Gathering her thoughts, Jenna nodded. “Thanks, we’ll get out of your hair. What time tomorrow?”
“Ten.” Wolfe covered the body and slid it back into the drawer. “Try and get some rest, Jenna.”
Exasperated, Jenna tore off her mask and threw her hands in the air. “We have a psychopathic pyromaniac murderer running loose who likes to kidnap and rape girls. I won’t be able to rest until he’s behind bars.”
Twenty-Seven
Blackwater
Pamela Stuart made a habit of dropping by her grandma’s house to take her fresh milk on the way home from school. Her grandpa, Sheriff Buzz Stuart, was always too busy to remember, and grandma was still recovering from hip replacement surgery. She loved Grandma’s house because it always smelled of fresh baking. She had a bag of cookies in her school bag for later and her mouth watered to eat them on the way home. It was a long walk to her home if she kept to the sidewalk but if she used the cut-through that went through the woods, it wouldn’t take long. It wasn’t dark yet and nothing bad ever happened in Blackwater.
She made her way along the path, listening to one of her favorite tunes via her earbuds. She noticed a shadow moving ahead and stopped walking. Her heart pounded. Bears often wandered close to town to raid people’s trash cans. She pulled out her earbuds and froze, listening.
“Oh, thank goodness.” A man stepped out of the bushes. “Can you help me? I think my arm is broken.” He indicated to his arm tucked inside his shirt front.
Unsettled but not stupid, Pamela stared at the man. “Why do you need my help? It’s not far to town, you can walk there.”
“It’s not for me.” He indicated into the woods with his chin. “I came here to give my pup a run and someone set a trap. He got caught in it. I opened the trap but it snapped back on my arm. Toby’s hurt and I can’t leave him out here all alone. If you could carry him for me, my car is just at the end of the trail. I only need one hand to drive him to the vet.” He looked at her. “Please. I won’t go near you, just help Toby.”
“Okay.” Pamela peered into the shadows. “Where is he? I’ll go get him.”
“Through there.” The man pointed. “See the snowberry bushes? Just past them on the left.”
Pamela pushed her earbuds and phone into her school bag and propped it beside a tree. She moved into the dark damp woods and stepped carefully along an animal track. “I can’t see him.”
“Just a bit further, see over there.” The man came up behind her. “Please hurry.”
Unable to see much at all in the dim light, Pamela hustled deeper into the woods. She heard breathing behind her and then pain shot through her head. White spots danced across her vision and she staggered forward. Panic gripped her and she rubbed her head. “Why did you hit me?”
The next moment something slid around her neck and tightened. The man pushed her to her knees and before she could scream, he’d covered her mouth with tape. She tried so hard to stop him but he was so strong. Agony tore through overstretched muscles as he wrenched her arms behind her, binding them with tape. With her face pushed down in the damp leaves left from last fall and her arms secured tightly behind her, she couldn’t fight the man tearing at her clothes. He said nothing and by the time he’d finished, tears streamed down her face. Terrified and hurting bad, she rubbed her face in the cool leaves. Maybe he’d go now and leave her alone.
“Can’t breathe huh?” He used her panties to wipe her nose. “When I’m sure you won’t scream, I’ll remove the tape.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. Pleading with her eyes and shaking her head. She’d never forget his face and when she told her grandpa what had happened, he’d put him in jail.
“Don’t worry, Pamela. I’m not going to kill you.” His raspy voice came close to her ear and she could smell cigarettes on his breath. “If you’re a good girl and do what I say, I’ll let you go. I only need you for a little while. If not—” he tugged at the cord around her neck “—this can get a lot tighter.” He dragged her to her feet. “Now walk. We’re going for a little ride.”
Twenty-Eight
Friday
After returning to the office on Thursday evening and updating the files, exhaustion had overcome Jenna and her suggestion of a steak dinner in town and an early night had been welcomed by all members of the team. She’d spent her evening going over the case files while Jo chatted on the phone with her daughter, Jaime. She’d been interested to receive a report from Rowley on the Louan fire written by the fire chief, Matt Thompson. Rowley had scanned all the pages and sent the file to her by email with a little note explaining Thompson’s visit and complaint against her. She’d read the report with interest and found nothing added apart from a positive swab for gasoline as an accelerant in the fire and the assurance the Louan volunteer fire department had searched the bedrooms.
Friday morning arrived with blue skies and a cool breeze blowing from the mountains. It was such a glorious day that Jenna couldn’t resist taking her toast and coffee on the porch to enjoy a few moments of peace. Jo and Carter had taken her cruiser and headed into town but she had time before she had to leave with Kane for the office. They arrived before seven and made themselves comfortable in the temporary FBI office. She looked over her laptop at the others. “Okay first of all, Kalo has analyzed the video taken by John Cleaves at the scene of the fire. No one is seen leaving the area and he validated the plate numbers of the vehicles. The Ford does belong to Dexter as we believed. If there’s any other information, he’ll contact me again. So, if you’re ready, we’ll go over the main points of the investigation?” She stood, moved around the desk, and plucked the whiteboard pen from its holder. “Okay, we have three people of interest to date. The two most probable are Roger Suffolk and John Cleaves. We’ll start with Suffolk.” She entered his name on the whiteboard and listed his information. “Motive: Lodged a complaint against Isaac Wood. He claimed Wood encouraged his wife to leave him. He became so violent toward Wood that Sheriff Crenshaw threw him in a cell but laid no charges because Crenshaw is a member of his church and likely believed Suffolk had just cause to be angry.”
“His wife died in a car accident, brake failure.” Jo flipped through her notebook. “We’ll need to look into that as well. He made the comment that it was God’s will to set him free of her.”
Jenna added that to the notes on the whiteboard. “If Wood was a problem for other church members, maybe it went further than Phelps let on. With the amount of men trying to date Sophie, he would’ve been making waves. Maybe Suffolk decided to remove the problem and take Sophie. We know he has a hankering for underage girls. I believe Dawn Richardson and we have proof she had sexual relations recently but unfortunately, she refuses to return to Louan to give evidence against him in court.” She frowned. “The case won’t stick, even if we pushed it, she’d had boyfriends before and we can’t prove Suffolk touched her.”