“Right,” he said. “Were you faithful at all for the six months?”

  But he could see the answer in her eyes.

  He turned around, going down the steps without saying another word. The door slammed behind him, and he knew she was watching from the window. He couldn’t have cared less at that point. When he’d woken up after too many days into too many hospital stays only to realize she hadn’t visited once… well he mentally said good-bye at that point. But he’d needed to find closure by seeing her one more time.

  It was hard to wake up alone to that kind of physical and mental and emotional devastation.

  His parents had scrambled to be there. But to know somebody close by hadn’t bothered, that hurt. And his friends were right; she wasn’t the one. They hadn’t said anything about why, but he had to wonder if they hadn’t already had that same experience. If Jager had gone farther down that road, the guys in the unit would have stepped up and said something. But, at six months, obviously that was even too long for her.

  Back in his hotel, he wandered up to his room, pulled out his laptop and was about to check in with the others but decided to call Geir.

  Geir answered the phone. “Hey, did you find out anything?”

  “Nothing new on Freddie. I went to the accident site of my parents.” His voice dropped with the pain he felt. “That wasn’t much fun.”

  “Sorry, man. That sucks. Did it look like an accident?”

  “If you didn’t look too carefully, it looked like an accident. For the police it was an easy case to close. There is definitely a bad curve on that road. But it was well marked. Brakes were applied, and skid marks showed where they’d gone off. But, when I looked closer, I saw newer black paint on the back bumper of the motorhome.”

  “Black paint?”

  “Yeah, and bumpers are steel or aluminum. They aren’t painted black.”

  “Right, and it would have to be a big truck to push them off the road.”

  “My dad was old, but he was a good driver. He was a safe driver. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have jerked suddenly at the wrong time. It’s possible they were being tailed too close or someone passed too close, making him wrench the wheel hard. The crash was pretty horrific, with the motorhome ending up wrapped around two trees.”

  “I’m sorry, man. That really sucks.”

  “It does indeed. The road conditions were fine, so it was put down to a medical condition of the driver.”

  “Do you know if your father had any medical conditions?”

  “Not as far as I knew. He was perfectly healthy. I’m meeting one of the officers later tonight. I’m hoping I might get some more information. In the meantime, I’ll see the guys who lived with Freddie Brown, ask if they know anything. I stopped by earlier, but no one was there.”

  “Good enough. Give us an update if you can later.”

  “Will do.” Jager hung up the phone and went back to his email. He quickly wrote down what he’d done, then sent the email off to Erick. If nothing else came of this trip, Erick kept an archive of events to date, hopefully to pull them all together later.

  Jager hid away his laptop. He didn’t have any dress pants with him on this trip so his jeans would have to do. However, he changed into a nicer shirt, grabbed his blazer and headed downstairs and back out to the truck. Once there, he drove to the house the five men rented. He parked outside, happy to see several vehicles were now clustered around the place. He walked up and rang the doorbell. Loud music cascaded from the house as the front door opened.

  “What can I do for you, man?”

  “I’m looking for Freddie,” Jager said. “Have you seen him?”

  “Nah, he absconded a few days ago, left without paying his rent too.”

  Jager frowned. “Where the hell would he go?”

  “No way to know.”

  “Any of you guys know anything about him? Where he would be headed to?”

  “Man, he must really be in trouble if you’re after him too. If you find him, you tell him he owes us rent money.”

  “Did he take all his stuff with him?”

  The guy at the door shook his head. “No, it’s all still here. We’re keeping it until he pays the rent he owes us.”

  Jager nodded. “You guys got an updated photo of him?”

  The man looked at him hard for a long moment and then said, “I’ve got some party pictures here.”

  Jager could just imagine. He’d been young once too. That was before he realized how valuable his body was. When the guy waved him in, Jager stepped inside.

  The music was toned down as the man talked to the rest of the crew. There were three other guys and a girl. “Any of you have any idea where Freddie went?”

  Everyone shook their heads. One answered, “No.”

  “Does he have friends, family? I mean, did he have a place to go? Did he have wheels?”

  “He had an older blue Audi. He loved it. Drove it everywhere, but, in the wintertime, that sucker couldn’t go anywhere as the tires were bald and he had no money for new ones. So, he used to bum rides from everyone.”

  “Was he breaking even? Or was he rich?”

  The men all laughed and waved their arms around to show Jager the living room, how they all lived.

  “He was broke, man. Always broke.”

  “Yeah, but he always took his girlfriends out to decent places,” the young girl said.

  “As if he had money?” Jager asked. “But didn’t want anyone to know?”

  “Yes.”

  Realizing the woman probably had a whole lot more to say than the men, Jager spoke to her directly. “Do you know anybody who went out with him recently?”

  She shook her head. “I think he was planning to leave for a while.”

  “What the hell, Kendra? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because what should I say? Just because I was thinking it doesn’t mean I knew he was going to. Fact of the matter is, he was weird. You know that.”

  “Yeah, sure he was weird. But he was always good for a case of beer.” At that the young man went off into peals of laughter.

