Page 56 of Bait and Switch
“It’s just, she was supposed to have left on a hiking trip, and as far as I know, her family has always believed somethinghappened to her on the trail, not close to home. Sorry, my memory is muddled because this all happened around the same time Maya Crane was murdered. I was fourteen and the only thing I was focused on was my brother and the fact that no one would listen to me when I told them I’d seen Maya alive after everyone else claimed they had. They thought I was covering for him.”
“But you weren’t, of course you weren’t. What happened with this Suzie person?”
Casey shrugged again, and pain made him regret the movement. He hadn’t thought about Suzie Warner in years, not since she’d left the island.
“Elton probably remembers better than I do. Suzie had graduated from high school and planned to hike around before starting college. No, that’s not right. She decided she didn’t want to go to school, at least not right away. Her plan was to hike, maybe the Pacific Crest Trail? And then—well, I don’t know if she had much of a plan after that.”
Casey tried to think of what else he remembered from that time. The headache was not helping.
“Honestly, there aren’t many other details coming to mind. It seems like she was just gone and never heard from again. It’s not as if people, especially women, don’t disappear on a daily basis.”
“Her parents thought she left the island?”
“I think so, yes. No one ever saw or heard from her again.”
“And yet the pack would indicate that she did not.”
“Yep,” Casey said to his reflection in the passenger window. “It would seem that she did not.”
“Your place is starting havethat special Batcave feel to it, Elton. All we need is a bank of computers, an elegant butler, and maybe a fancy cologne.”
Elton had forced Casey to lay back in his recliner.
“Stay still while I clean this up again. That kid up there did a half-ass job. Pfft.”
“Is it half-ass or half-assed?”
“Gabriel,” Casey sighed. It had been a fucking long day.
Gabe stopped pacing to stand at Casey’s feet.
“Deal with it,” he said. “Humor is a coping mechanism I can afford, a bottle of whiskey is one I cannot.” Gabriel had his hands jammed deep into his jeans pockets, as if he was just barely holding himself together. They hadn’t spoken much after Casey had shared what little he knew about Suzie. The rest of the drive had been silent. A quiet Charming Fucker was unnerving.
“What do you remember about Suzie Warner, Elton?” Casey asked, wincing as Elton swiped the cut on his hairline with hydrogen peroxide.
“I think it was a few months before the Warners began to worry that something had happened to her. As I recall, they eventually hired someone to retrace her steps, but there was no sign of her.”
“Because she never made it to the trail and no one was looking in this neck of the woods because she wasn’t supposed to be here.”
They were silent, the hum of the refrigerator seeming to expand and fill the quiet along with their own breathing. What the fuck had happened and why was it coming to light now? Bowie was curled up at the base of the recliner, clearly not letting Casey out of his sight. The cat had even emerged and was perched on the windowsill, supervising the goings-on.
“What do we do with her bag?” Gabe asked. “It’s not a body, it doesn’t prove anything. She could have changed her mind, left town with someone else. We all know that’s not true, but?—”
“Two girls, one dead, one assumed dead, presumably within days of each other…” Casey winced again. “Knock it off, Elton, the cut hurts more now than it did when it happened.”
With a sigh, Elton paused his aggressive cleaning and set the cotton swabs and antibiotics down on his side table. Casey released a quiet sigh of relief.
It was Gabe who sucked in a long breath, stared at them intently for a long moment, and then said the thing they had to all have been thinking.
“What if the backpack isn’t the only thing up there?” His hands landed on top of his head as if he was trying to keep all his thoughts inside his skull but they were escaping against his will anyway. “Think about it. The business with Gordon getting busted earlier in the year, which kept him out of the loop, then Silent Bob—Dwayne Perkins, I mean—and now finding this. Smacks of somebody trying to keep something hidden. Maybe more than a backpack.”
“That thought did cross my mind,” Elton said, turning and heading toward his kitchen. “Whatever they’re hiding, it has to do with Gordon’s property, Snowcap Estates, or both. I’m heating up some soup for us.”
Since it was a statement and not a question, Casey kept his mouth shut. Elton was in mother-hen mode, and nothing was going to stop him. And he was also starving.
“Yeah, Snowcap Estates. Let’s assume that something happened to Suzie Warner before she left for her hiking trip, something bad.” Gabe walked toward the hallway, then turned around and headed back toward the kitchen as he thought out loud. “It’s a bad thing, she’s dead. The murderer takes her remains up”—he waved—“that way. And her pack too? No. Seems more likely she was killed there. That would make more sense.”
“Panicked and then what?” Elton said from his spot at the stove. “But we don’t know that Suzie was ever up The Valley.”
