You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,129

that they resembled each other, because they didn’t, not in looks nor temperament, so what?

Before an answer came, another bit of streaming news flashed onto the screen: LOCAL REPORTER FOUND MURDERED IN SAN FRANCISCO.

“What?” he said aloud. A picture of Charity Spritz came into view, and his stomach sank. Murdered? San Francisco? He stared at her image as the reporter explained that her body had been found in the city, but police thought she’d been killed elsewhere.

His head was pounding with the news, and the questions she’d asked him while standing on his doorstep flitted through his head.

“You’re from San Francisco,” she’d said, and when he’d denied it, she’d pointed out that his family had been. Which was true.

He’d refused to talk to her, and now . . . now she was dead? Killed in the very city she’d mentioned? His blood ran cold. What was this? He knew in his gut that Charity’s death was linked to Megan’s disappearance.

Had to be.

His cell phone vibrated on the desk.

Rowdy Crocker’s name came onto the screen.

James answered in a heartbeat. “Yeah?”

“And ‘hello’ to you too.”

James wasn’t in the mood for games. “Did you hear about Charity Spritz?”

“Christ, yeah. I’m all over it.”

“Jesus.” James stared through the glass to the shop below, but he didn’t see his employees working on trusses or planing rough wood or mudding Sheetrock; instead, he saw Charity Spritz, her gray eyes assessing him beneath a fringe of dark bangs. She’d stood on his porch as if she’d owned it a week earlier.

“Hey, man, you okay?” Rowdy asked.

“No,” James said, then focused on the conversation. “What’ve you got?”

“Too much to discuss on the phone. I’m already in my car. I’ll meet you at your place in fifteen. That work?”

“Yeah.” James reached for his jacket, searching for his keys. “I’ll be there.”

* * *

“We got a hit,” Mendoza announced as Rivers strode into the station. He’d gone outside, walked around the block, and returned with a coffee for himself and a “skinny vanilla latte with light whip,” which he’d heard Mendoza order several times when they’d stopped in for coffee at the local shop.

“A hit?”

“Response to the press conference.”

“Legit?”

“Maybe. A couple from Tacoma called in—on speaker phone so they both could talk, very confusing—but they think they spied Megan’s car that night, but not on the main road to Seattle. They were staying at a friend’s cabin and met a car coming the other direction, and the husband swears it was a black Toyota Corolla, but he couldn’t be certain of the year.”

“Where have they been?” Rivers asked, handing her the cup as they made their way to her desk. “I mean, how could they be in this state and not know we were looking for her?” Megan Travers’s disappearance had been all over the news.

“That’s just it. They’ve been out of town. They flew out the next morning and have been on a family vacation in Mexico, and after that they spent a week with their son and his family in Salt Lake. They just got home last night and caught up on the news, saw the press conference, and put two and two together.”

Rivers asked, “So where did they see the car?”

“That’s the interesting part—on a little mountain road, not more than a lane, where people have second homes. It’s sparse. Hardly anyone lives up there year-round. Just summer homes. Cabins on a creek and in the woods, that sort of thing.” She took a sip from her cup as she settled into her chair, and he stood next to her to view the monitor on her desk.

Rivers’s mind churned. “Does one of the cabins belong to James Cahill?” he asked, focused on her computer screen. An aerial shot, where a small spur of a county road was visible, came into view. Maybe this really was something.

“Nope. Not Cahill.”

“Then who?”

She zeroed in on one plot of land. “I checked the county records for all of the lots in the area, and most meant nothing, but the registered owner of this place,” she tapped the screen with a fingernail where the roof of a cabin was visible through the tree branches, “just happens to be one Harold Sinclaire, aka Mr. ‘Good Guy’ Harry.”

“Harry Sinclaire?” The name rang a bell. “Jennifer Korpi’s boyfriend?” he asked, surprised. Though he hadn’t discounted her as a suspect, Rivers hadn’t really thought the nervous schoolteacher James Cahill had once dated was involved in Megan’s disappearance. She hadn’t seemed the type, despite what he’d felt