Page 90 of Threat of Danger
That way they wouldn’t have to walk back across in the cold.
A minute ticked by. When Jess didn’t respond, Derek strode across the frozen field. His instincts prickled stronger and stronger, until he broke into a run.
“Jess!” he shouted for her even before he reached the house. He bounded through the front door. “Jess! Kaylee!”
He had the place searched in under three minutes.
Empty.
They’d left the sugar shack and made it here—that the lights were on told him that much.But then what?How could they disappear? No way they’d gone for a walk in the cold, in the falling darkness.
Everything in him screamed that they’d been taken. If not, where could have they gone? Jess’s rental had been in the driveway when he’d left Zelda. Chuck’s pickup, which Kaylee usually borrowed if she had to go somewhere, was still in front of the sugar shack.
Derek grabbed his phone and dialed the police station. “I’d like to file two missing persons reports.”
If it turned out to be a false alarm, he was willing to be embarrassed.
“You need to come into the station, sir,” the dispatcher said.
“I don’t have the time. Could you please put the sheriff on the line? This is Derek Daley.”
Whether because Derek was a local celebrity or not, the dispatcher put him through without argument.
“Sheriff Rollins.” If the sheriff looked a hundred, he sounded a hundred and ten.
“Derek Daley. Kaylee Hernandez and Jess Taylor are missing. You need to put out an APB and start looking.”
The sheriff hesitated. Then again, he hesitated over everything these days. “When was the last time they were seen?”
“An hour ago.”
Silence on the other end, several seconds of it before the sheriff said, “I heard about Chuck. A damn good man. Shame to lose him that young.”
“I think Kaylee and Jess were taken.”
“Could be they’re holed up somewhere, crying. That’d be my first guess. You know womenfolk.”
“I think it’s the wood-chipper killer.”
“Derek ...” The sheriff’s voice was infused with patience. “Jess’s ideas about a serial killer, they’re just that. Her way of coping with the past. Hannah Wilson was a one-off. We still don’t know what happened to her. But we have no reason to believe there’s a serial killer on the prowl. None.”
“Whoever kidnapped Jess and me ten years ago talked about a wood chipper.”
“And Jess said that in several interviews at the time. Could be Hannah Wilson’s killer got the idea from there.”
“Jess and Kaylee are missing.”
“They’ll be back by dinner. If not, come in tomorrow morning and we’ll file a missing persons report. We won’t wait for the full twenty-four hours, all right? Best I can do.”
“Thanks.” Derek hung up.Shit.
He ran for the Taylor house. He needed to tell Zelda something. But how much more could Zelda take tonight?
Linda Fischer’s red Ford Fiesta was in the driveway. Linda was the neighbor Zelda had been helping with the wedding quilt. She must have heard about Chuck. As Derek watched, other cars were arriving.
At the end, he didn’t go inside. He sent Zelda a text.We’ll be a while.
Her friends would be with her—all good women. They would take care of her tonight. She didn’t need the extra worry right now.
