Face of Death

Shelley glanced back into the room at Zoe, who was still poring over the pages and maps in front of her.

On the one hand, she believed in Zoe. The abilities she had demonstrated were undeniable. The way she had explained everything, Shelley knew she was right. But she wasn’t helping here, and every lead had to be followed.

Even if the sheriff was acting in direct opposition to what Zoe thought was the right course of action, at least it was something. And Shelley’s time would be better spent dismissing it as nothing than sitting here and wasting her time.

“I should go with him,” Shelley said, leaning in to whisper the rest. “I can’t tell them why you’re so sure they won’t find him, can I? So I’d better go.”

Zoe looked up and met her eyes, and nodded once with an almost serenely blank expression. “I will stay.”

It was exactly what she had expected. There was no reason for it to be any different. Shelley flashed her a quick and reassuring grin, then ran full pelt after the sheriff, catching up with him just as he got to his car.

“Coming along?” he grunted. It was clear from his surly manner and the way all courtesy had been dropped that he resented Zoe’s orders. He thought they had taken him on a wild goose chase and allowed someone else to die. So be it. Shelley knew how to turn around an opinion, and the only way to do that was to sit and talk with him.

She dropped into the passenger’s seat, waiting eagerly for him to set off. Their car flashed along the roads quickly, moving with the kind of speed and surety that could only come from local knowledge.

“What’s the report?” Shelley asked.

The sheriff’s eyes flicked toward her momentarily before he focused back on the road. “Green Ford Taurus with a single male driver. The trooper said it looks like he might have been living in the back of his car. Fast food cartons, dirty clothes, that sort of thing. It would make sense, for our guy.”

Shelley had to give him that. “No motel bookings for us to track him down with. Have they got his ID yet?”

“Tells us nothing. Out of state, no prior record. They tell me his height fits your profile, though.”

Shelley nodded. “Then there’s a good chance we have him.”

“We?” the sheriff snorted. It wasn’t quite an outright denial, and he did not follow it up, but it was clear what he meant. He wasn’t putting any stock in the FBI’s help on this one.

Shelley kept quiet. There were times when you could change someone’s mind, and there were times when it was better to wait out their anger and be ready to make your point only when they had calmed down.

They pulled up at a roadblock perhaps twenty minutes into their journey, where several cars blocked all but one lane, forcing traffic to pass through them. They had a green sedan parked up against the far lane, the driver standing and leaning against his car.

Shelley looked at him with a sinking sensation. The man was overweight, obviously so. He might have been the right height, but he was also older than Zoe had suggested. Either her partner was wrong, or this was yet another wild goose chase.

“I’m telling you, check the records,” he was saying as they drew closer.

One of the troopers was talking on his phone, glancing at the sheriff somewhat sheepishly as they approached. Shelley knew what that look had to mean. She felt a groan gathering force inside her, threatening to break out audibly.

The trooper came off the phone and addressed the group at large. “Alibi checks out,” he said. “The hospital confirmed he was recuperating in the ward for the last two weeks.”

Another dead end. Shelley met the sheriff’s eyes, raising one of her eyebrows slightly, hoping that he would get her meaning. They were 0 for 2. And the killer was still out there with an abducted young woman.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

With Shelley gone, the investigation room was a lonely place. Zoe was used to working alone—liked it, even—but she needed some kind of reassurance with all of the mistakes that she had been making. Shelley had been able to provide that.

Hours had passed now without her, as Shelley bounced from one part of the dragnet to another, following useless lead after useless lead. It was incredible just how many green Ford Tauruses there were on the roads, but none of them had turned out to be their killer. There was always something—an alibi, the fact that the driver was a petite single mother without the strength to kill taller women, an incorrect flag with the wrong make of car.

It wasn’t that she cared about the cold shoulder she was being given by the local cops. The threat to her job was neither here nor there. Either she would solve it, or she wouldn’t. She didn’t base her investigative decisions on what would save her job—she was trying to save lives.

It was the fact that they were right.

She had failed—entirely. Another woman was dead.