Chapter Twenty-Five

The man wore a stained undershirt and board shorts, despite the cold. His feet looked warm, though, in a pair of thick white socks inside his sandals.

“Mr.Gregus, how long have you lived at this address?” Nicole asked him.

He blew out a stream of smoke and squinted. “?’Bout three months.”

“And have you formally met Cassandra Miller?”

“Nope.” He flicked his ash on the sidewalk. “But I know who she is. She teaches yoga at that place over by the doughnut shop.”

This guy was creepy, and it wasn’t just the way he slouched against the side of the building, watching people come and go as Nicole conducted the interview. He knew a hell of a lot about Cassandra’s daily routine for a casual observer.

“And are you sure it was nine fifty when you last saw her?” Nicole asked.

He nodded.

“You’re certain of this?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “She was getting in her car. The lady in 110 was out here, too, with her dachshund. You can ask her.”

Nicole glanced back at the parking lot. According to this neighbor, Cassandra had a white Mustang that she typically kept parked at the corner of the lot, under the shade of a tree. She almost never drove it, he said, but she’d been getting into it this morning.

“Is that all?” He tossed his cigarette on the ground, and she gave him a pointed look.

Nicole’s phone chimed, and she pulled it from her pocket. Emmet.

“One moment,” she told the guy.

She crutched to the end of the sidewalk to answer the call.

“Hey, what’s up?” she said.

“We’ve got a problem.”

Her stomach tensed.

“Cassandra and Alex were supposed to come in so she could give us a statement,” Emmet said. “She didn’t show.”

“Cassandra... and Alex Breda?”

“Yeah.”

“A statement about what?”

Muffled noise on the other end of the phone. It sounded like Emmet was in a car with the windows down.

“Emmet?”

“Turns out you were right. Cassandra believes her husband may have something to do with the murders, so she went to Alex for legal advice.”

A chill went down Nicole’s spine. She moved a few more steps away from Cassandra’s nosey neighbor.

“What exactly did she say?” Nicole asked.

“Nothing, yet. All this is from Alex. And he’s been pretty cagey about it since this woman’s not here to tell us herself.”

“Well, where is she?”

“We don’t know. Alex convinced her to come talk to us, but she never came in for the meeting, and now she’s MIA. We’re on our way to her place—”

“She’s not here.”

“What?”

“I came by the apartment to interview her again, and she’s not here. Her neighbor says he saw her getting into her car—”

“Fuck.”

“That was around nine fifty.”

Nicole glanced over as an unmarked police unit pulled into the parking lot. She slid her phone into her pocket as Emmet whipped into a space and got out.

He shot a look at Cassandra’s neighbor before walking over to her.

“I thought you went home,” he said.

“Gimme a break.”

Emmet glanced around the parking lot. “You say she left here around ten? That’s an hour ago.”

“He’s eavesdropping,” Nicole said in a low voice. “This guy lives in one of the first-floor units with his girlfriend. He told me he was out here smoking when Cassandra came out and loaded up her car.”

Emmet frowned. “She loaded it?”

“He says she put a duffel and a couple grocery bags in the trunk, then went back inside for a backpack. Then she left.”

“Damn it.” Emmet raked his hand through his hair and glanced around. “She was supposed to meet Alex at his office at ten o’clock, but she never came.”

“You think she skipped town?”

Emmet shook his head. “No idea.” His gaze settled on her.

Nicole stared up at him.

“You were right,” he said.

“About?”

“She’s key to this whole thing. She thinks her husband has something to do with the murders.”

“Why?”

Emmet’s phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket. “Yeah?” He listened a moment. “Yeah, I’m here with Nicole. No luck. A neighbor saw her packing up her car this morning.” He glanced back at the apartment building. “Okay, we’ll head over there next.”

He hung up the phone. “Come on. I’ll drive.”

Emmet sped toward the Banyan Tree as Nicole sat beside him, scrolling through text messages. He’d known she wouldn’t go home and sit around waiting for updates—not when everything they’d been working on was finally coming to a head. Even injured, she was physically incapable of staying on the sidelines.

“Owen said he just got there, and the place looks closed,” Nicole reported.

Emmet glanced at her in the passenger seat. With that clumsy boot on her foot, he was worried about her involvement right now. He worried about her all the time anyway, but her injury ratcheted things up to a whole new level.

