Shelby's Secret (Once a Marine, Always a Marine Book 4) (21 page)

“The neighbor next door is on vacation according to the maid and she is older, so rarely goes outside. But she swears she thought someone was on the roof a couple of nights ago.”

“Jess,” Mike said, without breaking eye contact with a visibly nervous Hank.

Jesse nodded. “I’m on it.”

“I’m assuming you found something useful, otherwise you wouldn’t be wasting my time?” Mike asked.

“Yes, sir. Two houses down, the family has the wife’s mother living with them and she walks her little dog all over the neighborhood. She’s also the self-appointed block-watch captain so she looks for unusual things. She told us about an older model, tan Toyota Camry that’s been in the area lately. She never saw the driver, but she wrote down the license plate so she could call the police if it showed up again. She didn’t go out today because the dog was sick, so she’s not a witness to anything but the car being there, but she supplied the plate number. She swears that car does not belong to anyone in this neighborhood.”

“I think you just saved the rest of your teeth,” Damon said. “I’ll take that.” Once he had the paper with the plate info, he pulled out his cell phone to make a call.

Mike turned away to check on the progress of Daniel’s conversation. He hoped Hank took the hint and went back inside, because he was holding his temper by both hands, and control was slipping.

“Missing persons did a call out and have as many bodies on the street as they can,” Daniel said.

“What about Lance? You said he was working on finding a pattern for this guy.” Mike hoped the tech would come up with viable locations because he needed to be doing something. Anything to put him closer to Shelby.

“He triangulated the dump sites in relation to the concert venue. We have ten abandoned warehouses in that radius.”

Mike reached out and put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Great job. All three of the warehouses used have been abandoned for more than a couple of years, see if he can narrow the locations down starting with the oldest. We’ll hit that one first.”

Daniel nodded and dialed the tech’s number again.

Taking a deep breath, Mike finally moved toward Madge. He had questions for her, but he’s been avoidingthe look of agony on her face. He had to bury what he felt so he could think straight. doing so was the only way Shelby was getting out of this alive. “Madge,” he called out as he approached.

She turned from the view of the skyline. She hadn’t moved from her position in the big driveway. “My turn?”

He nodded. “I need to ask you about Robert Charleston.”

His question must have surprised her. Her eyebrows puckered, and she cocked her head to the side. “He’s a kid. We took him on in Nashville, and he’s been a hard worker. Never complains, never even asks for a raise. He’s been training with one of the lighting techs for the last six months, and he’s a fast learner. What about him?”

“Did you see him today during rehearsal?”

She nodded.

“Does he room with anyone? Someone he’s close to on the tour?”

She shook her head. “No. He keeps to himself and usually finds a place somewhere else to sleep. The crew talked to him about it once, but he’s a little antisocial so they left him alone. He shows up on time and keeps his mouth shut.”

“Has he shown any undue interest in Shelby?”

Again, she shook her head.

But he could see she was thinking about the kid in a different way. Madge hadn’t come out and asked him, but she was getting there.

“No, but I’ve seen him give Rebecca things from time to time. No one but the band knew about her, because we’d been in Nashville for a break until we left for this tour. Then she started showing up with us to rehearsals and went on the road with us again.”

“But most of your crew and the band knew Rebecca because of Abby, so her presence wouldn’t have been a surprise.”

“Except for Robert,” Madge said, slowly. “He was brand new to the tour, and he’s been doing little jobs for just about everyone.”

“So he’s invisible?”

“You mean to Shelby?”

Mike nodded. “Especially to Shelby. He was someone in the background, who was listening and watching but just part of the crew. I know she’s close to her band, but she wouldn’t be with the crew all the time, because they travel ahead and prep everything for her shows.”

A look of horror crossed her face. “I was teasing Shelby about you, and he was on stage setting up a ladder just at that moment.” Madge crossed her arms and hugged herself. “I never thought a thing about it. We did a background on him.”

“Your people did a criminal history check on him because he was a late arrival, but the research was right before you left so the report wasn’t even close to being complete.”

“So why are you looking at him?”

“Robert Charleston committed suicide a long time ago. The person using his identification is the man who’s been stalking Shelby and murdering women who look enough like her to fuel his twisted fantasies.”

“And I hired him.” The look on her face said she took all the blame. She stumbled backward.

Mike reached out and grabbed her by the arms. “Who on the crew knows him the best?”

“Probably Burt, he’s the lighting supervisor, and he’s been working closely with Robert the longest, teaching him the business.”

“Good. Get him on the line and start asking if knows where Robert goes at night or what he does when he’s not working. Anything could help. Also, what does Robert look like? We can’t find a picture of him anywhere.”

“He’s never around for any of the crew photos. I never found that weird until now,” she mused. Then she shook herself and answered, “He’s average height, average weight. He’s a white male with sandy brown hair and brown eyes. No remarkable features or tattoos or anything. He’s just an average kid.”

“Better description than we had before. Go ahead and call Burt, he might have more.”

Madge pulled out her phone as Mike turned away.

He was in a holding pattern now, waiting for information, and he wanted to see for himself the blood on the balcony. The hand on his arm stopped him. Madge was back together, but just barely. He raised an eyebrow at her in question.

“Please talk to Rebecca,” she begged. “She really took to you, and she knows something is wrong. No one has said anything, but she’s already been through this with her mom.” Her voice caught, “She won’t even look at me.”