  Jager had to wonder at somebody who lived like this but supported the others with beer. As a disguise, it wasn’t bad. “Anybody know how long he lived here?”

  “He came, left and then came back.”

  “You mean, years ago?”

  “Yeah, but he was always leaving. Like one time he left suddenly about four months ago. No, it was closer to six months ago,” the woman said. “I know because he blew off Fiona. He was supposed to take her away for a weekend but canceled, saying a job had come up.”

  “What kind of job?”

  She shrugged. “That was the thing about him. He always made up stories. So you couldn’t believe anything he said.”

  Jager felt his throat close. “Any of you know anything about his childhood?”

  One of the men nodded. “Yeah, man, it was rough. He said he and a bunch of friends had it pretty bad, and the way they survived was by creating a fantasy world. I don’t think he ever really got out of it. He said one of his best friends got out. He was jealous as hell.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really but you can check his stuff. We haven’t moved any of it. We took over the bedroom, of course, because we needed to bring in somebody. Kendra moved in. We’ve got to pay the rent. Man, it’s expensive here.”

  Jager could just imagine. “Where are Freddie’s belongings?”

  The men got up and brought out four boxes, setting them on the kitchen table. Knowing they were watching, Jager quickly went through them. Nothing personal was in the first one or the second one. In the third, there was a scrap of paper. He held it out and asked, “Any idea what this is?”

  They shrugged. “Looks like a license plate number.”

  It wasn’t the format Jager was used too. “It could be. Do you mind if I take this?”

  “Go ahead. Obviously he didn’t give a shit about it. He left it behind.”

  “Take anything you want. I’m glad he’s gone. Really weird dude.”

  “In what way?”

  “He liked to get other people drunk. But he rarely got drunk himself.”

  Jager lifted his head. “Did he have any tattoos?”

  They all nodded. “One on his neck.”

  “Interesting.” He turned to the guy who let him into the house. “Do you have that photo?”

  He walked over to the wall, stared at a couple snapshots pinned up with thumbtacks and pulled one off. “Yeah, this is from my snowboarding trip.”

  “He snowboarded?”

  “Badly.”

  “But he was brainy, kind of,” someone else offered.

  The others just laughed.

  “Not so brainy, he means,” the first kid explained.

  Jager took a look at the picture the guy held. He could see who he was looking for because he saw the tattoo. He glanced at the others. “Any chance I can have this?”

  They all looked at each other and then shrugged.

  “Yeah, man, we’ve got lots of other photos.”

  Jager smiled, placed it on the table and went through the last box. “Right, nothing here. Okay.” He wrote down his name and phone number on a piece of paper. “If you think of anything else about him, there might be a reward.”

  Everyone started talking.

  “Well, he often wore the same clothes for days,” one of the guys said.

  “Yeah, and he didn’t eat very well.”

  “His body was pretty beaten up,” Kendra said.

  The others looked at her.

  She shrugged. “What? I was here one day, and he was walking around in his boxers.”

  “Any wounds in particular that you remember?”

  She nodded. “Yes, absolutely.”

  Jager nodded and smiled and listened as they poured out bits of information. Money always made people talk. “Anything about his friends or family? Anything about where he might have gone? License plate for his car?”

  “You can probably get that from the DMV,” Kendra said. “There were some dents in the front.”

  “Which side?”

  “Both actually,” she said.

  “Did he ever have a black truck?”

  The men shook their heads.

  “I’ve got a black truck,” said the guy who had let Jager into the house.

  “Where is it?” Jager asked.

  “Around back,” he said, frowning. “Why?”

  “Any damage to the bumper?”

  They all stared for a moment and then exploded.

  “Holy shit. Do you know what he did to my truck?” the kid yelled. “Freddie said he found it like that.”

  “May I see it?”

  They all got up and led him out back. “He was forever trying to borrow our rigs.”

  Inside, Jager’s stomach started to heave, but excitement pumped through his veins.

  “It’s right there.”

  And, sure enough, parked in the back section of the lot, where the driveway wrapped around almost to the kitchen door, was a big lifted truck. Jager stared at it. “Your bumper is black? What’s with that?”

  The owner grinned. “Yeah, I thought it looked pretty cool.”

  With his heart in his throat, Jager walked around to the front. Sure enough, the front right-hand corner was crunched, and a lot of the black was missing. He pointed to that and asked, “What happened here?”

  “That’s what happened after Freddie borrowed my truck, although he swears he never did anything. Just ran down and picked up a pack of smokes. The trouble is, I was really in a tough state at that point. My girlfriend had dumped me, and I was pretty high on weed for a couple days, so I don’t remember much of what he said myself.” He shook his head. “But I do know I didn’t do that damage. I wasn’t driving at all then.”

  Jager had his phone out, turned the camera on and took pictures of the front bumper of the truck.

  “Hey, dude, what are you doing?”

  “Well, whoever took your truck did so for a specific purpose.”

  An uneasy silence settled around everyone. “Okay, well, what’s that?”

