Page 19 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed
So, not an absolute certainty. “Is that a gag over her mouth?” Hallie asked.
“Duct tape, we think,” Jesse replied.
“Looks as if she’s duct taped to the seat, too,” Reed pointed out, motioning to the woman’s chest area.
Hallie made a sound of agreement. “What about the driver or any other passengers?”
“No other passengers visible, but they could have been hunkered down in the back seat. And this is all we got of the driver.”
Jesse shifted to another picture that was even more blurrier than the one of Elenore. Or at least that was her first thought. Then, she realized the driver was wearing some kind of ski mask.
“Shit,” Reed and she muttered at the same time.
“Yeah, that was my reaction, too,” Jesse admitted. “I had a similar one when I ran the license plates and discovered they were bogus.”
Hallie stopped herself from repeating the profanity. “So, what do you have here? What’s the big picture?”
Jesse didn’t hesitate, confirming what Owen had said about him being both a damn good Strike Force operative and cop. “Based on the timing of this siting, we can guess that Elenore was taken from her residence around eleven PM the night before she was murdered. There were no signs of a break-in at her home so either she let her abductor in or he was waiting for her inside the house. Her security system was crap,” Jesse added.
So, it could have played out either of those ways. But the fact that her abductor took her at her home added more confirmation that Elenore had been targeted and that this wasn’t a random act of violence.
“Also, I believe the driver is male,” Jesse said. “Of course, he could have a big ass, long torso or be sitting on a cushion, but if he’s not, then I’m estimating he’s about six feet with a slender build.”
Sadly, that described all their primary suspects, Corman, Luther, and Jay. And countless other men as well.
“Of course, we’re searching traffic cams for this vehicle to try to find out anything we can about it,” Jesse tacked onto that. “Oh, and the reporter’s in interview room one.”
“Good,” Hallie muttered, looking at Reed. “You want to see what Luther has to say?”
“You bet I do,” Reed was quick to say, and together, they went down the hall to interview.
Luther was indeed waiting in room one, and not waiting patiently either. He was pacing, and when Reed and she went in, he practically rushed toward them.
“I have something you need to see,” he blurted, his tone urgent.
Thaturgentdescribed everything else about him—his quick, shallow breaths, the way his foot tapped restlessly against the floor when he stopped in front of them, and the obvious tension coiling through his body as if ready to spring at any moment.
“Elenore knew your father,” Luther added, the words racing out with those quick breaths.
It didn’t take long for that to sink in, and Hallie’s mind began to whirl with what that might mean. “Knew him? How?” she couldn’t ask fast enough.
“I’m not sure,” Luther admitted, “but here’s the proof.”
He lifted his phone that was clutched in his hand and showed them what looked to be a picture of a photo. Not a recent one either. It was a group shot of four people taken maybe at party or a backyard barbeque. On the left side of the photo was a grill spewing out smoke and on the right, there was a table littered with food, beer bottles and glasses.
“That’s Elenore and your father,” Luther insisted, motioning toward the two people in the center.
Hallie shifted her attention to where Luther was pointing. Yes, it was them all right. Her father had his usual oily, cocky expression with his beefy arm slung around Elenore who didn’tlook in distress or uncomfortable with the contact. Just the opposite. She was smiling.
“Where did you get this?” Hallie asked, and then she tacked on two other questions. “When was it taken and who are the other two people with them?”
“There was no date on the actual picture so I don’t know when,” Luther explained. “And I don’t know who the others are either. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.”
She shook her head. Judging from the fact there was little gray in her father’s hair and few wrinkles on his face, Hallie guessed that it’d been snapped well before his arrest. Years before.
“You don’t recognize where the picture was taken?” Luther pressed.
“No.” But then again, there was nothing especially distinctive about anything she could see. It looked like plenty of backyards in central Texas. A flat, fenced-in grassy yard, and the back of the house itself was basically a blur. Whoever had taken the picture had obviously been focused on the people and nothing else.
