Last Seen Alive (38 page)

“The father of one of the other missing girls, assuming that if Gage took Deirdre, he also took Heather or Edie?”

“Maybe,” Chyna said reluctantly, “but I think Heather Phelps’s family moved out west. And can you see Ron Larson getting wound up enough to come after Gage? He was probably already drunk by the time any news of Deirdre being found went out even over the police scanner.” She paused. “I’m going to touch the bedclothes.”

“Chyna, no!”

She ignored Scott and once again tiptoed across the floor, a couple of times stepping in prints she’d already made, and reached for the sheet. “I’ll just touch with my knuckles so I don’t leave any prints. Of course, I don’t want to disturb prints, either….”

“Chyna, do you watch cop shows
all
the time?” Scott demanded.

“Only when I’m not on duty at the hospital,” she said absently as her knuckles brushed across the low-thread-count sheet. Then she moved them slightly to the right, farther up, across from her—

Chyna’s vision blurred, darkened, then cleared. She saw Gage almost writhing under the covers, his face sweaty and flushed. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal and he lowered his head, looking into the face of a girl with green eyes and thick, shiny ash-blond hair.

Although she’d only seen her in death before, Chyna instantly recognized the girl—Nancy Tierney.

“Oh!” Chyna jerked back her hand as if it had been burned. “My God!”

“What is it?” Scott barked.

“It was Gage, and he was making love to Nancy Tierney.”

“Nancy Tierney!” Scott exploded. “Gage was in bed with Nancy Tierney?”

“Yes, but it couldn’t have been last night. She’s been dead for days. Still…”

“Gage was involved with Nancy Tierney,” Scott said flatly. “I can’t believe it. Gage and
her?”

“Scott, you don’t live in Black Willow and you barely

know Gage Ridgeway anymore.” She paused. “And why are you so surprised that he was involved with Nancy? You said you didn’t know her at all.”

Scott gave her a startled look, then blinked a couple of times. “I was surprised because of her age. Gage is what? Thirty-two, like your brother? Nancy was just a teenager.”

“That’s not all you meant.” Chyna looked at him steadily. “You know Gage liked younger girls. Edie was only sixteen when she dated Gage and he was only a month or two away from twenty. So why are you so surprised Gage was with Nancy?”

“Sixteen and twenty isn’t seventeen and thirty-something,” Scott replied vaguely. Chyna felt as if he was floundering for an answer to her question, not telling her the whole truth. “Uh, did Nancy look like she was being raped?”

“Not at all,” Chyna said firmly. She stared at Scott, the feeling that he wasn’t being completely honest making her want to draw away from him. She thought he was conscious of her wariness, but he determinedly stared back, almost as if he were daring her to ask him another question. “Nancy didn’t look like she was struggling to get away from Gage,” Chyna stated, “but I’ll try again since you seem to have some doubt.”

“You do that,” Scott said with a trace of acid in his voice.

Chyna again touched the blanket with her knuckles. She expected to see Gage again having sex with Nancy. Instead, she saw him asleep in the darkened bedroom. Someone pounded on the door downstairs and Gage jolted up in the bed. More pounding downstairs. Gage half-climbed, half-fell out of the bed. And then … nothing. Chyna closed her eyes and concentrated, but she knew with disappointed familiarity that the vision had ended.

“Well?” Scott asked.

“I just saw him sleeping. Then heard the knocking,” she said.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. Sorry.” Suddenly an awful possibility flashed into Chyna’s mind. In her vision, Gage’s curtains were parted

to show the night sky. Someone had come to Gage’s door in the night. Last night? Last night while Chyna slept peacefully, and alone, while Scott was supposedly in the kitchen drinking warm milk? But why would Scott—

“Well?” Chyna jumped as Scott turned his penetrating gaze on her. “Do you know who came to the door?”

“No,” she said emphatically. “I don’t see who was at the door.”

“It was probably the cops, Chyna. Last night you said they’d probably go after him immediately.”

“Yeah. The knocking must have come right after Deirdre was found. Ned said the cops put him through hell after Edie disappeared. They had to be looking at him pretty closely ’ this time, too.”

“Especially if anyone knew he’d been seeing Nancy.” Scott shook his head. “God. Edie and Nancy. One definitely dead, the other missing for years. I sure wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now.”

“I wouldn’t, either, if he knew Deirdre had been found. But he was asleep.”

“But you don’t know if that vision was from last night,” Scott said.

It was, she thought, remembering the chatter over Gage’s police scanner saying that Deirdre Mayhew had been found, the dispatcher sending emergency vehicles to the grave site. But Chyna didn’t want to tell all of that to Scott. Why? Because he’d left her bed in the middle of the night?

Chyna wrapped her arms around herself, glanced at the bed again, and said, “I want to look outside.”

