Page 51 of The Wolves Come at Night
“Sounds like you know her personally?” Taylor asked.
“Unfortunately. I mean, not on her, she’s a nice lady, just a bad situation. I said she was a widow—when her husband died a few years back, I worked the case. The autopsy said aneurysm riding his bike, but I always thought it was a hit-and-run. Terrible. Owned a bakery in town, a really popular place. They’re well known in the community. Everyone pitched in to help after Richard Conway passed.”
“Did you have any proof it wasn’t an accident?” Taylor asked, and Turley shook his head, his ruddy cheeks growing more pronounced.
“No,” he said slowly. “Though he had on a helmet, he had deep lacerations across his face, and some external injuries, so I asked some questions about whether his brain really blew up. Everyone thought I was nuts.”
“Gut instinct?” she asked sympathetically, and he nodded.
“That’s all it was. I had nothing tangible to argue with. It never smelled right to me, but hey, accidents happen. It was a quiet stretch of road, no witnesses. The back bumper of the bike was dented, too, but that could have happened when he turned it over. Anyway. Avery, Carson’s mom, she’s a good woman.”
“Any enemies?”
“I didn’t think so. We’re looking into it, in case there’s a disgruntled patient in her past, but so far, nothing.” Turley sat back, finished. For now. Taylor sensed he might talk to her again privately.
“Anyone else?” Crickets. “Okay then. Cast the nets wider. We’re looking for any ties between Carson Conway and Georgia Wray. Anything—and I mean anything—gets fed into the secure database Lieutenant Ross built for us. It will tie into all the usual databases, and if the NGI facial recognition can pull anything off the man in the Jeep...?”
“On it,” the TBI rep said. “We’re also monitoring Carson’s social media feeds and cell phone. She hasn’t posted to any of her accounts. There’s a bunch of TikTokers putting out theories, jamming up our tip line. We’re watching them, too, just in case one’s plausible. We’re all over all the places folks like to talk about crimes. So far, no joy.”
“We have been too, but having a second set of eyes is very helpful.”
Marcus was sitting to her right. He flipped his hair off his forehead and spoke.
“As far as our physical hunt is concerned, we’ve already searched all around campus, and are moving outward, checking dumpsters, alleys, and construction sites around downtown. But I think we should go back up the mountain where Georgia Wray was murdered. Georgia’s boyfriend killed her, we’re pretty well convinced of that, but his subsequent suicide is fishy.” He glanced at Taylor, who nodded, and continued. “Hypothetical: Someone killed him, and whoever that was, he was on the mountain, too. He saw Carson and thinks Carson saw him, so he’s eliminated her. Unfortunately, it’s rained since we recovered Georgia’s body, so chances are we won’t find anything new, but it’s worth a look.”
“I agree,” Taylor said. She didn’t want to mention that they were trying to blow up Travis Bloom’s alibi, not just yet. This task force had been assembled to find Carson Conway alive. Taylor and her team could work the Wray murder quietly for a little longer, without confusing the issue.
She pointed at the TBI rep. “O’Roarke, isn’t it? Can we borrow your cadaver dogs? I wouldn’t mind doing a full grid search up there. Something about that setting has felt weird to me from day one. Let’s make sure there’s no one else up there.”
O’Roarke frowned at her. “You’re thinking a burial ground? Come on, Captain Jackson. Not every case is a serial.”
“Nope, it’s not,” she replied, tamping down her annoyance at the man’s tone. “But humor us. I’ve been at this long enough to trust my gut, and my gut says Carson Conway saw something she wasn’t supposed to, whether she knows it or not.”
Marcus set down his pen. “Do you think she didn’t tell us the truth about what happened up there?”
“I think it’s possible she didn’t know what the truth was. Or else she wouldn’t have gone missing.” She looked around the table. “Detective Wade and I have talked to the roommate multiple times, but I want someone else to have a go. Lieutenant Ross’s team has been running all the data from the two crime scenes, testing against others in the region. Nothing has popped yet, but the more information he has, the easier it will be.”
O’Roarke, handsome in a coarse, been-up-all-night forgot-to-shave way, shook his head. “You’re 100 percent she’s been taken? Kids now, they wander off. Pretty girl like that, maybe she met someone and is holed up, having a party.”
Taylor shook her head. “Freshmen co-eds at Vanderbilt who witness murders don’t wander off. Where did her phone last ping?”
“The quad,” he answered, suddenly very interested in his notes. “Wednesday at 8:14 p.m.”
“Exactly. Gotta play the odds, O’Roarke. The girl witnessed a murder and then went AWOL. Her phone is AWOL and not pinging. Do me a favor and run all the cells in that area at the time she went poof. Maybe one of them will belong to our mysterious Jeep driver.”
“Got it,” he said. “And I’ll call Donna Christie, see when she and her dogs are free.”
“Thank you,” Taylor said, trying hard to keep the sarcastic tone from her voice. It was clear O’Roarke wasn’t thrilled with the direction she was headed, but she couldn’t care less. Find Carson first. They could sort out the hurt feelings after.
There was a small, tonal beep. The PI had been silent until now, but she looked up in surprise. “Captain?”
“Yes, Ms. Abbott?”
“Sky is fine.” She smiled, and Taylor was again struck by that sense of knowing her from somewhere, and not only as a rookie on the police force. “I agree with you about Avery Conway. My aunt Joy knows her, that’s why I’m here, as a courtesy. My aunt went to school with Avery’s mother—Carson’s grandmother. They’re all Vanderbilt legacies. Anyway, we’ve run a few reports, and there is a discrepancy in the information you’ve been given.”
“There is?”
Sky nodded. “Apologies to you, Mr. Turley, but I just received confirmation that Avery Conway stopped off in DC on her way home to Connecticut on Thursday night.”
