Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake #5) - Rachel Caine Page 0,83
the map track. I nod and thank him and add a couple of bottles of water, snacks, dog treats, and a shallow plastic bowl from the shelves. I don’t intend to be gone so long, but this place looks like it could use the money. I pay and go, putting all that in the trunk except the soda for me, water for Boot, and the doggie bowl. I fill it halfway with water for him on the ground and let him out; he makes straight for it and sloppily drinks, then noses around excitedly and leaves a few territorial squirts. When I whistle him back, he comes at a run. I toss the rest of the water, and we’re back on the road.
Two miles down I approach the distant, sedate traffic of the freeway. There’s nothing between the small convenience store and here except a broken-down old car repair shop that’s been boarded up for a while, and a shiny new truck stop right close to the intersection. When I check the map, the truck stop is where the GPS track ends.
This is where my man stopped and got rid of his phone, or at least took out the SIM card. I feel my pulse quicken. If he stopped, could be that he needed gas; no reason he would have chosen a busy location like this otherwise if he was up to no good. And I know from experience that this is a gas desert for about a hundred miles in either direction, so he’d have to get it here.
I fill up myself and head inside. The place is in a lull just now, but there are probably half a dozen truckers and a few civilians shopping the snacks and drinks. More lined up at the Arby’s counter in the back. I go straight to the register, pay for the gas, and ask for the manager.
He’s a slender Asian man in his midthirties, and he seems pretty cooperative when I show him my badge and tell him I’m just looking for a quick peek at his surveillance. He clearly knows the value of keeping in the good books. So he leads me to the back.
They have a pretty elaborate setup—no fewer than seven cameras outside covering the pumps and the building’s exterior, plus more for the inside of the shop. I doubt my guy would have come inside. Not worth the risk. So I focus on the gas pumps around the time the phone signal was lost.
And I get him. I get him. I feel my heartbeat jump into a race, and I lean forward, intent on the black SUV that’s gliding into a spot on the very far pump at the end of the lot. He stayed as distant as possible from the cameras. I’m not sure if the resolution is good enough to get us a plate; it looks to me like he’s deliberately dirtied up the front and, likely, the rear to obscure details like that. But there he is: your average white male, features not distinct, wearing a baseball cap with no logo I can see, jeans, a checked shirt.
Then I lean forward, because a movement in the vehicle has caught my eye.
There’s someone in the passenger seat. I can’t see clearly . . . and then the passenger door opens, and someone gets out.
Goddamn. It’s Sheryl Lansdowne. And she’s not in distress. She’s not tied up in the back of that SUV—she’s on her own two feet, calm as you please. I see her toss something in the garbage can that sits on the island beside the gas pump, and I hit pause. I don’t know if the FBI can work with this, but it’s possible. Very possible.
I turn to the manager and say, “How often do you empty those garbage cans out on the pumps?”
“Every couple of days.”
“Any chance you haven’t gotten to that one yet?” I point.
He leans over to look and shrugs. “Maybe? Depends how full it is.”
“Then go pull that bag right now, tie it up, and set it aside. Do not let anyone touch it. I’ll have someone from either the TBI or FBI come get it. They’ll want to go through everything. Keep this footage. Mark it and show it to whoever comes.” I turn back to the screen and scrub through. Sheryl finishes her little walk-around and gets back in the car. The man uses a credit card at the pump, so I tell the manager to pull