Frozen (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (5 page)

Ellie took in the sensitive line of his mouth. “You up here for long?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Hunting season?”

He shook his head. “Not up here for that. I just wanted to get away from Milwaukee for a while.”

Okay, so he didn’t hunt. She wasn’t surprised. It stretched the imagination to picture him in camouflage gear with a scoped deer rifle in hand. On the cover of
GQ
maybe; he had that lean build and angular bone structure. He just wasn’t the hunting type. And there
were
types. She lived here all her life and knew the signs. Her father and uncles had all been avid sportsmen, though she never could understand why freezing your ass off in the dark in a tree stand in the middle of the night held any appeal. “Any reason why?”

“I just finished a big project and there was a technology seminar in Wausau. I attended and came up here to use my parents’ cabin afterward.”

“Mind telling me when you were here last?”

For the first time, Ellie suddenly felt she had his full attention. He turned, those dark eyes narrowed as if he struggled to focus on her. “What? Where?”

“Just want to make a note of your last visit to the area.”

Bryce Grantham stared at her. After a moment he said in a careful voice, “Am I missing something here? Do you mind telling me how that could be pertinent?”

The Land Rover had comfortable seats. It should. After all, she’d thought about buying one but they were way out of her price range. Ellie responded coolly, “Anything could be important to the investigation.”

Important to me,
she wanted to add. At this point she was living and breathing this case. Yes, she had other investigations, but this one
haunted
her. Margaret Wilson’s disappearance had brought it back to life, and this new possible disappearance might hold the clue to catching the bastard.

If she had a purpose on this earth, this was
it
.

The man in the driver’s seat took a minute to think it over. A lean hand came up and rubbed his jaw. His eyes looked bloodshot. “Around the Fourth of July. The week before. My whole family came up.”

Ellie sat very still. The timing was close to the second disappearance. Really close.

Did he realize it?

“I’ll stick it in my notes.” Hopefully her voice sounded casual.

He nodded, his gaze straying to the woods again.

“Thanks.” Ellie went to slide out and paused. “Does Deputy Jones have your number?”

In any case, the emergency services would have it, but she wanted his reaction. He simply shook his head. “I have no idea what else I can tell you, but I have no objection if you want it.”

He rattled it off, obviously still distracted.

Ellie wrote it down and got out of the car. “Thank you, Mr. Grantham, for being so cooperative and also for reporting your find. You can go.”

He just nodded and started the engine as she shut the door.

She walked over to where Rick Jones stood by the muddy edge of the road, watching the SUV pull away. After nearly a year and a half of working together on the task force and getting nowhere on this case, she expected he felt the same as she did; apprehensive it was all just escalating and they still had no solid evidence of anything. She said, “Interesting.”

“I thought so too.” He jerked his head sideways to where the Land Rover had been parked. “So? Did he say anything else helpful?”

“Not really.” She brooded at the line of trees, most of them bare-branched, and the leaf-strewn hillside, the different colors giving it a pretty patchwork effect. Two officers stood by talking on their phones but largely they all just waited.

Too much of police work was that way. Waiting. Waiting for test results, for paperwork, waiting for bones to turn up in a remote place …

“I don’t mean to sound callous, but I was kind of hoping when you called me this morning you had a break in the Margaret Wilson case,” she murmured. “That maybe you’d found her so we’d have
something
solid.”

Rick hunched his shoulders. He was built thick, like a football player, maybe five-ten but at least two-twenty and not an ounce of fat on him. The good news was all that muscle was balanced with an agile mind. Though he didn’t have any homicide investigation experience, he was learning fast. He nodded. “Ten days she’s been gone, Ellie. The likelihood she’s still alive is pretty low. You don’t sound callous. I’d bet she’d want us to find her first too, if she had a choice. We need a body.”

They did.
God help us, we need a bod
y.

