tell me, I get it.”
“We found a smashed taillight in the parking lot of Feeney’s, buried under the snow.”
“How does that relate to the crime? It could be anybody’s.”
His chiseled features held concern. “It has Kerry Carver’s skin on it… I don’t know how it managed not to end up damaged in the snowfall, but it’s her DNA. No doubt.”
My blood ran cold. “Holy coconuts. Does that mean she tried to kick her way out of the trunk? Can we hope maybe she got away?” I prayed that was true. I prayed Kerry had put up a bloody stink of a fight.
“That’s one theory. We have someone checking the make and model of the car it came from, but it would be a new-ish car. Older cars weren’t designed the way they are nowadays, with abductions in mind.”
Abductions…
Another chill attacked my spine and my arms, making me shiver. Those missing girls had taken up a fair amount of space in my head, their faces floating around in my mind’s eye.
Which reminded me, I needed to tell Stiles about our meeting with that weasel Westcott. Maybe it could help the police with something we’d missed. He’d constructed a possible pattern that at least made sense.
“So are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
He clucked his tongue as people passed by and the excitement for the tree lighting grew. “How about you tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll tell you if it’s what I’m thinking.”
I paused for a moment, hoping to get my thoughts together and convey them in full sentences. “Do you think Kerry’s abduction was on that SD card or maybe Gable saw her with the killer? But that makes no sense because nothing was reported. I have to believe if Gable thought something was amiss, he’d have called the police, Stiles. But maybe he was somehow in the way of the killer getting the SD card? Like, wrong time, wrong place? I mean, maybe she was in the trunk of the car and the killer realized he’d be caught on camera so he went back the next day to get it? Mr. Feeney did tell you he only checks the tapes every two or three days, right?”
“There’s a reason we’re BFFs. That’s exactly what I was thinking. What we’re all thinking at the station, too. Mr. Feeney said because almost nothing happens around Marshmallow Hollow, he doesn’t feel like it’s necessary to check the tapes that often.”
My stomach twisted into a knot. “Any more information from Kerry’s parents?”
He sucked his teeth. “Godfrey went to see them today to question them, but they didn’t give us much. As far as they’re concerned, she’s a good girl who would never worry them like this if she could help it. And if we take into account her work ethic from the people she babysat for, and her school records, they’re right.”
I told him about our meeting with Westcott Morgan and the article he’d written on the disappearance of two more girls before Kerry, but he appeared to know about the others who were missing…he just wasn’t admitting he knew.
“So you know about the other girls?”
He kept his answer very vague and PC. “We’re definitely aware of them and there’s a definite pattern, but it’s not like anyone’s shown up dead. We have no bodies. No leads, according to the police departments in the towns they live in. It’s the same story as Kerry Carver’s disappearance.”
I didn’t want to get into Westcott Morgan’s accusation against the police. It still made me angry he’d written the article for controversy rather than finding out who’d taken these young women.
Again, my stomach jumped and churned, reminding me I’d had smoked sausage for dinner. “So, what then? They just fell off the face of the Earth?”
“It feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it?” Stiles asked, his face grim under the Christmas lights of the gazebo. “Okay, look, that’s all I have for now, and you need to go enjoy the Christmas tree lighting with your new love.”
“He’s not my new love. We’re…”
Stiles smiled at me, tucking my hair back under my hat. “Your heart is open but with heavy caution signs flashing because of that slug, Hugo. I get it. I’m just saying, seeing you guys together this last week or so has been nice. You work. I love that for you.”
My cheeks flushed and suddenly, even in the bitter cold of twenty degrees, I was warm. “But I have things I have to confess before I can explore