Sharon Dunn - Dead Ringer

“Are you sure?”

“I am.” Anything to get away from being reminded of the robbery. She should have taken Eli’s advice and not spent the night here.

“I’ll meet you right after your breakfast and then, Lucy, I’ll stay with you as long as you need.”

She pivoted and pressed her back against the wall, so she didn’t have to look into the bedroom. “It’s nice to have a friend who reads my mind.”

“No, it’s just that I know you. Quit trying to do everything yourself. But you’ve got to do something for me.”

Lucy pressed the phone against her ear. “What is that?”

“I know you are not crazy about this online thing. I’m doing it because I love you and don’t want you to be alone. For me, could you be a little more open-minded about Greg? You’re twenty-eight—I hear a clock ticking.”

Lucy’s jaw tightened. Heather was well-intentioned. The little old ladies at church who kept telling her about their handsome grandsons were well-intentioned. She just couldn’t picture herself in a relationship, let alone married. What man would put up with her constantly being gone on her guide trips? “I took the batteries out of that clock a long time ago.”

Heather didn’t laugh like Lucy had expected. Intense emotion saturated her friend’s voice. “Sometimes friends see things that you can’t see. I care about you, Lucy. I want good things for you.”

Lucy said goodbye and got ready for her date with Greg Jackson. Because she was in a hurry, she opted to hide her hair with a baseball cap rather than take the time to fix it. The bonus of the baseball hat was that it sent Greg the message that she hadn’t spent hours getting ready. For Heather, she would go on this second date, but she didn’t need to knock herself out.

On the porch, Lucy pulled her house keys from her purse. She never locked her door unless she was going to be gone for days. Now she was going have to lock it all the time. Renewed fear made her hands clammy as she fumbled with the key. What if the thief came back?

Eli had caught only a few hours’ sleep in his motel room when someone banged on the door. Still bleary-eyed, he pulled himself off the bed and swung the door open.

“Wake up, Susie Sunshine.” Detective William Springer flashed a smile. “We got work to do.”

While he leaned against the door frame of the motel, Eli shook his head, trying to clear the fog of sleep. He hadn’t showered. His stomach was growling, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy. He hadn’t met someone like her before, an intriguing mixture of strength and vulnerability. Plus, her resemblance to the other victims made him concerned for her safety. “Are you kidding me?”

“One of our suspects is in town.” William rocked back and forth on his feet. He was a short man with blond hair so curly it almost looked like ringlets. “We’re on surveillance in about twenty minutes.”

With the exception of three undercover female officers, William Springer was the only Spokane detective Eli had been authorized to bring with him for the investigation. Right now he wished he had left him at home. “I need shut-eye.” Of course, William was exuberant; he was functioning on a full night’s sleep.

William tilted the paper bag he was holding in Eli’s direction. “I brought breakfast.”

The sticky-sweet scent of doughnuts woke Eli up a bit. “Which suspect?”

“Greg Jackson is going through town. He has a breakfast date at a place called Lydia’s Café. Just got word of it. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.”

They’d narrowed the suspects down to four men who fit a profile, used the same online dating service and lived in this area where the murders had taken place. A woman who was a friend of one victim and a relative of another had brought the online dating service to police attention. Local police had submitted the specifics of the two murders to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and found three similar murders within a day’s drive of one another. Eli had picked Mountain Springs as a base of operation because it was central to all the other small towns where the murders had taken place.

William shoved the doughnut bag toward him again.

Eli held up a hand of protest. This time the smell made his stomach churn. “I need protein.”

“Suit yourself.” William strode across the motel parking lot and yelled over his shoulder. “We’re taking my bug.”

After brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face, Eli left the motel room and ambled toward the car.

William leaned against the driver’s side door, feet crossed at the ankles. He handed Eli a manila folder. “For your review, nothing new, other than the photos of the victims, pre-postmortem. We got them from family members.”

Only William would use a term like pre-postmortem. The interviews of family and friends had been done by various police departments. The surveillance Eli would oversee would happen on two levels. Several female officers with undercover experience had spent a month establishing a cover in the small towns that fell within the area the murders had taken place. The officers had signed up for the service so they could get access to the suspects. Also, watching the four men for suspicious activity and to see if they favored dark-haired women might give them the break they needed.

The groundwork had been laid. They were closing in. Though much of the investigation had been handled by other departments, the ball was now in Eli’s court to gather enough evidence for an arrest and to prevent another death.

Eli slipped into the passenger side of the bug, hunching slightly in the tiny car. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. The investigation could last months. The thought of living in a motel that whole time did not appeal to him, and it didn’t make him look much like a small-town cop, either.

William shifted into first and pulled out of the lot. “Restaurant is about eight blocks away.” He grabbed a doughnut out of the bag and munched. “We lucked out. One of the local officers recognized Greg Jackson when he was in the convenience store, struck up a conversation and got the details about this date.”

As much as Eli hated going without sleep, William’s call to do impromptu surveillance had been a good one. “We’ll get a read on the guy, see how he operates. Then we can set the protocol for how we keep eyes on the other three guys, given the amount of manpower we have to work with.” Eli’s stomach growled again. “Maybe I can get a decent breakfast at this Lydia’s Café.”

Ten minutes later when they entered the café, Greg Jackson and his date were already seated. With the manila folder still in hand, Eli took a table so he was within earshot of Greg. He had a clear view of Greg, but could only see the back of his date, a woman with her hair all bunched up in a baseball hat. William sat opposite Eli and pulled out a notebook. Eli pretended to read a free local newspaper he’d picked up at the door and tuned in the conversation.

Lucy stared at the plate of pancakes and sausages in front of her. She lifted her head and smiled at Greg Jackson, sitting opposite her. It was a weekday morning, so the restaurant wasn’t very busy. Two old-timers sat at the counter, sipping coffee. A mom with two small children, and a man occupied with his newspaper, sitting with a short man with curly blond hair, were the only other patrons.

Greg said something about one of the accounts he handled. She didn’t quite understand his job. He lived in a town some distance from Mountain Springs and traveled here often for his job. He was a sales rep for a feed company or something. His work involved driving across the state and talking to farmers and agriculture supply stores. A breakfast date was a little strange, but he was in town for some sort of work thing, so they had decided to get together.