The River Runs Dry (20 page)

“Something caught your eye detective?”

Jack looked up to see Francesca Young staring at him from inside the kitchen a dozen feet ahead.

“Just admiring your home,” said Jack, before stepping forward into a bright and breezy kitchen space.

“Drink?”

“Just water, thank you.”

Francesca quickly poured a glass of water, handing it to Jack before standing, arms folded, ahead of him.

“So tell me detective, what do you want to know about Trey.”

Jack took a sip and set the water down to one side, before once more slipping his notepad from his pocket and opening it up.

“I've been told you were friends in your youth. Is that correct?”

“I've told you that already.”

“Were you more than friends?”

Her face closed up at the question, staring straight forward. “I suppose so.”

“And when did you last see him?”

She shook her head. “Not since he left. The boy never had any responsibility to anyone. He just left when he wanted.” She turned away as she spoke, memory flooding through her eyes, and stroked her daughter's hair as she stood by her side.

“Beth, go watch TV, leave mommy to talk to the man alone, OK,” she said, leaning down and giving her a kiss on the forehead.

Jack's next question came quickly, as soon as the girl had left the room. “It's Trey's daughter isn't it? Does he know?”

She shook her head. “He left before I could have told him. I never heard from him again.”

Jack could see her frosty exterior beginning to thaw.

“He was always his own man, you know what I mean detective. He didn't let anyone in, like he didn't trust anyone's opinion on anything. I always knew he was cold, but I never expected him to just leave.”

“He didn't say why? Or where he was going?”

She shook her head. “He talked about the world in a funny way. Sometimes I didn't even understand what he was talking about he was so smart. He was difficult sometimes, but I never wanted him to leave.”

“Did you try to get in touch with him?”

“How?” she said sadly, shaking her head. “He was gone, I didn't know where. I guess I should have known he wouldn't stay here forever. He talked about going home a lot, when the time was right.”

“What do you think he meant by that?” Jack asked, his hand poised over his pad.

“I guess he never felt like he belonged around here. He always set his sights higher. He wanted money, I knew that much. He'd never manage to get that round here. I think he wanted to work in finance or real estate or something, a job where you can get commission, you know. All he did round here was little jobs for little money. It was never enough.”

“So you think that's why he moved? He wanted to earn more money, he wanted to return home?”

She half nodded and half shook her head. “To be honest detective, I gave up caring a long time ago. I don't even care if he's dead any more. He just left me, like I had been nothing to him, without even saying goodbye. What sort of a man does that?”

Jack's eyes set on hers.
You have no idea.

“Well I'm sorry to have disturbed you this morning Miss Young. Thanks for the water.”

Jack turned and moved towards the door, opening it up himself as Francesca followed behind in his wake.

“If you do see Trey detective, please don't tell him about my his daughter.”

Jack turned, his eyes meeting hers. They were full of sorrow and regret.

“I don't want him coming in and spoiling what we've got here,” she continued. “My Bethany is all I got.”

Jack nodded. “I won't Miss Young. I promise.”

…

It was steadily moving into the early evening when Jack and Jessie sat opposite each other, a dinner table between them. Jack had spent most of the day speaking with various other potential leads who knew Trey Hunter when he lived in the area, but the same story kept coming up.

He was a man who'd left, suddenly, without telling anyone: not his uncle, not his girlfriend, not the few friends he had or the people he worked for. He'd just disappeared out of the blue, and the only future sighting Jack had managed to dig up was that of him in Houston, when his uncle had seen him by completely chance.

Carla had also been in touch with an update, and it merely corroborated what Jack had discovered. There was no official change of name for Trey Hunter. Since leaving his uncle's ranch house, his name and social security number hadn't turned up anywhere. There was no record that he'd gained employment under his real identity, that he'd used his passport, his driver's license, or anything else.

Essentially, Trey Hunter had been gobbled up by the earth, and whatever had been spat out was now causing terror in Burgess and the surrounding area.

