Page 71 of Never Stay Gone
“Yeah. Yeah, I, uh. I understand.”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
Finally, he smiled, sad and small, as he stared at his thighs. “Good to hear yours too.”
“I called Odessa PD. The number Frank called from was a pay phone at a motel outside Odessa.” Shane’s voice was shaking, but he powered through, describing the video surveillance Detective Cruz had sent him from the motel’s parking lot: Frank making his phone call. Pacing and smoking. Watching a woman drive up, get out, and knock on the door of a room. “The woman was Jessica Klein.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“I’m not. Ten minutes before ten on the night she went missing, she walked into a motel room on the outskirts of Odessa. She was meeting someone.”
“Jesus.” He didn’t know what to think first: that Frank was right there—another connection between Frank fucking Lynn and a victim—or that Jessica was apparently meeting someone in secret. “Everyone said she was at the rally all night.”
“Did they just say she was around somewhere, or did anyone say they specifically saw her?”
Dakota shook his head. In his own memories, he’d assumed she was there. He thought he’d seen her, over there, or somewhere. Other people had said they’d seen her, that she was in the sound booth or working the ops trailer or backstage. Or walking between locations.
Damn it, he’d missed something huge. Jessica had left early, slipped out, with no one knowing. “Any idea who she was meetin’?”
“Couldn’t see anything. The doorway was a shadow. Like the person inside had the lights off on purpose.”
“Someone who knows how to have a secret affair, then.” Like Carly Hurst and her well-practiced carousel of lovers.
“That’s not all Detective Cruz gave me either.” Shane told him about Joey, and Cruz’s almost palpable hatred of the man. “They busted him with heroin seven months ago and were going to lay him out with a distribution charge, but a phone call got him released. Someone called someone high up in the department, and the orders came down.”
“Who would have the kind of pull to get a drug charge like that tossed out?”
“Joey says Jessica made a call.”
Here they were again, circling back to drugs. No drugs in Jessica’s system, but her fiancé was a dealer. Drugs showing up everywhere… even in Shelly and Shane’s house. “Shane…” He didn’t want to go down this road, ask these questions. “Did Shelly know Frank Lynn at all?”
There was a long, heavy pause. “No. They had nothing in common. No associates, no friends. They didn’t move in the same circles.”
“What about drugs? Did, uh. Did Shelly ever use drugs?”
“What?” Shane sounded incredulous, like Dakota had asked him if he thought the earth was flat or the Cowboys would ever win the Super Bowl again. “Are youkidding?No, of course not. Why are you asking me that?”
Dakota scrubbed his hand over his face. Pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Dakota, why are you asking me if Shelly did drugs?”
“She have a ballerina jewelry box in her bathroom drawer?”
“Yes. She kept her earrings in there.”
“Anythin’ else she keep in there?”
“No.” Firm, solid. “Nothing.”
“You sure you’d know?”
“Yes. Sometimes I’d take her earrings off, especially if I was giving her a backrub after she had a long day at work. I’d put them away if I did.”
There was an image: Shane giving Shelly a shoulder massage, maybe leaning over to kiss her cheek. Her smiling as he gently worked open the clasp of a gold hoop earring. Shane, the gentleman, putting them away for her. “Okay. Okay, that’s… good to know.”
“You found something in that jewelry box?”
“Shane…”
