Clint Wolf Series Boxed Set 3 Read online

  He glanced toward the door. “Will you tell my mom about him?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  He shook his head. “No, please.”

  “Then I won’t.”

  “My mom would kill her if she found out—and she would kill me for not telling.”

  “Well then, as long as you don’t say anything, she won’t know.”

  Seth hesitated some more. I appreciated how loyal he was to his sister, but I needed him to tell me what I needed to know—and I didn’t have a lot of time to waste.

  “Look, son, if you want to see your sister again, you need to start talking.” I paused and watched his eyes widen at the prospect of never seeing his sister again. “Now, give me the boy’s name.”

  He gulped and nodded. “Okay, his name is Michael…Michael Odom. I don’t know exactly where he lives, but it’s somewhere across the bayou in Mechant Loup East.”

  “How old is he?”

  “He’s a senior, but I think he quit school.” Seth leaned closer and lowered his voice. “That’s why Rosie doesn’t want my mom to know about him. She’d never let her date him because of his age.”

  “Do you know if Michael has a car?”

  Seth began chewing on his fingernails.

  “Come on, son, I need you to be honest. This isn’t a game. Your sister could be in real trouble.”

  “Um, yes, sir, he has a truck…a white one. It’s old and the door on the passenger side is green.”

  “What kind of truck?”

  “It’s a Ford.”

  I decided to test the kid to see if he knew the difference between Fords and Chevrolets and other trucks. “How do you know it’s a Ford? Could it have been another type of pickup? A Chevrolet, perhaps? Or a Toyota Tundra? Maybe even a Dodge—?”

  “No, sir, it was definitely a Ford.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because it said ‘Ford’ on the tailgate.”

  I grinned wide. “That would indicate it was a Ford. What about other identifiers? Does he have any bumper stickers on it? Or any damage? Something that would make it stand out?”

  Seth shook his head. “But it does have some loud mufflers. They make it sound like a jet coming down the road.”

  I studied him for a second, wondering how much he knew. “Where’d you see the truck?”

  “Sir?”

  “You described his truck, so you must’ve seen it somewhere—but where?”

  Another long pause from the kid. I was about to issue him another stern warning when he spoke again.

  “Is Rosie going to get in trouble? She made me swear not to ever say anything. She said if I ever told my mom about Michael, she would drag me out of my bed in the middle of the night and drown me in the bayou.” He swallowed. “She also said she’d tell Mom that I was the one who put the hole in the living room wall. So, you see, I can’t tell.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. The door to the room was closed and I couldn’t see any shadows from the crack at the bottom. “Look, the only thing I’m interested in is finding Rosie. If you help me do that, I’ll keep your secret.”

  “You won’t tell my mom?”

  “No.”

  Seth licked his lips. “Okay, well, I caught Rosie sneaking out of the house one night. It was late and I heard a noise outside and I thought my raccoon had come back, so I went to bring it some food. I was being quiet so I wouldn’t wake up my mom. When I opened the side door and went through the garage, I saw somebody walking in the back yard. At first I thought it was a robber, but then they walked under the light pole we have in the back yard and I saw it was Rosie. She didn’t see me. She never tells me anything, so I followed her to see what she was doing. I was curious, you know? That’s when I saw what was going on.”

  I could feel that my mouth was open as I waited for him to finish, but he didn’t. “Well,” I said, “what did you see?”

  “Oh, I followed her across the field. It was easy to see her because she was carrying this flashlight my grandma gave her two Christmases ago.” He grunted. “She loves that thing. She carries it with her everywhere she goes. She’s really afraid of the dark, so I was surprised she was walking outside at night.”

  “Where’d she go?” I asked, wanting to tell him to spit it out or I would feed him to the alligators, but I decided to be patient. He finally spoke again.

  “She went to the graveyard down the bayou from here.” Seth pointed toward the south. “It’s by a cane field road and it has some big graves—the kind that are off the ground. There was a boy waiting for her in a white truck and she kissed him when he got out of his truck.” Seth’s face contorted. “It was disgusting. The last thing I want to do is see my sister kiss somebody.”

  “What did they do after they kissed?”

  “They started screaming and cursing.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “At each other?”

  “No. They were screaming at me because I yelled at her and told her that I was telling Mom.” Seth crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I mean, she’s always getting me in trouble for innocent things that I do, so I thought it was her turn to get in trouble.”

  “Did you tell your mom?”

  “No.” He sighed heavily. “Michael promised to bring me Red Dead Redemption 2, so I told them I wouldn’t say anything.”

  I couldn’t help but giggle. There was nothing quite like bribing a young boy with video games to keep him quiet. “How long ago was this?”

  “It was before the Thanksgiving break. I remember it was cold that night and we had school the next day.”

  I sighed inwardly. Laura was surely going to kill Rose when she found out about Michael. “Had they met up any other times?”

  Seth’s head bobbed up and down. “Oh, yeah, like every Friday since then. And she leaves with him sometimes.”

  “She leaves?” That got my attention. “Where do they go?”