For Jessie, the entire day had been spent in the car or in a local coffee shop reading magazines. It felt incredibly empty reading articles about the latest celebrity scandal when all of this was happening around her, but Jack had insisted that Jessie's input remain as limited as possible. She was there with him for protection, but that didn't mean she could join in his interviews or accompany him as he ventured into the police department to talk to the local cops there.

Now they sat together over dinner, both weary from the long hours they'd spent awake. Jack sat at the table, still trying to piece everything together, to make sense of it all. He had the feeling that something was staring him in the face, crying out to be discovered, but he was blinkered to it somehow. It was the old detective curse – focusing on the wrong details when the answer is right there, just waiting to be discovered.

It was only now, over dinner, that the two of them had any time to sit together, alone, in each other's company. Amid everything that was going on, neither could help the feeling that they were on a first date. The al fresco restaurant, the fading light of the sun on the horizon, the light chatter of normal people living out their normal lives: it almost made them both feel human again for a time.

Without speaking of it, without making a point of it, they turned their minds from their entangled troubles and joked and laughed, sharing a bottle of wine and smiling at each other across the table.

Being away from Burgess, away from everything, made Jessie feel liberated from the fear that had begun to engulf her. Suddenly everything didn't feel quite so bad. It was a weird sensation, brought about by a foreign town, a foreign landscape, and a man who made her feel so safe and secure, purely by his presence.

For Jack, the pressures of the case had grown to the point where they were hindering his performance, making him obsess about this detail and that detail. It might have been subconscious, he didn't know, but enjoying a dinner with a beautiful girl might be just what he needed. It allowed him to relax, to switch off for a few hours, and to come back at it another day. Bill had told him to do just that, but he hadn't listened. Now it was naturally taking effect on its own, and Jessie was the catalyst.

Soon one bottle of wine became two, and they both forgot their lives. To any onlooker they could have been a beautiful young couple, enjoying the dry summer evening with not a care in the world. For that briefest of times, that's exactly how they both felt.

But, inevitably, it could only be brief. Because tomorrow was another day, and
he
was still out there.

Chapter 22

Jessie's eyes cracked open in her hotel room, the light of the morning flowing in through the curtains. She heard a voice behind her and turned, quickly, to see Jack standing up at the side of the bed.

She smiled instinctively at the sight of him there, watching over her, but her smile quickly faded at the look on his face.

“What's wrong?” she asked, her expression quickly growing with worry.

He looked at her for a moment longer, as if trying to speak, but finding it difficult to find the words.

“Jack, what's going on?” Jessie said again, her voice clearer and more alert now.

Jack moved forward and sat down on the bed.

“It's Darcia....” he said. It was all he needed to for Jessie's heart to leap up into her throat.

“No....no....she's dead?” she said quickly, her words growing frantic.

Jack quickly leaned in closer as she started shaking and took her by the wrists, dragging her eyes to him. “We don't know that Jess. She's gone missing from her parents' house. We don't know where yet, OK, we don't know yet...”

Jack's words of comfort brought none to Jessie, who knew exactly what was going on. The killer had specifically singled out herself and Darcia. If she was missing, then she was dead.

She couldn't help her body from shaking and her tears from rushing through her. She felt a surge building up through her body, an uncontrollable avalanche of emotion flowing to the summit. Jack moved closer and took her in his arms, hugging her shaking body tight.

He spoke words but Jessie couldn't understand them, couldn't hear them. All she could do was think of Darcia with her eyes cut from her head, her hair torn off. Her best friend was dead, she knew she was dead. And she'd be next, there was no stopping it.

It took several minutes before she could form words, before her mind could begin to consider anything other than her murder.

When she spoke her words shook, punctuated with sobs and quick breaths.

“What happened.....there were cops there....I saw you assign them...”

Jack stroked her hair and calmed her as best he could, speaking gently in her ear.

