“Robyn Torre. Twenty years old. Student in Austin and a semi-professional dancer. She’s in a production the college is doing. Left practice last night, and no one has seen her since. She just broke up with her boyfriend, so the roommate called the parents—they live an hour away—in case she went home. Been twenty-four hours and she freaked, called the Austin PD, passed it to us.”
“And no one has any idea where she is,” Brody says from the doorway.
I crane my neck back to look at him.
“Not the best friend, not the ex-boyfriend, not the cousin in the dorm over.”
“What does Dev know? Isn’t he in charge of the missing persons these days?” I ask.
Trent slams his fist against the desk. “Yeah, but he doesn’t know shit, does he? He’s too caught up in Amelia and her endless fight with Nonna. That fuckin’ wedding is gonna kill us all! Elope already, you pair of shitfucks!”
I purse my lips. Slowly, I reach forward and pull a Twizzler from the bag. Then I wiggle it in front of his face. “Here, Trenty-Trenty. Take the twizzy-Twizzler.”
He glares at me and snatches the candy stick from my hand. Biting into it roughly, he huffs. “Shut up, Elley-Belley.”
I clamp my teeth together. “My name is Noelle, fuckwad.”
“And mine is Trent.”
“Fuck me,” Brody hisses. “Twizzlers, Trent’s. Cupcakes, Noelle’s. Don’t make me tell Drake on you.”
I snort. “Please. I’ll have him on my side in fifteen minutes with skills you don’t need to know about.”
He shudders. “Damn right I don’t need to know about them. Can we get some work done? I need to go into Austin to interview the roommate myself. Messina took the call, but he doesn’t have all the case details.”
Trent snorts.
I raise an eyebrow. “All right. I know why Drake hates him. Why do you hate him?”
“He’s an asshole,” he replies without a beat. “That’s all there is to it.”
“Reasonable enough,” I mutter, eyeing the candy again. “So, what do we do about Robyn? Do we just sit around until she shows up dead?”
“You put things so eloquently.”
I turn in the direction of the voice and smile at Drake. “It’s my brain-to-mouth filter. The bitch is on vacation again.”
“She’s never present,” he drawls in response. “And, to answer your question, Brody is going to do the interview right now, and I’m sending a few other officers with him to question anyone who may have seen her the morning she disappeared. We have to assume her abduction is related to the religious murders, and given that she’s been gone for twenty-four hours, we may be too late, but we could find her.”
“And when you say find her, you mean…”
“Yes, Noelle. I mean alive.”
“Right. Just checking.” I bite my tongue. “What can I do?”
“Call Carlton. See if he can borrow information about Robyn Torre. I also want to know what he can dig up on Dina White and Jackson Bullock. Tim is comparing Jackson’s fingerprints to ones found in Dina’s apartment.”
I love the fact everyone now refers to Carlton’s activities as “borrowing.” “Are you going to question him?”
“If his shoe size and fingerprints match, I’m gonna interview him, yeah. I have every reason to suspect Dina’s secret son of her murder.” Drake glances to his left. “Brody? Are you going, or will Isabel Roman be questioning herself?”
“Gotcha.” Brody gives him a thumbs-up and slinks out.
“Trent, I need you to go to the lab in Austin and bug them. I want those results sooner rather than later. The only reason we have Jackson Bullock in a cell is because he elbowed Peters in the nose.”
I cough to hide the laugh that bubbles up, but Drake catches it anyway. Trying to get anything past him is like trying to sneak a steak past a dog.
“Got it.” Trent looks at his watch. “Better call Alison and tell her I don’t need dinner.”
“It’s time for dinner?” I perk up, looking at him. “Tell her I’ll have yours.”
“Nope.” Drake taps the top of my head. “You’re gonna do what I asked and then see if we can put this case together, because right now, it’s like a tub of sprinkles has fallen out of the cupboard and gone just about fuckin’ everywhere.”
“That’s ’cause they have,” I mutter, sighing. “Fine. But can we order dinner?”
He levels me with a steady look that says We can eat when we’re done.
Psh.
The prints came back a match for Jackson earlier this morning.
We spent three hours mulling over every single detail of this case, even as far as going over them twice just in case we missed something that could give us an idea of the killer. Even when Alex—wait, Jason—came down to help us, we got nothing. The only thing we have that relates to it is Jackson’s relationship with Dina, and although we’re all ninety-nine percent sure her death is related to the serial murders, we don’t have proof of that, either.
We don’t have proof of much. There are only so many questions a girl can ask before she looks suspicious, which rules me pretty much out of any further recon trips around the fair.
I’m also highly aware of the fact that my business is falling by the wayside. If I didn’t have such a great team, not to mention a best friend who bounces back like fucking Tigger, then I’m pretty sure Bond P.I. would be a bust. It just strengthens my resolve that, if this happens again and the HWPD decides they need an extra pair of hands, I should say no.
I actually miss cheaters.
Go figure.
Now, I’m sitting in a room with Sheriff Bates, Officer Peters, and Brody while Drake interviews Jackson Bullock with the help of Detective Johnson.
Well, I say help. The man has barely said a word except to triple-check that Jackson is waiving his right for representation.
“Tell me about your relationship with Dina White,” Drake asks, leaning back in his chair.
Jackson shrugs and picks at a thread on his T-shirt. “We were pretty close, everything considered. We only saw each other once a year, but she’d always been a part of it.”
“Did you have much involvement with the store?”
“No, sir. I helped her paint it last year, and there was always something for me to build, but I think it was just her way of keeping me there.” He smiles warily. “She was eccentric and a lot of person for me to stomach. Despite my job, I’m a pretty quiet guy.”
That I can believe.
“She would always have a bookshelf that needed to be built or a frame to be hung, or she’d need her new TV set up. Always happened when she knew I’d be around.” That smile grows, and he looks down. “This year was a new set of drawers for her closet. I was supposed to do it on Friday, but she had to go out of state. I guess, now, I don’t have a reason to build the drawers.”
Oh, man. Right in the feels.
“Why did she go out of state? It was a sudden trip, right?” Drake asks.
“Yes, sir. She told me her aunt was severely ill and she flew to California to see her.”
“When was she supposed to come back?”
“Early on Saturday. She said she’d call when she was home and we’d have dinner together.”
“Did she call?”
Jackson shakes his head. “I got a text around eight saying she was extending her trip by a couple days.”
“What was the time of death?” I whisper to Sheriff Bates.
Slowly, he turns to me. “Saturday morning.”
My eyes dart between the interview and the aging man next to me. “What if she didn’t send that text?”
The sheriff jerks around like a bolt of lightning and slaps Brody’s shoulder. “You. Peters. Dina’s apartment is still a crime scene—y’all get in there and find that goddamn phone.”
“On it, sir.” Brody literally grabs Peters and pulls him out of the room.
“Was that the last contact you had with her?” Drake asks when I tune back into the conversation. “The text?”