Page 13 of Into the Veins
Another roll of thunder vibrated through the building.
“You’re not seriously considering sleeping in your vehicle tonight, are you?” Her voice punctured through the thick haze he’d built to disassemble the puzzle in front of him, and Colson turned toward her. “The storm is only going to get worse. I’d hate to have some poor civilian find your body in the morning after you’ve died of hypothermia.”
“I was under the impression your invitation last night was a one-time thing. Mainly, because you threatened to shoot me right afterward.” He couldn’t help but warm to the idea of spending another night at her house. Warm bed, clean sheets, access to a shower—he’d appreciated and taken advantage of all of it. But if he was being honest with himself, it’d been the sheriff herself that’d set up residence in his mind all day. The way a small line of concentration had developed between her eyebrows when she’d been cooking the soup, the spot of blue paint she hadn’t noticed beneath her left ear, the wall-to-wall shelves of her secret passion on display, and the softness of the skin around her ankles. Every moment he’d spent with her last night had burrowed into his brain and refused to vacate. “Was I wrong?”
“The deputies I have searching for Cardin Townsend will check in with me when they have something, and I put units outside Evyn Garder’s and Braydon Caddel’s homes. If any of them make a move, we’ll know about it. CCS is running down the video posted of Rachel Faulkner, and until forensics issues their report from the crime scene, there’s nothing more we can do here.” She pushed away from the table and straightened, the ends of her red ponytail sliding against her collarbone on one side. “Might as well take advantage of the down time while we can.”
“Is this your way of inviting me to stay another night?” Colson raised up out of his chair, a renewed buoyancy reinvigorating the fatigue in his muscles.
“The same rules still apply.” The warning in her tone shot through him, raising goose pimples on the back of his neck. Blair Sanders was one of the most complicated, intense, and curious creatures he’d ever met, and the combination had created a woman wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. His kind of puzzle. “But, yes. If you’d like some place warm to stay tonight, you’re welcome to use my guest bedroom again with one condition.”
“There are conditions now?” he asked.
“You have to wash those clothes.” A close-lipped smile carved out two identical lines on either side of her long, thin nose as she studied him from head-to-toe. “Even private investigators who live out of their cars should have some sense of pride.”
A laugh escaped from his chest. “I can’t tell if that was an insult or sarcasm, but I’ll take what I can get.”
“It was both.” Blair gathered her notes from the table and closed the laptop, that gut-wrenching smile still in place. Her phone rang from her jacket pocket, and she switched hands to unpack the device. She answered. “Sanders.” A low voice from the other end of the line shot her gaze to Colson, and less than a minute later, she lowered the phone, ending the call.
Silence descended, her expression unreadable.
“Blair?” he asked.
“That was one of my deputies I had patrolling the hiking trails throughout the county to keep an eye out for Cardin Townsend.” She set her notes and the laptop back onto the conference table. “He called to tell me he and his partner came across an abandoned SUV at a trailhead in Tiger Mountain State Forest. We need to get out there right now.”
He didn’t understand. “They found her?”
Blair shook her head. “They’re not sure. All they saw was blood.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Social media creates envious behavior over illusions.” Colson stared out the passenger window, breaking the silence between them for the first time in the thirty minutes it’d taken them to arrive on the scene. “Millions of followers become envious of things, relationships, and lifestyles that don’t even exist.”
He was right. On the surface Rachel Faulkner had given her fans everything they needed to take that next step in their career, their marriage, their health, but under all the filters, perfect poses, and layers of makeup, she’d preyed off the self-doubt and low confidence of thousands of women by selling merchandise, journals, conference tickets, clothing, and more. And had ended up dead.
“I can only imagine how many narcissists jumped at the opportunity to convince the world they were better off than they are when social media became a thing.” Her patrol vehicle’s shocks protested as she and Colson maneuvered off Tiger Mountain Road toward the trailhead. Walls of pine trees and the damp smell of earth penetrated through the falling darkness. Blair caught sight of two of her deputies who’d called in the abandoned vehicle and what looked like the same SUV captured on Rachel Faulkner’s home surveillance system parked at the head of the trail.
“Too many.” Colson unfastened his seat belt as she parked, and the tension that’d strung between them in the conference room unraveled. They had a lead in the case. There wasn’t room for anything else. Let alone a budding partnership. “People don’t realize how much they’re actually revealing about themselves online when they feel they’re protected behind firewalls. Makes my decision to stay off social media that much better. I noticed you don’t have any profiles either.”
Blair parked and reached for her radio. “Dispatch, show me arriving at Middle Tiger Trailhead.” She replaced the radio and turned off the car, one hand on the butt of her weapon as she shouldered out of the vehicle. Cold worked under the collar of her jacket and uniform, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “I worked a lot of identity theft cases for Seattle PD. Most of the breaches in victims’ personal security originated from social media accounts and email messages. Scammers would send out an unbelievable offer, and about fifty percent of recipients took the bait. Viruses and tracking software would upload onto the devices, hack into bank accounts, emails, and GPS. Nearly untraceable. As much as I see the value in connecting with friends and family online, I couldn’t justify the risk. Especially since I record interviews and take notes on my phone when I don’t have my notebook.”
“Realistic. I like that.” Colson rounded the hood, stepping into the pool of light from her vehicle’s headlights. Shadows carved out sharp angles along his jaw and cheekbones as they moved as a team toward the vehicle. His phone pinged with an incoming message. One glance, and he’d slid the device back into his coat.
“Do you need to get that?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Garcia, Thompson, this is Colson Rutherford, a private investigator consulting on this case with the department.” She motioned to Colson, never taking her attention off the open driver’s side door of the SUV in question. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“Vehicle is registered to Cardin Townsend.” Garcia swept his flashlight beam along the ground around the SUV. “We’ve searched inside. No sign of the owner or any evidence that might point to her owning property out here, but we did find this.” The deputy highlighted a spot of wet earth, deep red in color, then maneuvered the flashlight over the asphalt farther away from the vehicle.
Blair followed the stark trail. It’d rained earlier, but these spots were darker, fresher. Crouching, she unclipped her own flashlight and highlighted the spots from another angle. “You were right. Blood.”
“Heading toward the trail.” Colson sidestepped the line of blood evidence and crouched across from her. Raising his gaze to hers from the other side of the pattern, he pointed to the first drop. “These are fresh. She might still be alive.”
And with the amount of blood peppering the asphalt, it hadn’t come from a minor injury. Considering the vehicle had been registered under her name, that blood most likely belonged to Cardin Townsend. “Let’s get CSU out here to process the SUV and the blood evidence,” she said to her deputies. “So Cardin Townsend’s vehicle is spotted on the victim’s security surveillance outside Rachel Faulkner’s home. We’re not sure why they were meeting, but that same night, Cardin and Rachel are recorded arguing outside of Sharde. Rachel turns up dead on a trail we can prove Cardin is familiar with two days later, poisoned with strychnine, and left with a half dozen vipers. Cardin’s injured in the struggle. She drives out here to hide, only she’s misjudged the severity of her wound.” Blair swept her flashlight toward the trailhead as a low rumble of thunder broke through the sky.
“The theory fits.” Colson got to his feet, crossing over the blood trail before reaching inside Townsend’s SUV. The keys jingled from inside, only nothing happened. “Dead. Door’s open, keys in the ignition. I’m betting she was in a hurry. Only problem is, where is she going to hide? This is a state park. There aren’t any private properties out here.”