Withdrawing the rope, Jane gingerly rotated her body over the railing and quickly secured the heel of her cowboy boot in the inside cut of a large aspen branch. She continued her careful rappel until she reached a point where she could easily jump to the ground. Before retracting the rope, she wondered how the wily fifteen-year-old retained it on the ground for later use to covertly climb back up to his room. She found the answer in a well-worn scar against the aspen trunk where he had obviously tied off the rope, keeping the neon yellow reflective end detectable. The high visibility yellow told Jane that Jake’s sojourns down the rope were most likely at night. She pulled slightly on the rope and then released it, allowing it to slither back into its secret tube.
She secured the sketchpad under her jacket and made her way down the soft dirt path through the wooded area around the house, ending up on the Van Gordens’ driveway. To her right, was the ridiculously oversized garage with the doors open. Jane wandered into the first bay where a spotless taupe Lexus sedan was parked. She peered into the vehicle, noting a pair of women’s sunglasses and a pink wool scarf. Checking the door, she found it locked. Jane looked across the garage into the other two bays. One held a sporty silver coupe and the other a top-of-the-line coal black Land Cruiser. Nothing like getting ten miles to the gallon and draining your tank as you haul the bucket of steel and leather up and down the mountain passes. Jane noticed how clean the sporty coupe was but the Land Cruiser had what appeared to be freshly caked mud in the
tires. She touched the back tire and tried to discern if the mud was wet but the outside temperature made the determination difficult. She checked the driver’s side door and found it unlocked. Taking a quick glance around toward the front door of the house and seeing nobody, she opened the car door and sat in the driver’s seat. On the dashboard sat a red vinyl pass that read,
Elite Athletic Club Membership
to the local gym. Bailey’s name was embossed in gold lettering in the middle. The guy did like his gold lettering. A trio of CDs were scattered on the passenger seat.
Queen’s Greatest Hits
,
Opera’s Greatest Moments
and a two-CD compilation of
Elton John’s Greatest Hits
. It seemed that Bailey didn’t want to suffer through any tune that wasn’t certified platinum. Jane’s highly acute senses came alive. A rank odor filtered through the interior of the SUV. It smelled sort of like a gymnasium, but…no…that wasn’t it. It was sweet mixed with sour and pervasive with the windows rolled up. Odd, she factored, for a car that hadn’t been driven in six days, according to Bailey. Jane thought she heard voices approaching and looked in the rearview mirror. But the mirror was flipped to accommodate nighttime driving. “Huh,” Jane muttered to herself. The sound of voices became louder. Jane quietly exited the vehicle and closed the door. She was able to walk well past the garage and into the driveway by the time Weyler and the Van Gordens met her.
“We didn’t hear you walk out,” Carol said, her face looking typically cautious.
Jane saw the same look on both Weyler and Bailey.
“What happened to you?” Bailey asked, jutting his jaw toward Jane’s clothes.
She looked down. The white powdery bark from the aspen tree was heavily caked across her jeans, jacket and shirt. Jane thought quickly. “There was a strong gust of wind. I must have been in its path.”
Weyler snuck a glance back toward the Van Gordens’ house.
Bailey looked at Jane as if she were one taco short of a combo platter. “I’m assuming you found nothing of interest in Jake’s room?”
“No. Nothing.” She couldn’t resist. “That poster is something, though.”
Carol took an embarrassed breath in and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, that woman in the yellow bikini…”
“No, not that one. The one by his computer? The one that just says,
TRUTH
.” Jane let the word linger in the high mountain air. She watched as Bailey’s jaw clenched and Carol got that familiar frozen look in her eye. “What’s the story on that?” Jane tried to sound offhand but it came out more probing.
Bailey let out a tense “Heh!” and narrowed his eyes into the distance. “Jake always likes to push the envelope.”
Jane secured her gaze on Bailey. “Push the envelope? Interesting comment.”
Bailey’s eyes traveled back to Jane. They bled fire. “I do have to go.”
Jane and Weyler walked in silence down the long driveway back to their respective cars. She didn’t speak up until Weyler unlocked his borrowed patrol car.
“Loved Carol. Usually you have to join the Taliban to see a woman that subservient to her husband.”