Mike nodded once. He had no idea what to say to the little girl, but he’d gone through something similar. His own father had been Special Forces and was gone a lot. One day, he just never came home. Not until he himself had joined the military had he understood fully what they meant by a “training accident.” That had been the official cause of death listed for his father, but the reality was that he’d been killed on duty, in a country where he shouldn’t have been. The Medal of Honor Mike and his mother received a year later hadn’t done anything to alleviate the despair they both felt. He’d stand at the window day after day, wishing and praying for his dad to come home, even though Mike had been told he never would.

He found Rebecca on the floor huddled in the corner of the den, surrounded by her stuffed animals. She stared off into space—no tears, no hysterics, just mute confusion and maybe a little anger. He squatted down so that he was on more of her level. “Rebecca?”

She stared straight ahead.

No acknowledgement that he was speaking. “Honey, look at me,” he said. By that time, the rest of the adults had moved away to the other side of the room to give them a bit of privacy.

And still, she wouldn’t budge.

“It’s happening again, isn’t it? Just like with your mom.”

Direct hit. Her eyes widened, and she started blinking rapidly, coming out of her stupor. Turning her head, she looked up at him, her face full of questions.

He recognized she couldn’t bring herself to voice them. But at least she was back in the room with him, instead of locked away inside her silent world. “And no one tells you anything. Is that right?”

She nodded and hugged a stuffed animal closer.

“She’s missing, Rebecca, but she didn’t leave willingly. Do you understand that?”

A slow nod, and then her voice emerged. “Bobby took her.”

Mike went still, but he kept his voice low and calm. “How do you know that?”

Rebecca ducked her head and buried her nose into the soft fur of the animal in her arms. “I saw him,” she whispered.

“And his name is Bobby?” When he saw her nod, he went on. “What did you see?”

“I was playing in the closet ‘cause I couldn’t sleep. Aunt Shelby doesn’t mind, and she didn’t know I was there ‘cause I snuck in.”

“What happened when you were in the closet?”

“Bobby was outside, and he grabbed her.” Her voice was barely audible.

Mike resisted the impatience coursing through him. He didn’t want to scare her. “How do you know Bobby?” Rebecca peeked up at him with her big cornflower blue eyes so much like Shelby’s that his heart flipped over.

“He works with Aunt Shelby’s crew and he gave me this,” she said, holding out the toy she was hugging—an old-fashioned sock monkey. “He said he had dolls, too.”

Her innocent comment was like an icy finger on his back. He did indeed collect dolls. Living ones that he brutalized and tortured for his own sick pleasure. Mike blocked those images and continued his questions. “What else did he say?”

“Why did he hit her?”

He couldn’t take it, so he sat on the floor and pulled Rebecca up into his lap. Rocking her back and forth, he ran his hand over her soft hair and down her back. He wished she would cry and get her feelings out. The stark containment and the way she held herself in check weren’t natural for a girl her age. Or anyone for that matter. “He’s not a nice man, Rebecca.”

“But he’s always been nice to me,” she said, holding up the monkey in front of them both. “He said he’d take me to his playhouse and show me his dolls sometime, if he could get Aunt Shelby to come, too.”

Shit.
They’d been so focused on Shelby that none of them had even considered this bastard might have been watching Rebecca, too. After all, she was a miniature version of both her mother and Shelby Lynn. “Did he say where his playhouse was?”

“No.” She fidgeted with the material on the monkey’s head. “He said it was a secret place but he liked it because of the trains.” She looked up into his face. “Bobby likes trains almost as much as he likes dolls.”

Mike hugged her close. Their biggest clue to Shelby’s whereabouts had come from the most unlikely source. Everyone knew Rebecca didn’t talk. Hadn’t spoken a word in over a year. Larry, a.k.a Bobby, wouldn’t have known that she would begin talking again. He probably wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.

“Did Bobby take my Mom too?”

“I don’t know, honey. I really don’t. But when I find him, it’s something I will ask him, okay?”

She nodded. “I miss her.”

If his heart squeezed any harder, then the pain would wreck him. This time when he hugged her, she turned and threw her arms around his neck. “I don’t want Aunt Shelby to never come back.”

“I’ll bring her home.”

She put the sock monkey into his arms, and then she climbed out of his lap. “If you give this back to Bobby, maybe he’ll give Aunt Shelby back to us.”

Mike nodded, choking on the lump in his throat and unable to speak. He got to his feet as well, leaned down, and kissed her on the top of the head, before turning and leaving the room. There was no way he was letting that little girl down. He had to bring back Shelby.

“Is there a reason you’re choking that sock monkey to death?” Jesse asked, when Mike joined him in the foyer.

“The son of a bitch gave this thing to Rebecca at some point.” He set it down on the closest table before he ripped it apart. “She was hiding in the closet when he took Shelby.”

“Shit. She saw everything?”

Mike nodded. Zach came down the stairs just then. “What did you find?”

Zach glanced around, making sure they were alone.

They were, Mike had made sure to close the doors to the den behind him, so no one inside that room could hear anything. “He tried to get into the little girl’s room first, but she must have been somewhere else. Then he went to Shelby’s balcony. I spotted a couple of drips of blood, nothing serious, and the trail leads off the mountain to the backside where it ends. Only one set of tracks, so she was unconscious when he got her into the car.”

“Rebecca wasn’t in her room because she was playing in Shelby’s closet,” Jesse told Zach.

“How’s she doing?”

Mike answered the only he could. “She’s holding up the best way she knows how. But she told me something that might help. Where’s Daniel?”

Jesse nodded toward the driveway. “He’s out there with a map and a marker talking with that tech guy. They’re narrowing down our options.”

Mike headed outside toward Daniel, with Jesse and Zach flanking him. “Are any of the viable warehouses near railroad tracks? Or the actual train station?”

Daniel didn’t question him, just asked the question into his phone.