  Jager looked at them, his voice hard as he said, “To run my parents off the road.”

  Chapter 5

  When Allison got home, her cell phone rang. She pulled it out as she walked into the kitchen. It was an unknown caller. “Hello.”

  “Leave us the fuck alone.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t do anything, Roger.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I recognized your voice.” Mentally she called him a dumbass. How could people not recognize a voice like that?

  “You stay away from Margery, do you hear me?” he growled in her ear. “Don’t you fucking talk to her again.”

  “You said that earlier today. It’s getting repetitive.” There was silence, and she realized she shouldn’t have tweaked the bear.

  “You just fuck off.”

  “Or else what? Do you really think my boss will protect you when you start threatening his officers?” She snorted with more bravado than she felt, but he was pissing her right off. “You’ll get him in big trouble with his boss. Did you consider that?”

  “You’re only employed there so he can keep the sexual equality asshats happy. Everybody’s supposed to have a woman in a department now, just to make it seem like we care. And you know something? We don’t care.” And he hung up the phone.

  She stood for a long moment, wondering just how much of a problem Roger would be. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure the commander would step up and defend her. He’d have to if something major happened. But then he would blame her too. She shrugged. “Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.”

  But she worried about Roger’s comments regarding Margery. Had something else happened? And, if it had, how bad was it?

  She worried on it for a long moment, then slowly walked to the bathroom to take a shower. As she shampooed her medium-length hair, the thought of Margery lying in bed crying and desperate ate at Allison. Had Margery paid a price for Allison’s visit? Allison had no proof Roger had gone after Margery again, but chances were good he’d done just that.

  After she dried off, Allison slipped into a midnight-blue sheath she hadn’t worn since her husband had passed away. She didn’t want to second-guess her actions now, but she readily admitted Jager was the most interesting man to cross her path in the years since Tony had been gone. It made her other dating attempts look like high-school level—mostly because the men still looked and acted like boys. Then this touristy high-living fun lifestyle attracted that type here.

  No wonder Jager appeared to be so much older, but she’d have pegged him at early thirties, just a few very rough years older. But they looked good on him. At least now. She sympathized with what he’d gone through. Her own loss had taught her much about people’s reactions to uncomfortable situations.

  For days people had avoided her. Then for weeks they didn’t seem to know what to say, and it took months before they relaxed and realized she wasn’t going off the deep end on them.

  She’d thought she’d handled it all well but could tell from those around her that she might not have done as good a job as she’d hoped.

  Dressed, she picked up her phone to put it in her purse, but, on impulse, she hit Margery’s number. Biting her lip, she waited to see if Margery would answer. Should she even answer? What if Roger was right beside her? It hadn’t been ten minutes since he’d called Allison and told her to stay the hell away. But that phone call had just triggered her worry that he’d whaled on Margery again.

  “Hello?” came the weak sniffling voice.

  Allison sagged on the couch and closed her eyes. “Margery, it’s me, Allison.”

  “Allison?” Margery sounded confused as if she couldn’t place who Allison was. She sniffled hard, and Allison could visualize the poor woman wiping her eyes like a child.

  “Officer Allison Monroe,” she said quietly. “Roger called me to warn me to stay away from you, but that made me suspicious that he hit you again. Did he?”

  There was a long silence, broken by Margery’s cries.

  Allison rubbed her forehead. She could only do so much to help this woman. Maybe as a woman, not as a police officer, Allison would get further. “Is there anyone you can call?”

  “No,” Margery whispered. “There’s no one.”

  “Are you sure? Often we don’t consider calling people until we’re desperate, only to find out our fears were groundless, and we should have called them earlier.”

  More sniffling came. “My mother,” she finally whispered.

  “If Roger died in an accident tomorrow, what would you do?”

  “Go home,” Margery said. “I’d just want to go home. But I can’t do that while Roger is alive. He’ll get really angry.”

  “But would he follow you? Or find another punching bag?”

  That startled a cry out of Margery. She took several deep breaths. “He loves me.”

  “Yes, he does. You can love someone and still treat them badly.” Inside she winced because that wasn’t what love was, but Margery didn’t appear to know the difference. “In your case, you love him, but that doesn’t mean you can live with him.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  Allison narrowed her gaze as she stared out the window, wondering what Margery was thinking. Wondering what she would do. She was at the brink of making a major positive shift if only Allison could find the right words to galvanize the woman to action. “Why don’t you call her? Tell her what’s going on?”

  Margery sniffled.

  But she didn’t yell at Allison, so maybe that was a good sign. “You need someone to talk to. Maybe she’s a good listener.” Taking a chance, Allison asked, “Do you love her?”

  “Yes,” Margery whispered.

  “Does she love you?”

  “Yes.” This time Margery’s voice was stronger.

  “Then do one thing for yourself,” Allison suggested gently. “Talk to her.”

  “She’ll be upset.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she doesn’t like Roger.”

  “Maybe she sees how he treats you? As a mother it has to be hard to watch, knowing there’s nothing she can do to help.”