Chapter 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

Though the leads on the van were slowly going cold, he needed to speak with Fallon’s mother again to see if she could recall anything new. Sawyer hoped she might remember something else—anything that could help.

He knocked on the door, and it wasn’t long before Mrs. Ray answered, a strained smile on her face. “Detective Reed, good to see you again. Have you found something new?”

“Not yet, ma’am,” Sawyer replied with a polite nod. “I was hoping you might’ve thought of anything unusual about Fallon recently. Anything new, or anyone she might’ve come into contact with?”

Mrs. Ray’s expression turned pensive as she gestured for Sawyer to step inside. The cozy living room was as he remembered, filled with the scent of fresh flowers and a hint of nostalgia. She offered him a seat on the well-worn couch, but he remained standing, his focus on the task at hand.

“I’ve been trying to think if there was anything out of the ordinary,” Mrs. Ray began, her brow furrowing. “But I can’t seem to recall anything specific. Ever since the car accident, Fallon’s been pretty reserved. She kept to herself more.”

Immediately, Sawyer’s mind conjured the image of Brynlee amidst the chaos this morning, her car mangled, her body trembling with fear. He shook the memory away and focused his attention on the woman in front of him. “What do you mean by ‘car accident,’ Mrs. Ray?”

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Mrs. Ray’s eyes widened slightly. “It happened about two months ago. Fallon and her ex-boyfriend, Mark Sullivan, were in an accident. They were arguing while Fallon was driving. She must’ve been distracted because she ran off the road and hit a telephone pole.”

Sawyer’s pulse quickened. “Were they hurt?”

“Thankfully, no. There wasn’t too much damage, and they both walked away without any serious injuries. But they broke up after that. I suppose the accident was the last straw for them.”

Sawyer filed that information away, a niggle of unease forming in the back of his mind. “Do you know where Fallon took the car to get it repaired?”

Mrs. Ray thought for a moment, then nodded. “I believe she took it to Leroy’s Auto Shop, just a few miles from here. Leroy’s been fixing cars around here for as long as I can remember.”

“Do you remember how long it was in the shop?”

Mrs. Ray’s mouth pursed as she thought back to the accident. “Oh, maybe a few days?”

Sawyer nodded. “And what did she do during that time? Did she hire a driving service?”

“No, she rented a car, I think.”

“Do you by chance have that information?”

Mrs. Ray made a face. “I can’t remember for sure, but I think she used the rental service right downtown.”

Sawyer thanked Mrs. Ray and left her house with a couple new leads to follow. As he drove to Leroy’s Auto Shop, his thoughts were swirling. The detail about the car accident felt important, but he couldn’t yet piece together why.

The shop was a typical small-town garage, with a couple of cars parked out front and a strong smell of motor oil in the air. Inside, a wiry man in his fifties was bent over the engine of an old pickup truck. He straightened when he saw Sawyer, wiping his hands on a greasy rag.

“You Leroy?” Sawyer asked.

“That’s me,” the man replied, eyeing Sawyer warily. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Detective Reed, Brookhaven Sheriff’s Department.” Sawyer showed his badge. “I’m looking into a car that was brought here a couple of months ago. Black 2015 Kia Forte, belonged to a woman named Fallon.”

The man’s head tipped to one side in contemplation. “Let me check.”

Sawyer fell into step behind him as he led the wall to a desk art the back of the room, paperwork stacked haphazardly on the surface. “When did you say that was?”

Sawyer rattled off the date Mrs. Gill had given him, and Leroy dug through the filing cabinets for a moment before he extracted a piece of paper. He skimmed it, then nodded slowly, and passed it toward Sawyer for his inspection. “I remember that one. Not too much damage—just the front bumper and a busted headlight. She said she ran off the road and hit a pole.”

Sawyer skimmed the invoice, looking for notes of any kind. “Do you remember anything unusual about the car? Anything that stood out?”

Leroy shook his head. “Nah, nothing out of the ordinary. I fixed it up and sent her on her way.”

Sawyer frowned. “Did she mention anything about the accident or the argument she had with her ex-boyfriend, Mark Sullivan?”

“Not that I can remember,” Leroy said with a shrug. “The name doesn’t sound familiar.”

Sawyer thanked Leroy and left the shop, his unease growing. He stopped by the rental agency and spoke with the manager next, who pulled Fallon’s information. She’d rented a small sedan for two days, and Sawyer made a note of the manager’s name as well as the attendants who’d been on duty the day she’d been issued the rental, and the day she’d returned it to the shop.

As he drove back to the station, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the story. The car accident seemed like a small detail, but it nagged at him.

Lindsey Gill had also been in a car accident not long before she was killed. It could be a coincidence, but in his experience, coincidences often turned out to be something more.

If there was a pattern here, it might be the key to unraveling the mystery of Fallon’s disappearance—and possibly the other cases as well. Something about those accidents didn’t sit right with him, and he wasn’t about to ignore his instincts.

He was starting to see the edges of a bigger picture, but the full image was still frustratingly out of reach. Whatever it was, he was determined to find out.

Pulling out his phone, he dialed Cam, who answered on the third ring. “Yeah?”

“I think I might have something for you.” He explained what Mrs. Ray had told him. “Remember the Gills mentioning that Lindsey had been in an accident a few weeks prior to her abduction?”

“Yeah, but we questioned the mechanic and the Uber driver,” Cam pointed out.

Sawyer ground his molars together. “I know, but for both women to be in accidents? Isn’t that a little coincidental?”

On the other end, Cam scoffed. “Seriously? Do you know how many traffic accidents we deal with every week?”

Sawyer sighed and rubbed a hand over his forehead. Maybe Cam was right. They’d checked the mechanic and Uber driver Lindsey had hired and had come up empty handed. Fallon had used a completely different mechanic, and she’d rented a sedan from a popular establishment. He would run the men’s information when he got back to the station, but he was beginning to doubt himself. Maybe he was looking for something that wasn’t there.

“You’re right. I’ll run background anyway, but we probably won’t get any hits.”

“We’ll keep digging,” Cam promised. “If there’s something there, we’ll find it.”

Sawyer hung up and steered the car back toward the station, tension sitting like a lead ball in his gut. The connection between Fallon and Lindsey’s car accidents kept nagging at him the whole way back. He didn’t believe in coincidences—not in cases like these.