Page 54 of Dark Terror
It was about a twenty-minute drive to Harry’s. Gabe made it there in twelve. Two patrol cars were there, one parked in the driveway and one on the street. Gabe came to a stop behind the one in Harry’s drive. Connie stood at the front door, holding Cricket.
“The door was partly open, and this little guy was running around in the yard, barking his head off,” Connie said.
Gabe had never, not once in his life, had such a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. “She’s gone?” At seeing him, Cricket tried to wriggle out of Connie’s arms, his barks growing more frantic. Gabe took the agitated dog. If only he could talk.
Connie didn’t ask who, just nodded. “Masuka’s knocking on the neighbors’ doors. Maybe someone saw something.”
“Have you been inside?” Harry asked.
“Briefly. The window in the guest room is broken. I didn’t want to destroy any evidence, though, so once I confirmed that Ms. Jenner wasn’t inside, I came out here to wait for you.”
Gabe had to do something or he’d lose it. He took out his phone and called Benjamin Page.
“Benjamin, I need you to come to Detective Harrison’s apartment. Now,” he said when the tech answered.
Benjamin must have heard the urgency in his voice, because the only question he asked was for Harry’s address. After giving it to him and then disconnecting, he said to Harry, “Let’s take a look inside.” He strode in without waiting for her to answer.
They stood in the living room, their cop eyes scanning everything around them. Cricket, still in his arm, let out a plaintive whine. Gabe knew the feeling. He was close to crying or screaming or tearing the town apart to find her.
“That’s not my pen,” Harry said, pointing to a fancy fountain pen on the floor. “Before we contaminate anything, we need to wait outside for Benjamin.” When he didn’t answer, she put her hand on his arm. “We’ll find her, Gabe.”
They would find her, that he didn’t doubt. But in time, before it was her body they’d find? He turned and walked out. He’d promised Cara he would keep her safe, and he hadn’t. If Harry was wrong and they didn’t find her alive, he’d never forgive himself.
When he walked outside, Masuka was standing with Connie. “Tell me you have something. A description of the car, our suspect, anything.”
“Not much,” Masuka said. “One neighbor said there was a white car, a sedan, parked in one of the visitor’s spots with a man inside. She just thought he was waiting for someone.”
“The man’s description?”
“Vague. Said she thinks he had blond hair. Other than that, nothing.”
Harry’s phone rang, and she walked away to answer it.
“Benjamin Page will be here shortly,” Gabe said. “Connie, make sure no one goes inside before he gets here. Masuka, see if you can find any security cameras in the area that might have the car in it.”
“I’m on it,” Masuka said, then walked away.
“Gabe, I have Meredith Wallenberg on the phone. Says she has something we might want to know.”
She stood at the hood of the patrol car in the driveway, and he walked over, stopping next to her. In the few minutes since walking out of Harry’s apartment, he’d shut down his panic. He was a cop, a good one, and if he was going to find Cara, he had to use his brain and his experience. He couldn’t let his personal feelings take control or he wouldn’t be able to think straight.
“Meredith,” Harry said. “I’m going to put you on speaker so Detective Calder can also hear you. Is that okay?”
After listening to Meredith’s answer, she thumbed the speaker button, then put the phone down on the hood of the cruiser. “Okay, we’re both here. Did you remember something?”
“I don’t know if this is important or not, but I thought you should know. About a year ago I was still an accounting clerk, working in receivables and payables. An invoice from a company I’d never heard of was in my mail one day. It caught my attention because the line items on this one were a little too vague for my liking. Also it had a post office box address. It’s not all that unusual to get invoices from new vendors, but in this case the address added to the vagueness of the invoice.”
“Do you remember the company name?” Gabe asked.
“It was Ace Building Supplies. I decided to call the company and ask for a more detailed statement of the items we’d ordered and who had placed the order. Problem was, there wasn’t a phone number on the invoice. That is unusual. The post office box was in Denver, and I tried to look up the company, but there wasn’t an Ace Building Supplies in Denver.”
“Don’t some companies use billing firms to handle their invoicing?” Harry asked.
“Yes, and I thought of that. So I expanded my search outside of Denver and still couldn’t find a company by that name. Since Sheri was the manager of our department, I took the invoice to her, told her what all I’d done to verify it was legit. She thought it was odd, too. Told me she’d look into it. I left the invoice with her.”
“Did it turn out to be legit?” Gabe tamped down on his impatience. He wasn’t sure how this related to their case, but sometimes cases were solved in the most unexpected ways.
“That’s just it. I don’t know. A couple of weeks later I asked her what had happened with it. She told me not to worry about it. She said she’d taken care of it, and that I should forget I ever saw it.”
