Scene of the Crime Deadman's Bluff - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,55
on the north side. It’s a little park area with bathrooms and a place to walk your dog.” He shut off the engine and his eyes glowed with excitement. “If we know he took you at the rest stop, then we have the initial crime scene and hopefully that’s where we’ll find some kind of evidence.”
He was out of the truck before he’d finished speaking. “I need to talk to Atkins. We need to get his crime scene deputies out there immediately.”
Tamara got out of the truck and hurriedly followed after him. Maybe this was truly the break they needed to solve the case. Perhaps the killer had been careless at the rest area and there would still be some evidence there.
Once they were in the house Seth immediately got on the phone and Tamara busied herself preparing the meat loaf and then popping it into the oven. She found a box of scalloped potatoes, followed the directions on the back of the box and stuck them into the oven, as well. All she needed to do was add a can of green beans and dinner was complete.
Seth had disappeared into his sister’s bedroom and she could hear that he was still on the phone, coordinating whatever search was about to take place.
He was gone almost an hour and by that time Tamara had pulled both the potatoes and the small meat loaf from the oven and had the green beans simmering on the stove.
“We’ve got everyone ready to head to the rest stop. Want to take a ride?” he asked.
She should have known that he’d want to be in the thick of things. Not only was it his job, but it was always who he was as an FBI agent, as a man. She glanced helplessly at the food and then back at him. “Just let me cover things up—we can microwave it later—and then I’ll be ready.”
She wasn’t ready. Minutes later as she got into the truck with Seth, she could feel the excitement wafting from him, but a sense of dread filled her as she thought about returning to the place from her dreams.
It had to be real. She couldn’t have dreamed about a rest stop she’d never been to, and the idea of going back to the first scene of the crime created a tight pressure in her chest. Whatever had happened there had occurred before she’d been found in the dunes.
Did the man with the dog have anything to do with what had happened to her? Or were they just meaningless elements in her dream?
When they got to the rest area would she suddenly remember the face of the man who had tried to kill her? Would she remember those horrifying moments when he’d laid her down and then begun to methodically cover her with sand?
Was she about to come face-to-face in her mind with the Sandman?
Chapter Eleven
Seth was hoping that if her dream was right, then the rest area had been the point of her abduction. Nobody had checked the area because it wasn’t in the city limits and there had been no reason for them to even consider it as having anything to do with the crime.
He hated taking her back, but was hoping that by being there, by retracing some of her steps, she might remember something important.
“I was on my way to visit my Aunt Rose in Tulsa,” she said suddenly.
He looked at her in surprise. “Then why hasn’t anyone heard from your aunt when you didn’t show up there?”
“It was a surprise visit. I hadn’t told her I was coming. I just got up one morning and decided to take the drive and stay with her for a couple of days. She’s not my real aunt...she was a friend of my mother’s and while we aren’t super close, we try to stay in touch every couple of weeks by phone.” Her face was pale, her features filled with tension in the waning daylight.
“Is this too hard on you, Tamara? We can go back to the house if you can’t do this.” He’d hate to miss the initial crime scene investigation, but he’d do it if she wanted to.
“No, I need to do this,” she replied, the force of her words at odds with the frailty of her body language, the sheer vulnerability that shone from her eyes.
As he drove he couldn’t help but shoot surreptitious glances at her, trying to gauge her emotions as the miles clicked off. Would the