“The person you ran after,” he said. “Male or female?”
“I have no idea.” She thought of Trudy and what she’d said about the person being a man, but really, there was nothing about the way the person ran that would help Sawyer distinguish male from female. “I would guess the height to be five foot eight, maybe nine. Light-brown hair. I didn’t see the person’s face because the lights were shut off before I realized I wasn’t alone. Once the person took off, I gave chase, and you know the rest.” Sawyer rubbed a chill from her arms. “If we’re finished here, I’d like to go home.”
“Go ahead,” the detective said. “I know where to find you if I have further questions.”
It was well past midnight by the time Sawyer got back to her apartment. She had called Derek on her way home. Despite his concern, she turned down his offer to come to her apartment. She needed time alone to think. Her head was pounding, and she wanted to take a shower and then go straight to bed.
She fed Raccoon, rubbing his fur and apologizing for never being around. Raccoon didn’t seem to mind. He looked nothing like the cat she’d found half starving only months ago. Raccoon was content.
Once she climbed into bed, she flipped through text messages, deleting the one from Derek asking where she was and the one from Purple House Digital since she’d already picked up the flash drive. She looked at the texts from Aria, smiled when she saw that her sister had sent a picture of Corey Moran walking toward the coffee shop. Man, she thought, her sister had fallen fast and hard, it seemed. The next text from Aria was a long one telling Sawyer all about how he had come to the shelter to help her walk the dogs.
Sawyer scrolled back to the man’s image. He had a happy-go-lucky sort of face. Cute. He had a lanky physique and untamed sandy hair. Corey Moran. The name didn’t ring any bells. She had already put his name through a database and nothing popped up. But still, who was he, really? Was he kind and caring? Or was he a womanizer, a “love ’em and leave ’em” kind of guy? She loved Aria and didn’t want to see her get hurt.
Before shutting down her phone, she remembered the other name Emily had given her: Stanley Higgins. If she had thought about it earlier, she would have asked Aria to look him up.
She typed his name into the search bar. There were six guys with the same name in Sacramento. If he was close to Emily’s age, that would put him somewhere between thirty-six and forty.
Bingo.
Only one guy fit the bill. The good news was, he didn’t own an auto shop. The bad news was, he was a taxidermist in Citrus Heights, about twenty minutes away.
She would go see Stanley Higgins right after she met with Detective Perez. She would use the enhanced video to get in to see the detective and then tell him what she and Lexi had learned about Ian Farley, the server at the Blue Fox restaurant.
Unable to keep her eyes open for another moment, she shut down her phone, connected it to the charger on the nightstand, then turned off the light.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Early the next morning Sawyer was on her way to see Detective Perez when she drove her car into the parking lot outside Aston Newell’s auto shop and turned off the engine. Crime tape had been wrapped around the office door.
Sawyer climbed out and headed for the train tracks. She sucked in a breath of fresh air, trying to wake up all her senses. Her sleep had been fitful. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the person running from her. She’d been so close.
As she followed the steel rails, walking farther than she intended, she stopped when she came across fresh shoe prints to the left where the person would have jumped to avoid being hit by the train.
Bending close, she noticed that the soles looked different from your standard sneaker. This was a boot. She stood and placed her foot next to the print in the soil. Men. Size ten, at the very least. The person running from her was a man.
Thirty minutes after seeing the footprint, Sawyer sat just inside the doorway of the police station, doing her best to ignore the horrible throbbing of her head, inside and out. The minute Detective Perez walked through the door, she jumped to her feet.
He looked right at her and released a low growl.
“Just two minutes,” she said. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“In my office,” he said. “Two minutes.”
They wove their way through mostly empty cubicles. It was still early, still quiet. She could smell coffee as they passed a tiny lunchroom with a refrigerator and sink.
Once they were inside his office and Detective Perez shut the door behind them, she told him everything she’d told Palmer about the interview with Brad Vicente, what she had learned at the Blue Fox, and finally about Ian Farley’s possible involvement and his alleged attack by at least three women wearing wigs after he’d shown up at Brad Vicente’s house.
It wasn’t until she fell quiet that she realized he didn’t appear to be paying attention. After shutting the door, he had slipped his jacket onto a hook on the iron coatrack standing in the corner of the room. He’d then unlocked a couple of desk drawers. Now he was straightening the top of his desk, organizing files, and sifting through a pile of papers he’d grabbed from his in-box. Finally, he looked up at her. “Is that it?”
“No.” She reached into her bag and pulled out the flash drive and set it on his desk in front of him. As she did so, she told him about Ian’s description of the woman with scars all over her arms and how she had instantly thought of Christina Farro, the woman held captive by Otto Radley.
The look on his face was borderline disgust. Clearly he didn’t give a shit about anything she had told him.
“That’s it,” she said. “Although you already have the original flash drive, I thought you might want to take a look at the newly enhanced version. It’s much clearer.” She took a breath. “I also thought you would be interested to know what Ian Farley had to say. Maybe you can get more information out of him, and it will help you solve the Black Wigs case.”
Elbows planted on his desk, fingers entwined, he set his gaze on hers. “What, exactly, are you trying to prove?”
She didn’t understand the question. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I just want to help in any way I can.”
“Detective Grumley called me last night, told me about you chasing after a killer and nearly being run over by a freight train. Do you think you are some sort of superhero?”
She stared at him, unblinking, her blood pressure rising.
“What were you thinking?”
She felt a rolling heat in her belly. She could not believe his arrogance and complete lack of professionalism when it came to hearing what she had to say. “I was thinking wouldn’t it be great if I could stop this person from killing someone else.”
“Did you have a gun on you?”
“No.”
“So what were you going to do if you caught this person?”
She said nothing.
“What were you doing at an auto shop late at night?”
She told him about Nick Calderon and Bruce Ward’s connection to the Children’s Home of Sacramento and how that had led her to Aston Newell. She intended to ask about Calderon and Ward wearing only one shoe at the crime scene, but it was clear Perez wasn’t interested in hearing what she had to say.