  “Um, she said they just ride around and listen to music. But I think they do other stuff, like kiss and all.”

  “Did they ever meet on other days of the week? Like maybe a weekend or a Wednesday?”

  “Never on a Wednesday, but he did pick her up one Saturday night. They went to the movies. She told me they’d bring me something back if I lied for her if Mom woke up. Mom never woke up, but I heard Dad get up once. I think he went to the kitchen and then went back to his room.”

  “Has Michael ever picked Rose up in the morning before?”

  “I don’t think so. If he did, she never told me about it, but she couldn’t get away with it anyway.” Seth grunted. “The school has robots that call our parents and tattletale if we skip school.”

  I grunted, too. “Yeah, y’all can’t get away with anything these days. When I was a boy we would…”

  I stopped abruptly and let my voice trail off, realizing I didn’t want to give the kid any ideas. I stood there tapping my foot on the floor and thinking. If what Seth was saying was correct, Michael picked Rose up on Friday nights mostly, and once on a Saturday. He had never picked her up in the morning before, so why would he start now? What was different about today? Why wouldn’t they care about their parents finding out? Could it be they had decided to elope?

  “Did Rosie tell you anything about skipping school today?”

  “No, sir. It looked like she was going to school. She had her backpack on and she didn’t complain about being sick or anything.”

  “Do you think it’s possible that Michael picked her up this morning?”

  Seth shrugged his bony shoulders. “I guess so, but I think he probably picked her up after school.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because my mom would know about it if she skipped school. I already told you we can’t get away with that.”

  I didn’t bother telling Seth that Rose didn’t go to school today. Instead, I asked if she ever talked about running off with Michael.

  “No, sir. My mom would kill her.”


  “You mentioned you think Michael lives in Mechant Loup East—any idea where?”

  “Not really. I think Rosie said it was off the highway, but that’s all I know.”

  “Do you know anything else about him? Something that can help me locate him?” I knew I could run a name inquiry on him and a driver’s license check to find his address, date of birth, and social, but I always tried to get more information just in case the address on record was old or we had multiple people with the same name.

  “Well, I think he works at Walmart in Chateau, because that’s where he got me the game. And I saw a picture of him and Rosie together on her phone and he was wearing those blue things the workers wear at Walmart.”

  I asked a few more questions before my cell phone dinged in my pocket. I pulled it out and read the message on the screen. It was from Amy and she was letting me know that Gretchen Verdin had arrived with her dog.

  I turned back to Seth and dug in my shirt pocket, pulling out one of my cards. “Here’s my business card. If you think of anything or if you hear from Rosie, call me right away.”

  I started to walk out, but Seth stopped me. “Hey, mister,” he said, “you won’t tell my mom, right? Because she’d kill Rosie for lying and she’d kill me for being a part of it.”

  I smiled to reassure him. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your murder.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Well, what’d he say?” Laura Murdock asked when I stepped out of Seth’s room and rejoined her and her husband in the living room. She handed me a printout and showed me a digital picture of Rose. She then folded her arms in front of her chest. “You were in there forever.”

  “I was just getting to know him,” I explained, glancing through the records she’d given me. It was a printout of Rose’s cell phone activity for the current month. A few of the numbers were highlighted in pink marker. “I like to visit with my witnesses a while—especially when they’re younger—and establish a rapport with them. I need them to trust me so they can tell me things that will help with the investigation.”

  “What did he tell you? Did he say something that will help?”

  I was stone-faced as I turned from the records and studied the picture of Rose. She wore a softball uniform and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her hair and eyes were dark brown and she had a tanned complexion. When I looked back up at Laura, I remained expressionless. “We never really know what’s important and what’s not, so we just try to get as much information as possible.” I then changed the subject. “Can you forward this picture to my cell phone? I’ll give you my number.”

  “But did Seth know anything about Rosie? Did he say if she was hiding something from me?”

  “He doesn’t know where she is, ma’am.” I said it with finality and she seemed to get the hint. Of course, while she gave the appearance she might be willing to drop the subject for now, I wasn’t fooled. Based on what I already knew about this woman, I was positive she would interrogate Seth as soon as I was gone. Maybe even waterboard him. After giving her my number and then receiving the digital photograph of Rose, I held up the phone bill. “There’re a lot of numbers on here. Did you recognize any of them?”

  She nodded. “The only ones I didn’t recognize were the ones highlighted in pink. If you’ll notice, she was texting one of those numbers all morning long and there are eight missed calls from the same number right around the time I saw her last.”

  She was correct. There were dozens of text messages and calls to the same number, beginning at 5:08 a.m. and ending at 6:54—and it was the last number Rose had texted. And then around 7:30 there were eight missed calls from that same number.

  I rubbed my chin. The missed calls had come in right around the time the bus was scheduled to arrive. If the number belonged to Michael Odom, it was quite possible he had picked Rose up. It would certainly explain why there was no activity afterward, because she didn’t need to call or text him if she was sitting right beside him—but why would he call eight times and she not answer? I knew we needed to track her phone, and we needed to do it right away.

