Page 33 of Never Stay Gone
“We’ll remember.” Shane leaned into Dakota again.Please, Dakota.
Dakota kept his mouth shut. Shane guided Jared—still protesting his innocence—into showing them where the recordings from Libby’s last day were stored on DVDs, and then further back to Amber’s last possible sighting. Jared hovered, watching every mouse click and keystroke, as Shane took his seat in front of the computer monitors. Dakota tried to edge Jared out, shifting closer to the desk until he was practically leaning over Shane’s shoulder. Breathing in his ear. Pressing his cheek against Shane’s.
“There,” Dakota said softly. He pointed to the time stamp on the bottom of the video feed. “That’s the day Libby left town.”
Shane swallowed. Every hair on his arms stood on end. Heat crawled down his spine and curled low in his belly.Jesus.
They went through the day on fast-forward, watching the hours from midnight to dawn tumble on. Cars pulled up to the pumps, and sleepy-eyed drivers wandered the aisles of the store. After dawn, traffic picked up, and Shane and Dakota both peered more closely at the grainy feed.
Shane felt Dakota beside him like the sun was burning on him alone.
“Wait,” Shane said. He paused the feed, rewound. Checked the date and time. Early afternoon, the day Libby came to pick up her check. “I know that car.” It was a beater, a late-nineties piece of shit that would only keep running out in West Texas, held together with sand and tar and spit. Duct tape covered the back window, and the headliner sagged. He could see a pillow and a pile of trash in the back seat.
And in the driver’s seat, Frank Lynn, Libby’s ex-husband. “That’s Frank.”
Dakota cursed. They watched Frank pull up and fill his car with gas. He smoked next to the pump, his dark eyes scanning around him like he was watching over his shoulder. Probably not just a cigarette, then. There was no way to tell on the video.
Frank finished pumping his gas, flicked whatever he was smoking away, and got back in his car. He drove out of the frame and didn’t reappear on any of the other feeds.
“Which direction is that?” Dakota murmured.
“North.” Shane wanted to lean back into Dakota. Wanted to lean away too. “Toward the county highway.”
“Damn. No DPS cameras out there.”
“If he left at all.”
“What, you think he stuck around? Laid in wait for Libby?” Jared, still lingering on the edge of his office, cried. “I don’t have predators at my station!”
“We got this, Jared,” Dakota drawled. “And we’ll let you know what you’ve got crawlin’ in and out of this place.” He threw a raised eyebrow over his shoulder.
“Listen—”
“Libby’s here,” Shane said, raising his voice.
That shut the other two men up. They turned back to the cameras and watched as Libby fueled up her old Ford Ranger at pump five. “Where’s her truck?” Dakota muttered. “We need to put out an APB on it.”
“And Frank’s vehicle too.”
“Mmm.” Dakota nodded. His cheek brushed Shane’s hair.
On the video, Libby walked out of camera four’s feed and onto camera one as she entered the store. She crossed to Jared’s office and spoke to him for ten minutes. Jared pulled some money out of the safe beneath his desk and handed it to her, then held his arms out for a hug. Reluctantly, Libby hugged him back, and Jared held on—clearly longer than Libby was comfortable with. Shane and Dakota shot him long looks. Jared had the decency to look ashamed.
Libby said goodbye to a few people in the truck stop’s small restaurant, then went back out to her car and drove out of the lot. Heading east.
Dakota had Shane rewind the footage and copied down the license plates for Frank’s and Libby’s vehicles. They watched to the end of the day, but neither Libby nor Frank showed up again. Shane found the disk for their best guess as to Amber’s disappearance, then started it playing at high speed. Dakota propped up his phone with Amber’s driver’s license photo between the monitors, and Shane’s eyes made loops from Amber’s image to the feed and back.
They scanned two days of footage before they saw her. Amber was walking, coming in from the south like she’d been dropped off at the edge of the outer parking lot. She had a duffel on her back, the straps looped over her shoulders like a backpack, and her long, dark hair was braided down her back. But there was the scowl, the fierce glare at the world. A low-cut tank, too, showing the top of her Jalisco tattoo. She wore an open plaid button-down, dark skinny jeans, and boots.
Amber went into the store, wandered the aisles, pocketed a candy bar and a bag of trail mix, and then bought a Coke. She went back outside and sat on the curb to drink her soda. An hour passed, and she never moved.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Dakota growled. “Shane, look.” He pointed at the camera four feed.
There was Frank’s beater sedan, pulling in to pump seven. He put gas in his car, smoking again. It was like he was cut and pasted from the earlier footage, his movements, his mannerisms almost identical. Hell, even the dirty shirt and old trucker’s cap he was wearing were almost the same. He still looked around like he was being watched before climbing back into his car and driving out of the camera’s vantage.
On the other camera, Amber rose and walked toward the outer lots.
They watched for another four hours on fast-forward. She never reappeared.