She glanced at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

They had some talking to do, but now definitely was not the time.

He thought about her constantly. The situational awareness that had been drilled into him throughout his police training applied to her specifically, almost like she was an extension of himself. There was no one else who commanded so much of his attention, and she’d been dead-on when she’d accused him of treating her differently from Owen and Adam and everyone else. He was always aware of her location, her activities, her level of risk. He knew she saw his protectiveness as an annoyance, like a big brother she didn’t need, but the irony was that his feelings toward her were anything but brotherly.

Emmet whipped into the parking lot, which was only half-full. Most of the cars looked to be people coming and going from the doughnut store.

“Over there,” Nicole said, pointing to the police unit parked beside a white SUV.

Owen and Adam stood on the sidewalk in front of the Banyan Tree talking to a woman with a long blond ponytail.

“Is that Reese?” Nicole asked.

“Looks like.” Emmet pulled into a space and glanced at Nicole. “You need a hand?”

“I’ve got it.”

She pushed her door open. Emmet reached into the back for her crutches, and she hauled herself to her feet as he jogged around the car and closed the door for her.

They approached Owen and Adam on the sidewalk, and Emmet could tell from the tone of Reese’s voice that something was very wrong.

“Ma’am, are you sure she didn’t have someone waiting for her?” Owen was asking.

“I don’t know.” Reese sounded stressed. “She told me she was running errands. I figured she was alone.”

Nicole crutched over. “Hi, Reese. How’s it going?”

She turned around and seemed confused to see two more cops approaching her.

“Sounds like Cassandra stopped by to retrieve some things from her locker,” Owen said. “But now she’s not here, and her car’s parked in back.”

“Her car is here, but she isn’t?” Nicole asked, clearly alarmed.

“Apparently.”

Emmet turned to Reese. “What was she getting from her locker?”

“I’m not sure.” Reese shook her head. “She said something about doing laundry?”

“Did you actually see her open the locker?”

“No.”

“And she was alone when you saw her here?” Nicole asked.

“Yes.” She darted a panicked look at Owen. “And now she’s gone, but she left her car. I don’t understand. What is this about?”

Emmet ignored her question. “Ma’am, do you know whether there are any security cameras on the premises?”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head.

“No, you don’t know, or no, there aren’t any—”

“I have no idea,” she said. “You’d have to ask Paula. She and Danielle are the owners.”

“How do we reach Paula?” Owen asked.

Reese took out her phone, and Emmet motioned for Nicole to step aside for a private conversation.

“We need to call Brady,” Emmet said.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

He nodded.

Nicole turned to Reese, who was scrolling through her contacts for Owen. “Do you know which locker is Cassandra’s?”

Reese glanced up. “I’m not sure of the number. But it’s the top one on the end, all the way down on the left.

Emmet and Nicole moved for the front door of the studio. It was unlocked, but all the classrooms were dark. The only lights on were in the locker room and the main hallway. Emmet stepped into the locker room, checked the ones on the end, and quickly stepped out again.

“Locked, I assume?” she asked.

“Yep.”

He strode down the hallway, and the clack of Nicole’s crutches echoed through the long corridor.

“What do you think she wanted out of her locker?” she asked from behind him.

“My guess? A go bag. Maybe she was keeping cash or supplies or something—whatever she might need to leave town in a hurry.”

“I don’t see any cameras inside anywhere,” Nicole said.

“There weren’t any out front either.” He pushed open the back door and held it for her as he glanced around. “None back here either. Shit.”

His gaze fell on the little white Mustang parked beside the dumpster. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from the pocket of his jacket as he stepped over to check out the car.

“Colorado plates,” Nicole observed.

He tried the door. “It’s open,” he said, glancing at her over the roof.

He reached inside and popped the trunk as Nicole crutched over.

Emmet braced himself for the possibility of a duffel bag with a dead woman inside it.

There was a duffel back there—not nearly big enough for a body—and several grocery bags containing snack foods and toiletries. Beneath the bags was a pallet of bottled waters.

“Looks like provisions,” he said. “I think she got cold feet about coming in to talk to us and decided to hit the road.”

“And then what?”

He looked at her. “I think somebody grabbed her.”

“Hey.”

They glanced up as Owen stepped outside.

“Brady needs all of us back ASAP.”

“Why?” Emmet asked.

“The FBI is here.”