She thought about that second shoe in the stream. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Whatever it is, it’s not good.” Jones looked back at where the Land Rover had disappeared now around a curve. “Grantham sure seems shook up, and he called it in, but you and I both know—”

She interrupted. “Killers can be impatient to let others see their handiwork and we haven’t done too well finding it out on our own, have we? He also admits to being here around late June this past summer. It goes without saying, let’s check Grantham out.”

“You don’t believe his story?” Rick lifted sandy brows. His eyes were pale blue and at the moment held the kind of jaded amusement that only comes with law enforcement. The mind was always working, always distrustful in some ways.

“I do,” she said thoughtfully. “And then again, I sure as hell don’t.”

Chapter 4

He’d slept.

It happened afterward. A rebirth in some ways, but he wasn’t really that poetic, he just felt better, more relaxed, able to breathe again.

Like when spring crept in and he first noticed with surprise that there were buds on the lilac bushes. A pleasant revelation. A sign life had changed once again; the process eternal and inevitable.

Even Mother Earth had secrets. Birth and death. No one could predict when either would come.

He didn’t know much about the first, but the latter …

The Hunter rolled over, realized how late it was, and rubbed a hand over his face. From the sun streaking against the curtains, it was going to be a nice day.

Pity.

He liked the challenge. The cold. The wet. The flesh-biting wind.

The chase.

*   *   *

He had no
idea what else to do so Bryce drove into Carney as planned, pulling into the parking lot, the rutted holes there full of water from the overnight rain. His enthusiasm for having breakfast at the diner was completely gone, his stomach churning from both tension and hunger at a guess. Mostly he was still stuck in this numbed place.

It had seemed logical to call the police given the shoes, those blood-splattered leaves, and Melissa’s absence when she didn’t have a vehicle, but he didn’t know where she did her bird-watching either. How he’d been treated by the officers had been disturbing, he had to admit. Not that anyone had been anything but polite, but he couldn’t shake the image of Detective MacIntosh with her blond hair back in a no-nonsense ponytail and a dark pea coat over a pair of jeans, looking straight through him.

All he’d done was give a pretty girl a ride home and try to return the property she’d left in his car.

It didn’t matter, he assured himself as he went up the wooden steps to Hathaway’s Store. What he hoped was that he’d made a fool of himself and Melissa was okay.

Inside the place was warm, smelling of everything from coffee beans to shoe polish. So much was crammed into the space that it was hard to navigate, but he stuck with the grocery section and picked up bread, mustard, a couple of apples, and a bag of potato chips. There was no fresh meat counter but a glass case containing cold cuts and cheeses gleamed at the back of the store and he rang the little bell for service.

Bryce knew it was warm in the place, but he still felt unaccountably cold. He attempted a smile when a young man hurried up to help him. “A pound of ham,” he said. “Some cheese too. Swiss, I guess.”

“The brick is local.” The name embroidered on his apron said Neil, and the clerk had short blond hair, hulking shoulders, and a friendly smile. “Trust me, it’s really good.”

The conversation was absurdly normal on what had been
not
one of the most normal mornings of his life. Bryce nodded, cheese not really a subject he wanted to debate. “Fine.”

“The coleslaw is fresh. Just made it.”

A vague voice in his brain told him vegetables in some form would be a good idea. “Sure. Sounds great.”

Actually, he wasn’t sure he could choke down anything, but maybe later he would feel differently.

The same young man came to the front of the store to check him out, his gaze inquisitive enough Bryce wondered just how upset he might look. He paid, went outside, and then climbed back into his car. To get back to the cabin the usual way, he would have to go right back past the place where the police still no doubt swarmed over the woods, looking for the owner of the bloodstained shoes.

Mind telling me when you were up here last?

The pretty detective had meant it too. Maybe it was just usual procedure. It was unsettling just the same to have anyone actually ask that question.

He took the long way around, driving past the turn for Three Mile Road and circling around the recreation area until he could double back in the opposite direction. It took him thirty-five minutes instead of around twenty, but he didn’t think he could stand to drive past all those police cars.

Once he was back at the cabin he stowed the groceries in the refrigerator and poured another cup of coffee. It was lukewarm but passable, and he wandered back over to the window where he’d been sitting before he made his ill-fated trip.

