Page 108 of Whiskey Chase
I opened my mouth to answer when the text caught my eye.
Last seen wearing denim shorts and a red cardigan sweater.
43
Devlin
Idrove home in a daze while my mind turned it all over.
Last seen wearing denim shorts and a red cardigan sweater.
Scarlett had found a red cardigan sweater tucked away in her father’s things. A sweater she identified as Callie’s. Shortly after the discovery, Scarlett had pleaded exhaustion, and I’d driven her home. And then I hadn’t seen her again for two days. When she finally did come back around, it was with the idea that we were too incompatible to make this relationship work beyond a summer in Bootleg.
I slapped the steering wheel in frustration.
She’d cut me out. She’d kept something huge from me when I was the one person who could help her. If that sweater was indeed the one that Callie Tucker had last been seen wearing, the Bodines could use an attorney. There’d be an investigation. The press would swarm all over a new development in a cold case like this. That kind of attention would bleed over into everything, turning their private lives into a public circus…
And that’s why she was ending things with me.
I pulled into the driveway and dropped my head against the seat.
There’d been no sign of the sheriff or any other law enforcement next door, and if Scarlett had reported the sweater, I was certain word would have spread like fire. I could only assume that she’d decided to keep the discovery to herself… perhaps her brothers as well.
I was having a lot of feelings about this. Conflicting ones. Scarlett didn’t trust me to let me in on this. And I wasn’t going to let that stop me from helping.
I carted the groceries inside and stashed them away. I grabbed a water, my laptop, and a legal pad and set up shop in Estelle’s tiny office. Research was one of my nerd-like obsessions. I excelled at finding answers.
Starting with the original articles of the disappearance, I dug in. The articles were mostly local at first and then spreading nationwide as hours turned to days and days turned to weeks. They shared the same information over and over again. The last people who saw her were teenage friends who had gathered at the lake on a rocky beach often frequented by locals on the warm July night.
Witnesses—some of whom I’ve met including Nash, Misty Lynn, and Cassidy Tucker—recalled seeing her walk back toward town on Hooch Road. According to her parents, Judge and Mrs. Kendall, Callie never made it back to their house on the lakefront Speakeasy Drive.
I printed out a map and highlighted her potential path. The beach that she’d left was less than an eighth of a mile from the Bodine house, but she’d have walked in the opposite direction toward town, keeping the lake on her left as she traveled west.
She’d been wearing a long sleeve cardigan on a hot summer night. Which I found odd. Wasn’t it usually warm enough to forgo a sweater? Curiosity had me calling up an image search. The pictures all showed a pretty young girl with a shy smile who always wore long sleeves. I scratched another note and moved on to the next thread to tug on.
I gave myself two hours to binge on everything related to Callie’s disappearance. I stumbled on a forum of conspiracy theories about the disappearance. The rabbit hole danger was real, but I did make a list of every suspect forum members named. It was a short list, and it didn’t include Jonah Bodine Sr. or any of the Bodine boys. I needed to know who had been investigated, interviewed. I needed access to those notes.
I tapped out a beat with my pen on the tablet now scrawled with notes.
There was one person that Scarlett trusted implicitly. And she was the same person who could get me information. I debated for a solid ten minutes, weighing just how pissed off Scarlett would be at me for making the call against what I could learn from it.
She didn’t want my help, but she was damn well going to get it.
* * *
Thirty minuteslater I pulled up a chair next to Cassidy Tucker at The Lookout. She wasn’t wearing her deputy uniform, and it made me feel like I was just having a casual conversation.
“If this is about Scarlett’s favorite kind of diamond, you might as well save your money, Dev. She promised her mama she wouldn’t get married before thirty,” Cassidy said hefting her beer.
I caught Nicolette’s eye and pointed at Cassidy’s beer.
“This isn’t about diamonds,” I said. “This is about something… delicate.”
Cassidy’s eyes narrowed. Nicolette dropped my beer off with a nod and left again. “Define delicate.”
“Say I was representing the family of someone accused of a crime.” I waited a beat and looked at her hard. I wanted to know if Scarlett had already spilled to Cassidy.
“Jesus, what did Scarlett do now?”