  I pointed to the number at the top of the first page. “Is this your daughter’s cell number?”

  Laura nodded.

  I pulled out my phone and called Susan. She answered on the first ring.

  “Sounds like you’re going to be late,” she said before I could utter a word. “I heard Gretchen Verdin go out over the radio. Is it bad?”

  I started to think of a way I could subtly tell Susan that it was possible Rose had run off with her boyfriend, but Laura Murdock was standing there measuring my every word and expression. “I’m not sure, but I do need her phone traced as soon as possible. Can you obtain a search warrant for me?”

  “Sure.” I heard rustling in the background and it sounded like she was digging around on her desk. “Okay, give me what you’ve got.”

  I gave her the phone number, account information, and Laura Murdock’s name. “I’ll also get Mrs. Murdock to contact her service provider to see if they can get a quick location on the cell, but we’ll still need the official data for our file.”

  “I’m on it.”

  I thanked her and ended the call. I didn’t have to tell Laura to contact her service provider, because she was already back on her computer looking for the contact number.

  “Will they give me the information even though I’m not a cop?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “They’ll give it to you before they’ll give it to me,” I assured her. “While you do that, I need to step outside for a minute. The sheriff’s office canine officer just arrived. We’re going to run a track.”

  Laura spun around in her chair. “Do you think she’s…um, injured or something?”

  “No, ma’am.” I quickly shook my head. “We just want to trace her steps in case she left on foot—of her own volition.”

  She seemed to relax a little.

  Before walking out, I asked for an article of clothing that belonged to Rose, and Laura hurried out of the living room. She returned holding an athletic shirt. “It was on the floor, so it’s dirty and will have her scent all over it.” She scowled. “For the life of me, I can’t get that kid to pick up her clothes. Hell, you should see her room.”

  “If we don’t turn up anything with the track, I will need to see her room. I’ll need to examine every electronic device she owns, her school notebooks, diaries—everything. When we’re dealing with a missing person, nothing is off limits and nothing is sacred.” I started to turn toward the door, but stopped. “Oh, and ma’am, it’s very important that you not contact the last number Rose called. I need to try and identify the person before tipping them off that they’re on my radar.”

  Pursing her lips, Laura nodded. “I’ll try not to.”

  “That’s not good enough.” My tone was stern, but it was necessary. “If Rose has been taken and you call that number, you could jeopardize her safety—maybe even her life. Got it?”

  She paused a long moment before nodding. This time, I believed her.

  CHAPTER 8

  7:02 p.m.

  12 hours missing…

  “That’s it?” I asked Gretchen Verdin when Geronimo stopped and sat on the north-bound edge of Old Blackbird Highway. “She went from the mailbox to the other side of the road?”

  Although it was dark, there was no mistaking Gretchen’s strong and attractive features in the dim glow from the street lights. “Yeah, that’s it. She got in a vehicle right here in front of the house.”

  I glanced up and down the highway. Rose had apparently crossed the street and gotten into the passenger side of a vehicle—but what vehicle? And who was driving? I didn’t know what I was hoping for, but I certainly wished for more. Perhaps a track toward the woods behind the house, where we would find her camping out, angry at her parents for not letting her go to Orange Beach. Or at least a longer track where we would’ve found evidence that had been discarded along the way, something that would give
us a direction in which to go. As it stood at present, my best bet was the boyfriend. I needed to find him pronto.

  Amy pulled her cruiser onto the highway and turned on her flashing lights to alert any oncoming vehicles that we were in the road, and she then lit up the area with her headlights and spotlight. I dropped to my knees and moved over every inch of the blacktop. There wasn’t so much as a single strand of hair on the road. I was relieved that I didn’t find blood, but that was the only good news of the day. There were no skid marks, which would’ve indicated someone leaving in a hurry. No drops of oil or other fluid. No receipts or litter of any kind. Nothing at all.

  A thought suddenly occurred to me. I might have been looking at this all wrong. I’d been operating under the assumption that Rose never got on the bus, but Geronimo’s track was evidence that she did enter a vehicle—why couldn’t it have been her bus? The school had called to say she was absent, not that she had never gotten on the bus. She could’ve ridden the bus to school and then disappeared from there. Shit, I thought, the school might be the crime scene.

  Amy was still standing near the front of her cruiser twenty minutes later when I straightened and sighed. Gretchen had left, but told us to call if we needed anything else.

  “Well, that was a complete waste of time,” Amy said when I got closer. Her thumbs were hooked into the waistline of her uniform pants. There was a smirk on her face, but it wasn’t as cynical an expression as I was accustomed to seeing from her. “What’s next?”

  “What’s up with you?” I asked, ignoring the question and eyeing her suspiciously.

  “What are you talking about?” She stood straighter, tried to clear her face of any emotion. “I’m just standing here keeping you safe from all the traffic that isn’t passing.”

  “There’s a twinkle in your eyes.” I cocked my head to the side. “Or have my detective senses dulled with the passing of time and my advanced age?”

  “Your detective senses must’ve dulled, but it’s not because of advanced age. What are you again—forty-eight?”