The tire tracks were equally disappointing. Rows of chevrons that he committed to memory, but that were so common they didn't mean much. He could detect no nick or scar to further identify the tread. When he heard the faraway voices change and fade and engines start, he sped for Clyde's roadster.
Leaping in, he waited on the floor, suffocating under the lap robe as he tried to lay out a plan.
If he told Clyde what he'd seen, would Clyde try to find the vanished car? Or would he only demand that Joe leave this alone? Ryan wasn't riding back with them, she wouldn't be there to defend him. At last Clyde swung into the roadster, flipped the blanket aside, and looked down at him, smug and satisfied.
"That did go well. I have to admit, Joe, your scam was a stroke of genius. The coroner has the body, and Rock is now a trained tracker! I guess you know Ryan's way proud of you."
Joe smiled. He decided not to mention the darkly clad eavesdropper and spoil the moment with a fresh argument. He did his best to look both modest and innocent.
Ahead, the line of cars pulled around the side of the forlorn old mansion between the dead trees and broken walls, to the wider dirt and gravel road that led to the village. The coroner's white van, Juana Davis's blue sedan, then Dallas's Blazer. Then Ryan's big red king cab. Clyde's yellow roadster joined the end of the line, the tomcat crouched out of sight on the seat.
IN THE KING CAB, Rock rode on the front passenger seat beside Ryan, his head out the open window, drinking in the wind. Ryan didn't usually let the big dog put his head out where grit and stones could injure his eyes, but just this once he deserved a treat.
In the backseat beside Mike, Lindsey was silent, deep in thought, looking so solemn that Mike wondered what she'd do once they'd dropped her off at the station to pick up her car. Her expression of hard determination made him uneasy, he preferred the smiling, soft-spoken Lindsey Wolf he'd grown to care about all over again-if he'd ever stopped caring. This angry, alert side of her was worrisome. Her whole take on the morning's events was worrisome.
She seemed so certain that the corpse was that of Nina Gibbs. Seemed just as certain that Ray Gibbs had killed Nina, as sure as if the coroner had already determined identity and time of death, or as if Oregon had found trace evidence of Nina in Carson's tree house. Mike had never known Lindsey to let her imagination run so wild. He didn't try to convince her otherwise, didn't argue with her, he only wondered how prone she might be, given the mood she was in, to doing something foolish.
No one could be that sure what she might be thinking. Did her stubborn certainty have some basis? Were there facts about the case she wasn't telling them?
As Ryan turned down Ocean and into the village, driving slowly, stopping for a group of tourists headed through the gathering dusk for the lighted shops and restaurants, Mike took Lindsey's hand. "You're going home when you've picked up your car?"
She nodded, glancing out the window. "I think I'll rest a little, then I have some work to finish up that I promised for tomorrow. I'll have a sandwich for supper, at my desk."
Not until they pulled into the courthouse parking lot, when Lindsey was fishing her keys from her pocket, did she really look at him. She squeezed his hand, and smiled.
He looked at her levelly. "You'll be in the office, then?" he said uneasily. "You don't mean to do something foolish?"
She looked surprised and laughed, and swung out of the truck, turning to talk through the open window. "Because I said that was Nina, in that grave? Because I said…" She shook her head. "Even if that is Nina, what could I do?" She touched his cheek with gentle fingers. "I wouldn't know how to run some kind of investigation, if that's what you're imagining. And I know better than to interfere in cops' work."
Her words eased him, made him think his own imagination had gone astray. And yet as Lindsey leaned in to brush a kiss across his cheek, then headed away toward her car, Mike watched her not with his usual lusty interest but with questions.
He had a strong urge to follow her, at least swing by her office in a little while, see if her car was still there in the little parking alcove.
But he immediately chucked that. He wouldn't breach her trust and privacy. He didn't want to smother her any more than he'd want to be smothered. And, determining to do the honorable thing even while his instinct told him he was wrong, he settled back, riding home with Ryan to pick up his car.
28
IN THE COURT HOUSE parking lot, Lindsey waited in her car until Ryan's red truck pulled away and disappeared up the street, and Dallas, who had turned in just behind them, had gone into the station. When she could no longer see the detective's shadow inside the door, she started her car and left the courthouse, heading across the village to Ray Gibbs's condo.
The more she saw of Gibbs, the more frightening he became. The longer Ryder was with him, the more her sister seemed to take on his crude style, and this distressed Lindsey. Ryder didn't need Gibbs's trashy influence on her behavior and her future.
Nearing the condo and slowing, she wasn't sure what she meant to do. Having convinced herself that the body in the ruins was Nina, she wanted to confront Gibbs, confront the two of them.
And…what?
Accuse them? See how they reacted?
Yes, she could do that. Put herself in danger, and force Gibbs to run. Destroy whatever procedure Detectives Garza and Davis meant to follow.
Yet the anger and hurt that seethed inside her, the sense of injustice, made her burn to take action, to do something positive.
Two blocks before she reached the condo she rummaged in her purse for her cell phone, for a bit of added security-and remembered that she didn't have it. Had left it on the dresser. Had thought she wouldn't need it at the locker, left it collecting her clients' messages to play back later.
She thought of going back to get it, but that would take time. For no reason, a sense of urgency filled her. Instead of going back, she looked for a parking place where she wouldn't be seen from the upper windows.
She had no proof that the body was Nina's or that she'd died about the same time as Carson. Or that Ray Gibbs had killed either of them. She was following her own line of reasoning, which could be way off base. But she felt so sure that jealousy had been the motive. Ray jealous because he knew Nina was with Carson. Or Nina jealous because Carson was getting married. Maybe she'd followed him up there. And maybe Ray followed her, to kill them both.
All conjecture. But jealousy was among the most ancient reasons for murder, along with hatred and greed. Basic emotions dating back to the time of the caveman-and that thought brought a bitter smile, because the more she saw of Ray Gibbs the more she saw in him exactly that caveman mentality, an uncaring creature who hadn't quite made the grade to full humanity.
WHEN CLYDE PULLED into their drive behind Ryan's truck, Joe slid out of the roadster on the far side where Mike wouldn't see him and dove into the bushes, his mind filled with Lindsey's determined look as she'd gotten into Ryan's truck with Mike to return to the village-but determined to do what? Had she told Mike she was going straight home, to get to work? After all, it was tax season. From the look on her face, Joe thought she meant to do otherwise.