He hadn’t talked much to the police, but he did feel like talking to
someone
.

Or maybe he didn’t. What was he going to do? Call up and go,
Hey, how’s your day been? Mine? Well, not the best ever. It started out with a beautiful sunrise but then I realized I had a stranger’s cell phone and when I went to return it there was blood and her shoe lying there …

Best to forget the whole damn thing as much as possible much less call … whom? His mother? Father? One of his friends? Or, God forbid, his ex-wife?

There wasn’t a very long list.

He didn’t know whom to call.

That was an enlightening statement about his life.

*   *   *

It took hours
for the crime scene unit to show up. Had it just been the one disappearance, the county probably would have processed it with its own tech, but another possible serial killing was something else altogether. One could have been an angry boyfriend, two even possibly a coincidence, but
four
missing women? So they’d called DCI, the Division of Criminal Investigation, for assistance again, just like in the Wilson case.

It made Rick Jones feel sick.

More than that, it scared him. He wasn’t scared frequently and the emotion was unwelcome.

Right after he’d called Ellie MacIntosh to tell her about Grantham’s discovery, Rick called home. Jane had answered the phone, sleepy because she worked second shift. He loved the husky sound of her voice in the morning, but mostly he loved it at that moment because it meant she was okay. Alive.

“Just checking in,” he’d told her, omitting the reason why. “I’ll be home late today. Something has come up.”

She knew him. “Something good or something bad?”

He could imagine her sitting up in bed, the comforter to her waist, her breasts bare, and her red hair tousled around her shoulders. She slept nude, even in the dead of winter. He didn’t mind it at all, even if his propane bill was higher than it needed to be because they kept the house a little warmer.

Rick hesitated, thinking of the bloody shoe on its side, and then the other, abandoned in the stream, water streaming over the leather. They hadn’t found traces of blood in the cabin, but there had been two telltale spots on the steps and those soaked leaves. He said, “We don’t know yet. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“All right.” She’d sounded tired.

“Just be careful.”

A muffled mirthless laugh. “You have me so paranoid, Rick, do you honestly think I’m not careful? I mean this is happening
here
.”

His very point. And she didn’t even know yet it had happened again.

Though as usual, they didn’t have a body. He and Ellie stayed out with the search teams as they combed the woods around the cabin until Sheriff Pearson ordered them to go get something to eat. If Melissa Simmons didn’t show up soon, they would bring in teams with dogs.

He was sitting with Ellie in the little diner in Carney when his phone beeped. He took it out, flipped it open, saw the number, and smiled in relief. He answered briefly and tucked the phone back into his pocket.

“Everything okay?” Ellie picked at her meat loaf, eyeing him across the checked plastic tablecloth.

“I told Jane to call me when she got to work.” He found his appetite was renewed and he scooped up some mashed potatoes. “Let’s get back to the case.”

She tipped her head in a quick nod. Ellen MacIntosh was all business. He’d learned that pretty quickly. Underneath there was a woman too, but she didn’t show it on the job. Once he and Jane had run into her and a date having dinner at a resort up in Minocqua. The restaurant was set on the lake, the food good, and every once in a while Rick suggested they drive up there. Ellie had been wearing a red dress with thin little straps, high heels, and her hair was curled and loose over her slender shoulders. No tough detective in sight, she’d looked gorgeous. Rick had been amused, especially since Jane had been at least a little jealous. She’d jabbed in him in the ribs on the way to their table and hissed, “
That’s
who you’re working with on the task force?”

He’d just laughed.

At the moment the knockout blonde wasn’t anywhere in sight. Ellie had on no makeup, her hair was caught carelessly back, and her hazel eyes held that singular glint he’d come to know. An oversized gray sweatshirt concealed the curvy form underneath, and she currently pointed a fork with two peas speared on it in his direction. “Pearson’s not going public with this right away. Part of me agrees, but another part is screaming that we need to keep every woman in northern Wisconsin informed about what is happening.”