“You can fill me in on what you found in Jake’s bedroom when we get to the B&B.” He took another look at Jane’s disheveled appearance. “You’re lucky you didn’t fall out of that aspen tree.” He got into the car. “Follow me.”
Jane liked the fact that Weyler read through her deceptions—both her impromptu exit as well as the lie regarding Jake’s room. But she hoped he wasn’t reading her mind at that exact moment because she had one stop to make before the B&B. Instead of following Weyler, she lagged a few minutes behind on a hidden side street until Bailey zoomed by. Then she waited a few more minutes to give him time. After that, Jane headed toward
Main Street and passed the only gym in Midas. As she fully expected, Bailey’s SUV wasn’t parked anywhere near the place.
CHAPTER 9
By the time Jane pulled up to the Victorian-inspired, Historic Midas B&B on the main drag, Weyler was already outside the front gate chatting up their hosts. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath. There was too much to go over and talk about. The last thing she wanted to do was waste time with the B&B owners chewing the fat. She observed the man, presumably the town’s Methodist preacher and Mollie’s father. He was a gentle-looking man, around his mid-forties, about thirty pounds overweight with dark curly hair and a well-kept beard and mustache. The woman, around forty, didn’t have that
wife of the Christian preacher
vibe. She was less uptight than Jane expected as she leaned her angular body against the wrought-iron fence and let her curly dark locks blow free in the breeze. Her olive complexion was beautifully set off by a jaunty red wool hat, along with an East Indian-inspired top and wide-legged trousers.
Perhaps,
Jane mused,
they head up a more liberal church.
Just as Jane was bringing the luggage out of the Mustang, she caught sight of the same clean-cut, older guy with the twinkling eyes she’d seen earlier outside the Town Hall during the improvised news conference. He was across the street getting out of the same truck and heading up Main Street. She grabbed her leather satchel and leaned her small duffel bag against the tire, watching the man momentarily. He glanced between the B&B and Jane.
Great
, she thought. Now her little groupie knew where she was staying.
“Jane!” Weyler called over. “I’ll get the bags.” He waved her over. “This is Aaron and Sara Green,” he introduced.
Jane shook their hands and offered a quick hello, excusing her disheveled appearance.
“We were just asking Sergeant Weyler if you guys coming to Midas was a positive sign that there’s movement on the case?” Sara pointedly asked.
Obviously, Weyler hadn’t let the Greens in on the fact that they were only there because Weyler “owed” their odd police chief some damn favor. She opted for the vague answer cops were well trained in delivering. “We’re still sorting out a lot of the details.”
Sara offered a weak smile, but it was sharply edged with concern. She fiddled nervously with the gold cross dangling from her necklace. “I know you can’t tell us anything. I was hoping if you could just let us know if Jake was alive?” Aaron put a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“We don’t know,” Jane answered with less of the cop front.
Sara’s eyes swelled with tears. “We’re all aware of the odds. After five days…”
Aaron pulled Sara closer to him. She tucked her head on his shoulder. “We gotta keep the faith, sweetheart.”
Jane observed the two of them. There was true love here, but there was also an overt laidback vibe that most ministers and their wives eschewed. The energy between them flowed beautifully and effortlessly. Their shared, heartbreaking worry for Jake’s welfare was honest and sincere—a far cry from the constrained, preoccupied reaction his own parents demonstrated.
Sara wiped away a tear. “I have to figure out how to process this with our daughter.”
Process
? Jane wondered. That wasn’t a word that Christian minister’s wives bandied around. Shouldn’t she talk about
praying with her
, or
asking God for guidance
? “Does she have any ideas about what happened?” Jane asked, falling back into the detective role.
“Hard to say,” Aaron chimed in. “She hasn’t said a word. We let her take off this last week from school and next week is
Easter break so she’ll have two weeks under her belt. We hoped it would give her the time she needed to deal with everything…”
Jane was floored. “So, nobody’s talked to her about this? Not you, not Bo?”
“No,” Sara offered. “She needs time to decompress from everything. First the breakup and now this…”
Jane couldn’t hold back. “But what if the breakup played a role in Jake…” Aaron’s eyes immediately reacted to the word “breakup.”
