Page 60 of Run for Her Life
“Darren Galanis. He paid someone to follow you and report back.” He connected the dots. “You’re the one with a badge and a gun, Storm. Why haven’t you gone after him?”
Her fingers curled slightly, resting on the floor beside his. One inch closer, and she’d touch him. “He belongs to a shadow criminal organization. Even the FBI barely has any information on it.”
“What is it called?”
“Red Trigger.”
He froze. The air between them went from electric to cold. Zoe hadn’t realized how close they had been sitting, how intimate it had felt. But now a bucket of ice-cold water had been thrown on the moment. “Zoe, I?—”
Zoe’s phone rang, puncturing the heavy silence. It was Lisa. She answered.
“Hey.”
“Agent Storm, we have a problem. Amy Andrews…”
“Yeah, did you check her alibi?”
“She’s missing.”
THIRTY-SIX
It was that in-between hour when the night had mostly bled away, but the sun hadn’t fully risen, just a faint, cold light creeping over the horizon. The streetlamps, still on, flickered weakly against the encroaching daylight. Heavy morning dampness clung to Zoe’s skin. A light mist drifted over the lot, curling in the distance where the trees stood in eerie silhouettes.
Amy Andrews’s Prius was parked at the edge of the lot at a rest stop, the driver’s side open a crack. Not wide, just enough to feel wrong. The windows were fogged at the edges, dew clinging to the windshield, untouched. Like it had been sitting there for hours. Waiting.
But she was gone.
“What do we know?” Zoe asked.
“The manager at 7-Eleven started his early morning shift thirty minutes ago and noticed this abandoned car. Dispatch ran the plate. It’s registered to Amy. Ethan made some calls and learned that Amy never arrived at work and no one can seem to reach her.” Lisa’s voice was clear but her eyes were swollen. Zoe resisted the urge to give her a hug. Finding out in such a public way that your husband had cheated on you was a punchto the gut. Zoe thought about her kiss with Simon and felt like throwing up.
“There are signs of a struggle here.” Zoe pointed at a set of scuffed footprints, sharp against the damp ground, like someone had dug their heels in, then a drag mark leading toward the edge of the pavement. The gravel was disturbed, scattered.
“The CSU is on the way. Her phone’s under here!” Ethan was crouched on the ground. He shoved a gloved hand under the car and retrieved an iPhone with a blue case. The screen was fractured like cracked ice, the battery flickering at two percent.
“Any cameras around here?” Aiden looked around, the wind tousling his hair.
“There’s one but it doesn’t work. The other one is inside but there’s no view of this spot,” Lisa said gruffly. “I’ve alerted the Washington State Patrol. Do you think this is related to our current case or something else altogether?”
“We should knock on doors just in case but what are the chances?” Aiden said. “Amy was Jackie’s only family and hence related to one of the original victims.”
“Did the FBI get a riddle?” Lisa asked. When Zoe shook her head, she sighed in relief. “Well, that’s good, then. The last two riddles have directed us to bodies. No riddle means she might still be alive.”
“And getting tortured as we speak.” Zoe’s scalp prickled at her own words. “We need to talk to David.”
“David’s going to lawyer up,” Lisa said. “And he wouldn’t get his own hands dirty. He’s got money. He’d hire someone.”
“It will be a bitch to get his financials and go through them. Wealthy people like him are experts at hiding money.” She bit her lip. “There has to be another way to dig up the dirt on him…” She paused when she spotted something in the distance. On the other side of the road was a red Toyota parked with the window rolled down. “Who’s that?”
Lisa turned around and sighed, shaking her head. “It’s Adam. Following us around everywhere to be the first one to break the story.”
Zoe’s heart constricted in her chest. This town had found a new tragedy to obsess over.
“I found this a few feet away.” A deputy came running over. “You gotta see this. It must have been blown away by the wind.”
Zoe’s breath caught in her chest as she read the words.
Ticktock goes the clock,
