Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

Kane made short work of getting inside Marissa’s house. She had security set up on the front door but had neglected to include the office at the back. The locked internal door between the house and the office was insufficient to slow down anyone who could pick a lock. They cleared the house, carefully moving from room to room, but it had that empty feeling a house does when it’s unoccupied. There was no smell of death but rather a hint of stale coffee drifting through the neat home. Although there were three bedrooms, the main bedroom where she slept was easy to distinguish by the colorful throws on the bed and a wide-screen TV at one end. Inside the closets, clothes hung neatly with shoes in lines beneath. They found two suitcases under the bed and both were empty. In the attached bathroom, cosmetics, lotions, and a toothbrush and paste had been left as if she’d just finished using them. There was absolutely no sign whatsoever that she’d decided to make a run for it. He followed Jenna down the stairs and back to the office.

“There’s a list of her clients on the desk.” Jenna took out her phone and copied each page. “I’ll get Maggie to call them and ask if they’ve seen her. Maybe we’ll be able to discover if she goes to their offices or works strictly from here.”

Kane nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”

He locked the doors again as they left the office. As he turned to head back to the Beast, Jenna paused to answer her phone. When she turned and gave him an incredulous look, he went to her side. “What is it? You’ve gone sheet white.”

“That was Kalo. He traced Marissa’s truck to the Old Mitcham Ranch.” Jenna gripped Kane’s arm. “She went from here to Aunt Betty’s Café, did a J-turn on Main, and drove to the Old Mitcham Ranch, and her truck is still there.”

The Old Mitcham Ranch held so many bad memories and Jenna had almost been killed there. One of the first murders he encountered after arriving in Black Rock Falls was the horrific homicide of a young woman whom he found mutilated in the root cellar. It had been particularly gruesome, and memorable as the young woman resembled his sister. It hadn’t been something he could easily forget. A year later over Halloween, they discovered an entire group of workers slaughtered by a maniac. That had been the day their cat, Pumpkin, arrived on their doorstep splattered with blood and insisting they follow her to the crime scene.

During his time on the battlefield, Kane had seen many gruesome injuries but nothing had prepared him for walking into a dark root cellar and finding a young woman brutally murdered. The idea of history repeating itself knotted his stomach, and from Jenna’s expression, she had the same concern. He sucked in a deep breath. Dealing with death and destruction was part of the job, but everything about the Old Mitcham Ranch posed a danger and he did not intend to walk into a trap. “Oh, that can’t be good.”

“I’ll call it in and get Rio and Rowley for backup.” Jenna reached for her phone and made the call. She spoke to Rio. “Wear your Kevlar vests. We have no idea what’s waiting for us out there. Marissa Kendrick’s disappearance could tie in with the current cold case, and we can’t take any chances. Holding the press conferences might have flushed out the killer, so we need to be on our guard. This could be a setup. We’ll meet you at the end of Main in ten minutes.” She clicked off and stared at Kane, resting her hands on hips. “If there’s one place I’d prefer to avoid at all costs, it’s the Old Mitcham Ranch. I wish they’d razed it to the ground like they wanted to years ago. Why the local council stepped in and said it was of historical importance, I'll never understand, but I guess they make their bucks out of the visitors who go there over Halloween.”

Kane slipped an arm around her shoulder as they walked back to the Beast. “There is one redeeming feature about the Old Mitcham Ranch, Jenna. It was Halloween when Pumpkin came to our door to alert us about what had happened there. You have to admit that cat chose to live with us, and since she’s arrived, she couldn’t be a more loving and devoted companion. Even Duke loves her and he isn’t a fan of cats at all. So hang on to that one positive about the place.”

“Yeah, and when I see her, I don’t get flashbacks about that time at all.” Jenna leaned into him. “She has become part of the family now, and I think I would miss the little purring bump curled up at my feet each night.”

Kane smiled down at her. “Me too.” He opened the back door of the truck and handed Jenna her Kevlar vest. “Keep that happy thought in your mind when we go back to the Old Mitcham Ranch. It might help.”

“I’ll do my best.” Jenna pulled the liquid Kevlar vest over her head and put her jacket over the top. “It’s just that that place gives me the creeps.”