Weyler interrupted. “I think we can get a bead on all of that shortly.” He turned to Jane. “You sign us in and I’ll get the bags.”
Jane hated it when Weyler short-circuited her advancing interview techniques. He always did it when she was getting too aggressive or when the interviewee was getting uncomfortable. It was the standard
good cop/bad cop
routine except this was more
suave cop/bitchy cop.
He captured his flies with honey, while Jane preferred to just slaughter the damn things.
Jane reluctantly followed Sara down the cobblestone pathway, its edges still covered with encrusted snow. Sara did her best to make conversation, telling Jane that she hoped the daffodils popped while she was there and what a quiet town Midas usually was…until recently. The entryway of the bed and breakfast was fittingly done up in keeping with the historic name of the place. Dozens of sepia-toned photos lined the walls, the entry, sitting area and along the wall that led upstairs. Sara suddenly felt a need to play tour guide and told Jane that the B&B used to be a boarding house for young women up until the early 1970s before transforming into an historic hotel. Jane listened with half an ear as she glanced around searching for the source of the familiar aroma that had been following her since the night before.
“Do you have gardenias in the house?” Jane inquired.
“Gardenias? No. I’ve got some bread in the oven…”
“A potpourri maybe?” Jane forced the issue, almost desperate.
“We steer clear of the usual Victorian
foo-foo
crap. No doilies. No dead roses in saucers.”
“That’s crazy,” Jane whispered to herself.
“What’s that?”
Jane thought she’d take a stab in the dark. “You
seriously
don’t smell gardenias?”
Sara sniffed the air. “No…just the bread in the oven.”
Jane shook her head. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered and then realized she was talking to the minister’s wife. “Oh, fuck, sorry about that.” Jane winced, realizing that her apology was probably worse. Strange thing was, instead of Sara looking aghast or shooting Jane a pursed-lipped show of Christian judgment, Jane could have sworn she saw a little smile creep up before Sara extinguished it.
A downstairs door opened and closed, and out walked Mollie. With iPod in hand and earbuds firmly in place, she effectively locked out the world around her. She looked just like the photo Jane saw in Jake’s room, but her eyes were even more beautiful and probing. She was dressed in black jeans, a dark blue T-shirt with a Flower of Life design on the front and a trendy
hoodie
jacket. Her stubby fingernails were painted in black nail polish that had been chewed off around the tips. When Mollie caught sight of Jane, she stopped in her tracks, taking in Jane’s dusty and mud-splattered appearance. Mollie released one earbud as if to say that Jane was only worth half of her time.
“Sweetie,” Sara said lovingly, “this is Sergeant Detective Jane Perry from Denver. She’s here to help find Jake.”
Mollie regarded Jane with thick disparagement that reminded Jane of Bob Dylan’s advice from the 1960s to not “trust anybody over thirty.” The kid took a moment before offering her hand to Jane.
Jane shook Mollie’s hand and immediately noticed a thin, woven red string bracelet around her wrist. “Hey,” Jane said, trying to not come off too cop-like.
“Hey,” Mollie repeated, but her tone was much more sarcastic. It was as if she knew Jane was trying to make her feel comfortable and she was having none of it.
“You goin’ for a walk, Mol’?” Sara asked.
Mollie quickly showed ire, removing her remaining earbud. “
Mom
!”
Sara bit her lip. “I’m sorry.
Liora
.”
Jane stood confused.
“I’ll be back in an hour.” Mollie slid between Jane and her mother toward the front door.
“You have your cell phone, right?” Sara asked, her voice laced with fear.
“Yes, Mom,” Mollie tiredly said, replacing her earbuds. “I’ll be fine.”
Sara watched her daughter leave the house, her face etched with concern. “Until this thing with Jake gets solved,” Sara said, still watching Mollie walk down the pathway and onto the sidewalk, “I can’t help but worry, you know? What if there’s some crazy serial…”
“It’s not a serial kidnapper. You don’t have to worry about that.” Jane’s first thought was that for a devout woman, Sara Green was certainly not tasting her faith at the moment. The second thought was,
Liora
? She had to ask.
Sara seemed distressed. “Mollie decided to change her name to Liora about six months ago. It’s part of her conversion to becoming a Kabbalist.”