“There was a fire, down the street. It was late at night so they went to help before the firefighters got there. By the time they got back, Darcia was gone.”

The words only served to confirm Jessie's fears. It could only have been him who did that, only him.

“What...about her....parents?”

“They're OK. They were sleeping.”

“But how....how could he get Darcia like that? I don't understand....”

“That's all I know right now Jessie. There's a flight leaving in an hour. We need to be on it. He'll be coming after you next, and I won't let that happen.”

Jessie sat there on the bed, numb, while Jack quickly went to work, rushing around gathering up their things. In only 5 minutes he was escorting her out of the hotel, his arm wrapped around her shoulder as she continued to shiver violently. She grew pale, her face growing clammy, and bent down to throw up as they got outside.

Her head was in turmoil as they drove and flew and drove again. It raged inside, like a hurricane rushing through a town, devastating it and leaving it broken and destroyed. She could think of nothing but her friend, of him, stalking her thoughts, her dreams, her reality.

And now, she knew, she was his next target.

…

Jack stood in Bill's office, his fist wound up tight. The entire day had been a rush, a blur, as he and Jessie returned from Texas to yet more tragedy.

“So he started a fire, as a diversion, and grabbed her then?” Jack was asking. “Why did the guys I posted not realize what was going on? It must have been staring them in the face!”

“I won't have you passing them any blame Jack. They were duty bound to try to help. Wouldn't you? If you heard someone screaming down the road....if you saw a fire ripping through a house. Of course you would, any good officer would.”

Jack shook his head and stormed around the room. “He told us specifically he'd get her, and now he has. And I've got Jessie Trent in my office, out of her wits. She was her best friend, Bill, and we haven't been able to protect her. Imagine how the girl feels now. I'm not leaving her side until this guy's caught, I'll tell you that. I'm not going to let this happen again.”

“But you have to do your job Jack, and you can't with her holding you back. She can stay here, in the department. There's no way he'd be able to get in here.”

Jack was still pacing, still shaking his head. “He's here, he's here somewhere, somewhere in town. But he's not Trey Hunter any more, he's someone new. He must have built a new identity, started a completely new life...”

“Is that what the uncle told you?”

“The uncle...and others. He went missing nearly 10 years back, hasn't shown up anywhere since.”

“OK, so what do we know about him?”

Jack stopped, leaning on Bill's desk, and spoke quickly. “He's 6 feet 2, dark hair, although we know from the hospital attack that he wears disguises, or at least one, so could be blond Um, 28 years old, nearly 29, has a hybrid accent, scars all over his body: burns, cut marks...”

“But not on his face, nothing noticeable unless you saw him undressed?”

“No, inside of the forearms would be the most obvious spot if he was wearing a t-shirt or a shirt will rolled up sleeves.”

“OK, let's put it on the wire, get it in the papers. We've got a description, so let's get it out there to see if anyone knows this son of a bitch. If he lives and works round here, someone will know him.”

Jack nodded, but without any real hope that Bill was right. Frankly, this guy was clever, cleverer than any of them thought. If he worked in town, in any capacity, he'd be hiding his voice, he'd be keeping those scars away from sight. So all they really had was a young man, dark hair, fairly tall. There could be hundreds, if not more, of men like that.

“So, Darcia Robinson, what are you doing about her?”

Bill shook his head and wiped his brow. “We're still investigating the house, talking to the parents. They're out of their minds, as you'd expect. They've already lost their teenage son over this, and now their daughter's gone missing.”

“Have you checked her room? Did she have a cellphone?” Jack asked quickly.

“Erm...no, not that I know of.”

“Then she might have had it on her when she was taken. If it's not in the house, it might have been with her...” Jack spoke quickly, thinking just as fast, and darted from the room.

He found Carla at her desk and posed her the same question.

“No Jack, there was no phone at the scene.” Her eyes widened in a realization. “We can track it!”

Jack nodded. “Do it. Now.”