Sunlight peeped through the clouds in long streams, giving the blacktop ahead the appearance of being under spotlights. Shafts of sun lit up patches of grass and reflected in the pools of muddy water still lingering in the fields. If the rain held off for a time, the land would dry and the awful smell that floods left behind would be blown away in the wind from the mountains. As they drove onto the highway, Rio’s truck fell in behind them and they proceeded to the Old Mitcham Ranch. The notorious ranch was situated on the same road as their home and maybe a couple of miles closer to the river. They drove by their ranch and the snowplow guy’s place. Twenty minutes or so after they’d left town, Kane took the driveway that led to the heavy metal gates that barred the way to the ranch. The gates had been installed by the company that had taken over the place as a Halloween attraction. He slowed the Beast and came to a stop at the open gate. He glanced at Jenna. “Wait here for a second. I’ll go and check how they got into this place.”

Outside the gate, Kane searched through the undergrowth for the length of chain and padlock that usually secured the gates. He found the damaged padlock. It had been cut using bolt cutters and casually tossed to one side. The length of chain still hung on a gate pressed hard into the bushes alongside the driveway. No distinguishing tire tracks showed on the overgrown gravel driveway. The only sign that anyone had been there was the bent-over vegetation along the center. He opened the heavy gates wide before heading back to the truck and climbing behind the wheel. “They used bolt cutters and that’s a very strong lock. It wouldn’t have been easy to cut through. The gate is heavy as well and rusted on the hinges, so I doubt Marissa opened the gate herself. She must have been meeting someone here.”

“That’s kinda obvious, going on what her friends say about not liking to travel anywhere alone.” Jenna frowned. “It also tells us that she met someone she could trust. No one in their right mind would come out here to meet a stranger.” She looked at him, her eyes filled with concern as she tapped her mic to relay a message to the deputies. “Keep scanning the property. We don’t know who might be out there.”

“Copy that.” Rio’s voice came through their earpieces.

Safe inside the Beast, nothing could touch them. Designed to protect Kane, the vehicle was virtually bombproof, but the second they stepped outside they’d be vulnerable. The Old Mitcham Ranch had a number of outbuildings and was surrounded by hillside, which a sniper could utilize. As they drove in, Kane considered every possible scenario. “The barn doors are open, and I don’t see a truck anywhere. That would be the logical place to park, especially if it had been raining when she arrived yesterday. I recall what it’s like inside. It has a wide-open space and stables along one end. In the middle is a trapdoor that leads down to a root cellar. The hayloft was in pieces the last time we came by, so I would doubt anyone would risk climbing up there to take a shot at us.”

“So inside the barn would be the safest place?” Jenna’s head swiveled from side to side as she scanned every angle as they drove past the ranch house.

Kane nodded and, flicking on his headlights, moved the truck into the huge barn. The powerful beams lit up a white truck on the far side, and as he swung the truck around, turning it to face the opening, the headlights picked up a line of red on the dusty floor. The long smear led from the stables to an open trapdoor. He turned to look at Jenna. “I see a blood trail from the stables to the root cellar.”

“Okay, let’s take a look.” Jenna rested one hand on the door handle and flicked him a glance. “Are you getting a feeling of déjà vu? Because I sure am.”

Pushing the memories to the back of his mind of the day he found the body in the root cellar, he climbed from the truck, constantly scanning the area for any movement but found nothing. As he led Jenna to the parked white truck, Rio and Rowley parked in the barn and waited for instructions. He turned and looked at them. “Clear the barn and watch your backs.”

He peered inside the truck and, using his phone, took pictures of a bag of groceries and a purse sitting on the passenger seat beside a phone. The keys hung in the ignition and he found no sign of any disturbance. “It looks like she arrived here and climbed out of the vehicle. I figure you’re correct. She did know the person she met here. She didn’t even bother to take her phone with her.”

“There’s nothing of interest on this side of the vehicle. The dust has been disturbed but there are no distinguishing footprints.” Jenna pulled on examination gloves before opening the door. “Now this is interesting. Look what I found in the console.” She held up a cheap burner phone. “Why would a tax accountant require a burner phone? This case is getting more mysterious by the second.”

“We followed the blood trail and one of the stables is a bloodbath. There are footprints all over.” Rowley moved to Kane’s side. “Whatever happened here occurred in the stables, and from the blood trail, I figure we’ll find Marissa Kendrick at the bottom of the steps leading to the root cellar.”