Page 82 of The Last Straw

“With Rachel Dean still unconscious, any help in this case is appreciated,” Floyd said. “Good morning, Wyrick. I’m listening.”

“Okay...here’s where I went with research last night, and you are officially welcome to shoot it all down. Only I would advise you not to, but that’s just me.”

They heard Floyd chuckle. “Ma’am, after witnessing you in action the past few days, I’m not shooting down anything you have to say.”

Wyrick continued, “Since Rachel Dean was found on site, I went with the premise that the kidnapper likely lives on site, too. Her presence there made it easy for him to come and go at his leisure. So by a process of elimination of the names of people who’ve lived at Detter House since the first woman went missing, there are only two men who’ve lived there long enough to have had access to all four women. A man named J.J. Burch, who’s been there fourteen years, and a man named Lou Nunez, who’s been there twelve years.”

“Wow. No. We hadn’t begun to dip back that far. How on earth did you get access to records that old—?”

“Don’t ask,” Charlie said.

There was a moment of silence, and then Floyd chuckled again.

“Okay. Message received, and, lady, you sure don’t mess around.”

“There’s no time,” Wyrick said. “You will need to interview both of them and fast, or the guilty party will likely disappear.”

“They’re all already gone,” Floyd said. “Allen Carson moved them to the Ritz-Carlton on his dime yesterday, because most of them were trying to break their leases. He gave us two days to get finished with our investigation and evidence gathering, and then he’s going to begin demolition of the passage and the tunnel, and remodeling the rooms with the hidden doors. I understand his point. It’s all about damage control.”

Wyrick frowned. “This isn’t good. I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, but having heard this, I would bet money the man you’re looking for is already gone, and I don’t want him to be gone because we need to find the other three women he took. I know they’re not alive. I’m not living in that fantasy. But they’re lost, and lost is a hell of a place to be. You have family. You have people who know and love you. But there are a lot of people in this world who don’t. And I can say, with a level of expertise, that it is a terrible thing to be so alone in the world that, if you went missing, there wouldn’t be one person to sound the alarm.”

Floyd was silent a moment, then they could hear him clearing his throat.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m calling my partner. We’ll head out to the Ritz this morning.”

Charlie added one final comment. “Keep us in the loop, because Wyrick is not going to let this go. And if you can’t find him, then that means we’ll be looking for the bastard on our own.”

“Understood,” Floyd said. “I’ll check in with you later today. Thanks for the heads-up, Wyrick.”

“One more thing,” Wyrick added. “If one of those two men is already in the wind, get a search warrant for his apartment and let me have access. If he’s left anything behind that will help us, I will find it.”

Floyd hesitated. “I don’t know if—”

Charlie frowned. “Look, Floyd. We’re not trying to step on anyone’s toes. We don’t want credit for any of it. No one has to even know we’re there, and whatever we find is yours to follow up on.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever it takes, I’ll make it right with the lieutenant. I’ll call you later.”

Fifteen

Sonny Burch was home, standing on the back porch of the old farmhouse he’d grown up in, watching the sun come up in a blaze of oranges and pinks, wondering how many more sunrises he would see.

This wasn’t how he had expected life to turn out, but he never had been good at planning ahead. He’d been more of a “live in the moment” kind of guy, and now he was paying the price.

He’d given himself a once-over in the mirror last night as he’d undressed for bed, and was not happy about how he looked. His chest looked like he’d been mauled, and his dick was three shades of purple and hanging a little too limp for comfort.

He’d called his leasing company, put his manager in charge and told him that he was going to be gone for a while. They knew what to do. He wasn’t worried about the future of his business. But he was worried about himself.

The sun was up now. The light show was over.

He turned toward the field at the back of the house, remembering the horses that used to run there and the cattle that had grazed in the back pasture, and sighed.

Time changes everything.

Nothing lasts forever—except memories.

Then he looked toward the bench beneath a trio of trees that were just inside the yard fence, and stepped off the porch. It was time to pay a visit to the girls. Each held a special place in his heart, even though, in the end, the relationships had not worked out.

It was close to 10 a.m. when Floyd and Mills arrived at the Ritz-Carlton. They went straight to the registration desk and flashed their badges.

---