Elizabeth Heiter - Stalked

“Since you two are the only ones who had access to it before it landed in a police evidence room, I highly doubt that.” Sophia’s dark eyes filled with her own fury.

She was so angry it made Evelyn wonder if Sophia had a similar tragedy in her own past. Or maybe she’d just taken this case too much to heart, since she had young children. Either way, Evelyn and Sophia were probably both projecting too much. And it might shut Linda and Pete down, prevent them from cooperating.

“Maybe one of your cops leaked the note,” Pete said, sounding smug instead of outraged.

Evelyn put a hand on Sophia’s elbow. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. The damage was done, and Linda looked ready to faint. Besides, Evelyn had a feeling they’d get a lot more out of her if they could separate her from Pete, which she didn’t think would be happening today.

The detective glanced at her, gave her a small nod even as fury still radiated from her clenched jaw and flared nostrils, and stepped back.

“Look,” Evelyn said, trying to hide her own animosity as she addressed Linda instead of looking up at Pete. “What’s done is done. But we want you to understand there’s a reason we were keeping the note out of the media. It’s best for your daughter that we don’t share certain parts of the investigation. Going forward, you should talk to us before the media.”

“Okay,” Linda said, her voice small and quiet, tears in her eyes. “Pete just thought—”

“We thought it would help put pressure on whoever grabbed her,” Pete interrupted. “Get him to think the police were closing in on him, so he’d let her go. The media is starting to lose interest. And we’ve got to keep Haley’s face in front of people, so they keep watching for her, so someone comes forward if they see her.”

So, it had been Pete’s idea for Linda to go on the news. Evelyn wondered why he hadn’t stood beside her, the way he had for other news conferences.

Then again, if Pete didn’t want Haley coming home because he was hiding a secret, leaking the note wouldn’t really help him if she’d run away. And if a stranger had grabbed her, but the note had been about Pete, would leaking it cause her abductor to panic? Maybe not, but Evelyn didn’t have the luxury of assuming anything.

“If someone has your daughter,” Sophia said slowly and deliberately, “we don’t want that person to panic.”

Evelyn glanced up, past Linda’s wide-eyed horror, expecting to see smugness on Pete’s face, but it was wiped clean. Instead, he seemed genuinely shaken.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “I never thought—”

“We’re already running damage control,” Sophia said, holding out a hand that Linda gripped so hard Evelyn could actually see her cutting off blood flow, turning Sophia’s fingertips an unnatural white.

Sophia glanced questioningly at Evelyn, and she nodded at the detective. Linda was clearly too distraught to answer a lot of questions, and this trip had answered a few things for Evelyn already.

It told her that whatever mistakes Linda might have made, Sophia was right about one thing. Linda was desperate to get her daughter back, but she hadn’t planted the note.

Pete still looked horrified, a little pale underneath a tan that had to be from a spray bottle. But was it an act?

Beneath the distress in his eyes was something shrewd and slimy. But it didn’t mean he had anything to do with Haley’s disappearance.

From the outside, to the media, Haley was the perfect, all-American teenager and her family the new normal: divorced, one parent remarried, visitation rights for the other. To the world, family and friends were grieving and searching as hard as they could for Haley.

But up close, there was a strange dynamic in this household. And there was clear animosity between the Varners and Bill. Where did Haley fit in? How many secrets did this family have?

“We should go.” Evelyn nodded at Linda, who reluctantly released Sophia’s hand.

It was time to dig as deep as they could into the people closest to Haley, and see what they could unearth.

* * *

How the hell had his life come to this?

Quincy Palmer stared into the cracked mirror in the station’s dingy bathroom, and didn’t like what stared back at him. Sure, he looked pretty much the same on the outside. Same grooves alongside his mouth and across his forehead that had worn deeper and deeper with age. Same thick beard, just more white in it now. It was his eyes that bothered him.

He’d stopped meeting his own gaze in the mirror three months ago.

No one else seemed to have noticed the change in him. It probably said a lot about the strength of his personal relationships, and he tried to see it as a positive. If no one else could see the difference, no one would wonder what had caused it.

The bathroom door opened behind him, and Quincy looked up, nodded into the mirror at one of the newbie officers and walked out the door. Back into the buzz of the station.

Things were crazy with news of the Haley Cooke note being released to the media. What had the parents been thinking?

And what the hell had happened to Haley? The case was weird enough on its surface, but he was the only one here who knew how hard it should have been to grab Haley Cooke.

Because he’d had his eye on her for three months. He’d been watching her closely—stalking her, by the legal definition. It had been his job to make sure she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, and if she did—say, if she showed up at the police station—it was his job to take her statement. Then to make sure that statement disappeared.

Twenty years on the job, and he’d never taken a payoff. Never taken a bribe. Never looked the other way.

And then this mess. They’d found his one weak spot, the one thing that would make him throw away twenty years of dedicated service to a job he believed in so much he’d given everything for it. Given his marriage, given his relationship with his son, given all his free time. It had become his life.

If this came out, though, it wouldn’t matter that he’d had nothing to do with Haley’s disappearance. And it really wouldn’t matter that he’d done his damnedest to find her.

Because he knew they’d make him take the fall.

* * *

“That family is hiding something,” Evelyn told Sophia as they walked into the police station.

Sophia had fumed the whole drive back, but now she just seemed dejected. “Everyone in this case is hiding something.”

“What happened? What did you learn?”

The deep voice made Evelyn jump, and when she turned, she saw Quincy Palmer rushing toward them. His pale face was flushed, blotchy red above his heavy beard.

“I don’t know,” she told Quincy, wondering if his own cases ever took him out of the station. “But my guess would be some kind of abuse. Either the father or the stepfather.”

“Really?” Sophia stopped walking, and turned to face her.

Evelyn nodded. “But honestly, with this much scrutiny on the case, with this much media attention, I doubt a seventeen-year-old girl could stay under the radar if she had just run away. I think someone made her disappear. Maybe it started with her going willingly, maybe not. Either way, at this point, chances are, we’re not looking for Haley.” At Quincy’s deep frown, she said apologetically, “You know the statistics.”

Sophia nodded, her shoulders slumping. “We’re looking for her body. I know. But I’ve learned all about this girl. Everyone I talk to loved her—her classmates, her teachers, her neighbors. They all say the same thing. Haley was nice to everyone she met. This is a sweet kid, with a bright future. I want her to beat the odds.”

“So do I,” Evelyn said. “Maybe she will.” She tried to sound upbeat, but the fact was, she’d handled too many missing-persons cases.