Page 91 of High Density

“I told her to lock up and wait for a deputy,” he tells me as he slides behind the wheel. “I’m gonna have to pull some manpower off the search for Britt.”

As much as I hate that, it’s the right call to make.

“If he has Janey, my gut says we’re already too late for Britt,” I suggest.

“Yeah. I’m of the same mind.”

He puts a call out to get a cruiser to the clinic, and a few more to meet us up by the Nordic club. We have no idea what we’re walking into.

When we drive past the Cabinet View Golf Course, Ewing points out the window.

“Jennifer Wilson, our second victim, was found right there. Not that far from the clinic, or from where we’re headed.”

“You’re thinking that’s not a coincidence?”

He shakes his head. “I think the proximity is convenience on his part, not necessarily planned. I think it shows a certain impulsiveness and a lack of planning.”

“Then what about the first victim? The one we found near the Swede Mountain Lookout?”

He shoots me a glance before focusing back on the winding road and taking the turnoff toward Flower Lake.

“Phil Jericho’s place is on Obsidian Road, right at the turnoff onto Swede Mountain Road,” he shares.

I turn my head and look back in the direction of Swede Mountain on the other side of the valley.

“Jericho and Logan’s father both sit on the city council,” I think out loud, following the same train of thought I had earlier at the search site.

“More than that,” Ewing explains. “They’re in each other’s pocket, politically speaking. They travel in the same circles, play golf together on a regular basis.”

“So logically Jericho and Logan would’ve known each other,” I conclude.

I’m trying to remember if I’d seen them interact at any time during the rodeo, but I don’t think they ever spoke, at least not in my presence. Which is kind of weird in itself; you’d think they’d at least acknowledge each other. Unless they were trying to avoid anyone knowing.

I’m having trouble wrapping my head around all the possible connections and implications, as I go over some of the events of the past week in my mind.

“It was Logan,” I blurt out as Ewing navigates a particularly sharp turn in the narrow road.

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s the one who hit me over the head. Earlier, I recalled the last thing I saw when I hit the ground was a pair of boots. Snakeskin boots. The kind he wears.”

“That could have been around the time of the attack on Lacey Del Franco. He probably didn’t want to be caught hanging around the trailers, and?—”

He abruptly cuts off and leans forward, squinting through the windshield.

“Is that Doc’s truck?”

I spot the white cover on the back of her truck sticking up from the deep ditch on the side of the dirt road. I have the door open, jump out, and start running before Ewing brings the cruiser to a full stop.

I slide on my ass down the embankment to the front of the truck, which is wedged at the bottom of the ditch, that is thankfully dry. I brace myself and yank the driver’s side door open, which gives away easily. Airbags bulge out, and I grab the knife I carry on my belt to deflate them and get them out of my way, so I can see inside.

The truck’s cab is empty.

“She’s not here!” I call out to Ewing.

Then I notice the gearshift is set in neutral. It’s possible that happened as a result of the impact, but my gut tells me no one was in the truck when it went down into the ditch. I find her phone in the footwell of the driver’s seat, still powered up but with a cracked screen.

When I scramble back up to the road, Ewing appears to be studying the dirt.

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