Lisa Gardner - Gone

It should’ve taken Kincaid fifty minutes to hit Bakersville. On a night like this, with zero visibility, slick mountain passes, and driving sheets of rain, it took Kincaid an hour fifteen. He pulled onto the lit-up site, breathing hard and already feeling behind the eight ball.

In the good-news department, the first responders had done their job. Three strategically placed spotlights glared into the night, high-powered beams slicing through the ribbons of rain. Yellow crime scene tape roped off a decent-sized perimeter, outside of which the vehicles were starting to pile up.

Kincaid noted a deputy’s truck, then the sheriff’s, then a slick black SUV with all the bells and whistles, which he figured belonged to the Tillamook County DA. They would need more bodies if they decided to launch a full-scale search, and they would need the forensic lab and Latent Prints to process the scene, but those would be his calls to make.

An hour and forty minutes after the first call out, they were still covering the basics: Did they, or did they not, have a crime? Most taxpayers probably liked to think the police went into these situations full bore. Notify the crime lab, bring in the National Guard, call in the choppers. Yeah, well, those same taxpayers kept hacking away at the OSP’s budget, until Kincaid now had three and a half detectives working for him instead of the original fourteen. Real-world policing meant all decisions came attached to dollar signs. For better or for worse, these days he was operating on the cheap.

Kincaid pulled in behind the monstrous black Chevy Tahoe and cut his engine. No way around it. He opened his door and stepped out into the deluge.

The rain nailed him square on the forehead. For a moment, he paused, steeling himself against the onslaught. Then, his hair was soaked, the water trickled beneath the collar of his Columbia raincoat, and the worst of it was over. He no longer had to worry about getting muddy and wet; he was already there.

Kincaid trudged around to the trunk of his Chevy Impala, pulled out the giant plastic bin containing his crime scene kit, and ducked beneath the tape.

Trooper Blaney trotted over, black Danner boots splashing through the muck. A good doobie, he was wearing full department-issued rain gear, including a black-and-blue OSP jacket that looked like a biker coat gone bad. No one really liked the jacket. Kincaid kept his stashed in the trunk for the rare occasions the press was around-or a superior officer.

Blaney had obviously been standing outside awhile; his coat looked slick as glass beneath the high-powered lights, while beneath the cover of his wide-brim hat, the water ran in rivulets down his square-jawed face and dripped off the end of his nose. Blaney stuck out his hand; Kincaid returned the favor.

“Trooper.”

“Sergeant.”

The Tillamook County sheriff and a deputy had followed in the trooper’s wake. Blaney made the introductions as they all stood in a rain-soaked huddle, teeth chattering, arms tight against their sides for warmth.

Deputy Dan Mitchell had been the first responder. Kid was young, farming stock, but trying hard. He didn’t like the look of things-the open door, headlights on, engine running. Seemed kind of Hollywood to him. So he’d called Sheriff Atkins, who hadn’t been wild to be pulled out of bed on such a night, but had headed down.

The sheriff was a bit of a surprise. For one thing, he was a she-that would be Sheriff Shelly Atkins to you. For another, she had a firm handshake, a no-nonsense stare, and apparently didn’t feel like beating around the bush.

“Look,” she interjected halfway through her deputy’s energetic spiel, “Tom’s waiting”-she jerked her head toward the DA, who Kincaid now saw was tucked back inside his SUV. “We got a search warrant for the car and, per your trooper’s instructions, we’ve confirmed this is public land. Now, I don’t know what the hell happened here, but someone left that car in a hurry, and that’s a source of concern for me. So let’s get this ball rolling, or there won’t be anything left to find but a bunch of soggy police reports.”

No one could argue with that logic, so their little scrum moved toward the car, edging carefully toward the open door.

Vehicle was a late-model Toyota Camry, white exterior, blue cloth interior. Nice, but nothing fancy. The driver had pulled well over, conscientiously trying to get off the road. To the left of the driver’s door was the winding backwoods lane. To the right was a steep embankment leading up into a heavily shrouded forest.

As the trooper had reported by phone, the driver’s-side door was slung wide open, tip of the door scraping the edge of the asphalt. Kincaid’s first thought was that most people didn’t open their doors that far. Maybe if they had really long legs. Or maybe if they were loading something in and out of the car.

Something to think about.

From this angle, Kincaid could make out the shape of a brown leather handbag sitting in the passenger’s seat.

“Did you check the purse?” he asked no one in particular.

“I picked it up,” Deputy Mitchell reported, already sounding defensive. “To check for ID, you know. I mean, it just seemed strange to find the car, lights on, engine running, door open wide as day. I had to start somewhere.”

“Did you find a wallet?”

“No, sir. But then I opened the glove compartment and found the vehicle registration. I pulled the name off that.”

“Purse was empty?”

“No, sir. Lots of stuff in the purse-cosmetics, pens, PDA, etc. But I didn’t see anything that looked like a wallet. I placed the purse back just how I found it. Swear to God I touched nothing else.”

“Except the glove compartment,” Kincaid said mildly, but he wasn’t really angry. The deputy was right-you had to start somewhere.

The car’s engine had been turned off; the trooper had done it to preserve the tank of gas. Always useful when you found an abandoned vehicle, to see how much gas was left in the tank. But the engine had been running fine when Deputy Mitchell had arrived, and at a glance, there was nothing wrong with the tires. Seemed to rule out pulling over due to mechanical problems.

Kincaid walked to the rear of the Camry, eyeing the fender. No sign of dents or scrapes, though it was hard to tell with everything so wet. He made a halfhearted attempt to look for other tire tracks or footprints. The driving rain had destroyed the ground, leaving nothing but shallow pools of muddy water. Sheriff Atkins’s warning had been on the money, but a dime too late.

He moved to the interior of the vehicle, careful not to touch.

“Owner a woman?” he asked.

“According to the registration,” Trooper Blaney supplied, “name is Lorraine Conner from Bakersville. Sheriff Atkins sent a deputy to the address. No one answered.”

“Do we have a physical description?”

“According to DMV records, she’s five six, 120 pounds, brown hair, blue eyes.”

Kincaid eyed Sheriff Atkins.

“Five five,” she supplied. “I didn’t want to touch anything just yet, but at a glance, the seat looks about right.”

That’s what Kincaid thought, too. Seat was fairly close, about what he’d expect. He needed to check the mirrors, of course, steering column, too, but that’d have to wait until after the lab rats and Latent Prints were done. According to Blaney, the gas tank had registered half full before he’d shut down the engine, so while they’d canvass the local gas stations just to be safe, Lorraine probably hadn’t fueled up recently.

He straightened, blinking his eyes against the rain while the wheels of his mind started to turn.

Kincaid had spent his first three years as a trooper working along the coast. It amazed him how many of his reports had started with the discovery of an abandoned vehicle. The ocean seemed to draw people, speak to them one last time. So they’d drive out to the coast, catch that final glorious sunset. Then they’d lock up their vehicle, head into the woods, and blow out their brains.