Page 158 of You Betrayed Me (The Cahills 3)

“Not much. We did do some checking, for the story. All I know is she’s twenty-three, grew up around here, has an older sister who lives outside of Olympia. Can’t think of her name right off the top of my head . . . no, wait!” He snapped his fingers. “It’s um . . . Fern. Another woodsy name. Last name of Smithe, with an ‘e’.”

“You talked to her?” Mendoza asked as she typed in the information on her phone.

“No.”

Rivers asked, “What else?”

“She—Valente—holds down, well, held down two jobs. Basically maid service at the Cahill Inn and then janitorial work at the McEwen Clinic.”

Where Megan Travers had been employed.

“Does she have any friends?” Mendoza asked.

“Haven’t gotten that far. Don’t know.”

“Okay.” Rivers needed to get moving and took a step toward the door. Mendoza was ahead of him, already calling for deputies to check out Valente’s place.

“Hey, man, I want my phone back ASAP!” Earl jabbed a long finger at Rivers. “Tomorrow.”

“ASAP,” Rivers assured him.

As they clambered down the staircase from the newspaper offices, Mendoza said, “She lives out on Taylor’s Creek Road, an old building just on the other side of the train tracks. I’ve got the map on my phone.” They sidestepped an old Volkswagen van emblazoned with AUNTIE’S ANTIQUES. “Deputies should be there by the time we arrive. Wait—Deputy Brown is calling.”

“Let’s go.”

Rivers drove east toward the outskirts of Riggs Crossing, past the center of town, where people were still on the streets and bright Christmas decorations were visible on the storefronts. The town was bustling, a happy holiday fever in the air.

It was all directly at odds with his grim mission. Squinting against oncoming headlights, he thought about the person who had been photographed at the San Francisco airport. Had the killer left Charity Spritz to hop a plane, then land somewhere—Seattle? Spokane? Then what? Find Willow Valente and kill her within twenty-four hours? If so, it seemed that it might be easy enough to track down airline information. But on whom? Who would want both women killed? And why? He couldn’t believe these killings were random. There had to be a link between them. His first thought was James Cahill. But he couldn’t see Cahill flying to and from San Francisco. Driving would take . . . fifteen or sixteen hours, maybe longer, each way. Nonetheless, Cahill and the missing Megan Travers had to be part of this. And what about Harold Sinclaire’s cabin, where they’d found the black Toyota Corolla? How did it all hang together?

“Okay,” Mendoza said into the phone as he drove past an abandoned gas station. “Just hold her there; we’ll want to talk to her . . . yeah, I’m sure . . . anyone would be, but still, we need to talk to her . . . okay, we’ll be there in ten, maybe less.” She clicked off. “Apparently we weren’t the first to call in Willow Valente’s death. A coworker was already checking on her when Brown and his partner got there. They’re holding her so that we can talk to her.”

“Good.” Rivers flipped on his lights, blew through the next intersection, and half a mile farther, turned onto Taylor’s Creek Road.

“She—the coworker—is more than a little freaked out.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Rivers asked, his stomach knotting. The once sleepy little town of Riggs Crossing now was on the map. In December alone, two women had been murdered and one was missing.

And it wasn’t yet Christmas.

* * *

Restless, Rebecca unpacked her bag, folded her few sweaters, jeans, and leggings and placed them once again in the drawers of the small dresser in her hotel room. She had intended to leave.

After doing her duty with the press conference, she’d planned to go home to Seattle, to restart her life, to leave finding Megan to the police and to get as far away from James Cahill as possible. The man messed with her mind, and she didn’t need any of that, thank you very much.

But then her mother had called.

“What?” Lenora had cried when Rebecca had explained that she was returning to Seattle. “You can’t! Not until Megan’s found. You have to find her, Becky!”

“That could take a while.”

“And it will just take longer if you’re not there to rattle the police’s cages!”

“I’ve done enough ‘rattling,’” Rebecca had thrown back.

Lenora had driven her point home. “You let the police know that you won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Be the squeaky wheel, Becky,” Lenora had insisted. When Rebecca had mentioned she thought Detectives Rivers and Mendoza were all over the case, her mother had scoffed. “I doubt it, but you make sure they’re not slacking off.”

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