Page 94 of Don't Back Down

Rance paused, frowning. “Maybe a year or so ago. I saw her in passing. Didn’t really stop to talk.”

“Is she still in the area?” Rusty asked.

“I have no idea,” Rance said. “After she quit Fuzzy Fridays, I kind of lost track of her.”

“I heard you mention Dewey Zane was your friend,” Rusty said.

Rance scrubbed his hands up and down his face as if trying to wipe away the shock of what he was still feeling.

“Yeah…hunting and fishing…that kind of thing. I tried to get Dewey on as janitor at the sheriff’s office, but the county commissioners didn’t go for it. He has worked at both of the big hotels in Jubilee before. Mostly day labor. He works for cleaning companies around town if they call him in. Mostly like mopping floors at cafés and the like after they close. But that was all before he went to work out at the campground full time.”

Rusty’s heart skipped. “Zane works for Jack Barton?”

“Yes, for the last three or so years. He also works an evening shift three nights a week at Fuzzy Fridays. God. I can’t believe this!”

“What’s his job out at the campground?” Rusty asked.

Rance shrugged. “I don’t really know. Repairing stuff. Getting the garbage from the tiny cabins and campsites and making sure it’s in the dumpster on pickup days…stuff like that. Sometimes he picks up supplies for Barton, but that’s when he goes out of town.”

“So, those trips… Exactly what does he pick up that Barton couldn’t have delivered?”

“Again, I don’t know. I guess I never really asked. Carly, his wife, might know more. Then again, maybe not. She kept crying to me this morning, asking me why Dewey would kill a man for a laptop, which is something they don’t even use. Whatever he was doing, he kept it to himself.”

Rusty’s thoughts were spinning. She was coming to the realization that all of thishadbeen a horrible twist of fate, and Rance Woodley had nothing to do with any of it. Which meant the only person still alive and on the loose who they’d identified as being part of the gang was Lindy Sheets, and she was missing.

“Tell me about your ex-wife,” Rusty said.

Rance frowned. “Why?”

Now was where Rusty made the knee-jerk decision to share a piece of evidence, and she’d know by Woodley’s reaction whether he’d known it or not.

“Because she was Danny Biggers’s contact. She was the drop-off for the little girl Biggers snatched.”

Woodley reeled as if Rusty Caldwell had just punched him in the face, then turned white as a sheet. His eyes welled, and he began to shake.

“I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, we have proof. That phone you confiscated from Biggers. There were calls and texts to each other on it. She was also an old girlfriend of Biggers. She visited him in prison before the escape.”

“Uh…I’m gonna be sick,” Woodley whispered, and made a dash for the front door.

Cameron followed, watching as the man staggered to the edge of the porch and puked up his guts. When he finally backed away, wiping his brow and then his mouth, there were tears running down his face.

“Come inside,” Cameron said. “I’ll get you some water.”

Woodley stumbled back inside and fell into the chair where he’d been sitting. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

Rusty sighed. There for a minute she thought he’d been having a heart attack. Nobody was that good of an actor.

Cameron brought him a glass of water, and Woodley took a few sips and set it aside.

“And here I thought I was gonna look bad being friends with a murderer. Fuck a duck, ma’am, but I’m just gonna come out and say it. You are looking at me as being part of this mess, aren’t you?”

“Now that you know why I asked about your ex-wife, tell me everything you know about her,” Rusty said.

“Is she missing?” Woodley asked.

She nodded.

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