Jennifer Morey - Cold Case Manhunt

“Did you meet her outside the office any other time before that?” Cal asked.

The doctor hesitated. “You said Payton has been missing?”

“Yes. For seven months now.”

“I didn’t know.” His head lowered as though he fell into thought. “She is a lovely woman. I enjoyed our friendship.”

“You were friends?” Cal asked.

“Not close. Otherwise I’d have known she went missing, wouldn’t I?”

“One would think,” Cal said. “Do you always meet patients outside your clinic?”

“Not always. Payton didn’t have time to drive to the clinic so I told her I’d meet her. That’s when we had lunch.”

“Did you meet her any other times or for any other reasons?” Cal asked again.

Jaslene wondered if Cal was trying to fool him into answering or catch him in a lie.

“Are you asking me these questions because you think I had something to do with her disappearance?”

“Did you?” Cal asked.

“No. If the police want to question me, then they can. As far as I can see, I don’t have to answer any of yours.”

Clearly they would get nowhere with this man. Why had he initially denied meeting Payton?

* * *

Cal opened the door for Jaslene as they left the medical building, seeing how she flashed a glance at him as she passed. The side of her breast brushed his arm and her gaze turned smoky. He felt his own reaction to that, an ignition of desire he had to quickly squash.

“What do you think?” she asked as they walked toward his SUV.

“That it’s strange he met Payton outside of the clinic and didn’t have an affair with her.” And that he was so evasive about meeting her at all.

“And that he wouldn’t say whether he met Payton outside the office more than once.”

He glanced at her with a nod. She had echoed his next thought. “Yes, that, too.” Did he not admit to an affair to protect his marriage? Had neither told anyone about it or had there really been no affair? Even if they had, keeping it secret didn’t mean he killed her. He also could have been evasive for the same reason—to protect his marriage.

“Payton isn’t the kind of woman who’d tell her lover’s wife,” Jaslene said. “She wouldn’t threaten to, either. I’d be more inclined to believe she was the one who ended the relationship because it was wrong.”

“If there was an affair.”

“There had to have been. Why else would he have skirted around the questions?” she asked.

“I’m leaning toward affair as well, but he may not have anything to do with Payton’s disappearance. He may only want to protect his marriage.” Cal was on the fence as to whether his sense of suspicion held any merit.

“How far would he go to do that?” She stopped walking all of a sudden.

Cal followed her gaze to a man sitting in an old Ford pickup, smoking a cigarette and watching them. He wore a baseball hat over brown hair and Cal knew from the files he had read that his eyes were also brown. He was five-ten and a scrawny hundred and seventy-five pounds.

Riley Sawyer.

“I saw him about a month ago. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of my house.”

“Watching you?”

She nodded. “I threatened to call the police and he left, but not before telling me it was my fault Payton was dead. He said if I hadn’t interfered, they would still be together and she would have never been kidnapped.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jaslene turned to look at him. “I only saw him that one time.”

“But he threatened you.”

“He’s not the sharpest cheese in the deli. He was always overreacting when he was with Payton. I thought it was a onetime thing and he was eliminated as a suspect. If I saw him again, I would have told you.”

“If anything happens that seems off, no matter how insignificant it is, tell me.”

She nodded. “He blamed me for Payton’s death. That means he’s upset she’s gone. Why would he kill her?”

“Why does anyone kill? He might have realized he would never have her again and then decided he had to make sure no one else would, either. He may have killed her in the heat of passion. Maybe he didn’t mean to.”

He saw Jaslene consider that as her expression turned graver. Riley puffed on his cigarette, still calmly watching them. What a creepoid.

She rubbed her arm as though chilled.

Riley threw out his cigarette and formed a gun with his hand, pulling an imaginary trigger as he aimed at Jaslene.

Jaslene inhaled. “Did he just...”

Incensed that the man would dare to make such a gesture, Cal started walking toward him. Riley pulled out onto the street and vanished into traffic.

Returning to Jaslene, he put his hand on her lower back and guided her toward his SUV.

“We’ll take another look at his alibi.”

She didn’t respond but he felt her lean a little closer to him. “Doesn’t it scare you to chase after people like that?”

He opened the passenger door for her but she didn’t get in. She faced him.

“No. It was a bit of an adrenaline rush at first but I got used to it.”

“In Texas? What did you do there?”

“I joined the army reserves. Did that part-time while I went to college for criminal justice. After that I was a state trooper for a few years before I became a ranger.”

“And then you came here?”

“Hop in.” He didn’t feel like talking about that right now. Not only was it too personal, it also dredged up memories he didn’t want in his head.

She eyed him peculiarly before climbing up into the SUV. He walked around the front and got in beside her, starting the engine.

“Why here?” she asked. “You could go anywhere to get away from your family. Why Chesterville?”

“My ex-wife’s family lives here.”

A heavy silence passed. With a sigh, Cal didn’t pull out into traffic. Now she’d be too curious to let it go. That was another bad memory he didn’t want cluttering his head.

“You were married?” she asked.

“Divorced. Two years ago.”

“Oh.”

Was he mistaken or did she sound relieved? He looked at her. With her head bent and hands in her lap, she seemed sad. Why?

“Are you all right?”

“I was married, too,” she said quietly.

“Did you have as much fun with your divorce as I did with mine?” he asked, his voice full of sarcasm.

“I wasn’t divorced. My husband was shot during a road rage incident. Also two years ago.”

Cal felt like an ass. “I’m sorry.”

“Two other drivers were driving erratically. My husband was on his way home from work and was caught between them. The one with the gun passed my husband’s car on the passenger side and the other road rager passed him on the driver’s side. The shooter shot and hit Ryan.”

That was terrible. She must still be heartbroken. Roman had them both pegged. Something had happened to make Jaslene shy away from love, just like him. She had a bigger reason. How devoted was she to her late husband?

She had to be dealing with some serious grief, or had over the last two years. And now she would likely have to bury another person she loved.

“Jaslene, you should prepare yourself for not finding Payton alive. In most cases when a victim is missing this long, we’re looking for a body, not a live person.”

She met his gaze unhappily. “I know.”

He reached over and put his hand on hers, taking it and giving her a supportive squeeze. She smiled, still sadly, but he could tell his action touched her. It had been a long time since he’d connected with anyone, a woman. Betrayal had made him withdraw from getting too personal.

“Talking to that doctor made me realize something.”

“What?” What could a doctor, a stranger, have to say that would give her an epiphany?