviewed the tape again, but the woman never approached Elisa, nor did she speak to the man.

The next few hours were spent reviewing more footage with no hits. His neck and back ached and he needed a shot of caffeine as he popped in the next DVD from a women’s dress shop.

He fast-forwarded to the time he knew Elisa was on the street and slowly scrolled through the footage. Twenty-nine seconds into the section he spotted Elisa moving down the street, coffee in hand. Fifteen seconds after her, the woman appeared and then, seconds later, the bearded man.