“Good. If we get caught in here …”

“I know. Twenty years of hard labor at a maximum-security prison.”

“You’re taking this way too lightly, Chyna. Don’t forget that not everyone in this town is exactly fond of you.” She looked at him, stung. “I don’t mean to be cruel, but you have to watch your step. Don’t forget that crowd outside your house yesterday. I don’t think they were members of your fan club.”

Chyna continued to look at him in injured surprise for a

moment, then glanced away and nodded. “You’re right. A lot of people in this town think I’m a kook. A lot of people think I had something to do with the disappearance of those girls. It’s so ludicrous, I sometimes forget that public opinion can get you in a lot of trouble.”

“So let’s get out of here,” Scott said.

But as they started toward his car, Chyna stopped, looking over at a small aluminum building. “I wonder what’s in there.”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I think this is a matter for the police now.”

Chyna didn’t seem to hear him. She walked to the building and opened one of the double doors. “More unlocked doors,” she said. “Gage must be a trusting soul.”

“Chyna, we are
not
going in there,” Scott said forcefully as Chyna opened the door wider, letting sunlight flow into the small building, and stepped inside. Scott sighed, muttered, “Oh, hell!” and followed her.

When he reached the door, he saw Chyna standing motionless about two feet within the doors on a clean concrete floor. Well, we don’t have to worry about footprints, he thought, unless they’d managed to pick up some mud on their shoes. But it hadn’t rained for days. The earth was dry.

Finally, after watching Chyna for a couple of minutes, he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Sense anything?” he boomed, startled by the volume of his own voice.

Chyna jumped and turned to him. “For heaven’s sake, Scott, I’m right here. You don’t have to shout.”

“Sorry.” He glanced around. A tractor, a ride lawn mower, and a motorcycle. Scott couldn’t resist walking toward the motorcycle and lifting up the canvas. A blue Electra Glide. Maybe twenty years old, he thought, and an absolute dream! He’d wanted one of these for so many years, yet always found an excuse not to buy one. But Gage hadn’t. It was all Scott could do not to swing his leg over the seat and—

“Found your one true love?” Chyna asked right behind him. “You should see the look of ecstasy on your face.”

“Ecstasy? That’s nonsense,” Scott snapped, his cheeks

growing red. “This is a really nice model, a classic, kept in perfect condition. I was just admiring what good care Gage has taken of it.”

“Um-hmm.” Chyna smirked. “Scott, only sometimes I can read minds, but I can always read facial expressions. You were picturing yourself tearing down a highway with the wind in your hair and a girl on the back clutching your waist.”

He grinned sheepishly at her. “Well, maybe you’re right. But the girl was you.”

Chyna cocked her head, narrowed her eyes, then winked at him. “Yeah. The girl
was
me. That makes it okay.”

“Thank God,” he breathed, dropping the canvas back in place. “Picking up on anything?”

“Maybe,” Chyna said. She walked over to a dirty white blanket lying near a wall. The remains of a cobweb clung to one corner along with several small pieces of black grit. She stooped down and, avoiding the grit, placed her knuckles on the blanket.

A girl. So cold, so frightened. Her auburn hair spilled around her chalky face. The dirty blanket had scooted up to her calves, exposing bare feet and duct tape on her ankles, ankles she twisted furiously, obviously trying to loosen the duct tape. Got to hurry, the girl thought. Got to hurry while I still have time— Then one of the front doors opened.

Chyna gasped and jerked her hand away from the blanket. “It was Deirdre,” she whispered almost convulsively. “Deirdre was wrapped up in this blanket, waiting for someone to come and kill her.”

Chyna and Scott were getting into the car when a police cruiser pulled up with two officers inside. “Oh no, I knew it,” Scott groaned.

“Don’t look so guilty. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Except poke around another man’s house.”

The officer who had been driving tapped on Scott’s win-

dow and he rolled it down, fixing his face in a tight, unnatural smile. “Yes, sir?” he asked in a bright voice that made Chyna want to cringe. He sounded guilty as hell of something.

“What’s your business here, sir?” the officer asked.

“We just dropped by to see Gage Ridgeway,” Scott answered. Chyna let out her breath. At least Scott’s voice sounded casual. “Is there a problem?”

“You always go visiting at eight in the morning?”

“Is it that early?” Scott raised his arm and looked at his watch. Chyna noticed a fresh scrape on the side of his left hand that ran up under the cuff of his sweater. It had just begun to form a scab. At last, Scott’s commanding spirit seemed to return. “It’s eight-thirty, Officer, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything. We had some work we wanted Gage to do and thought we’d catch him early.” The policeman continued to stare at them. “Officer, is there anything special you want with us, or are we free to go?”

“I want to know if Gage Ridgeway is in that house.”

“No, he isn’t,” Scott said. “We knocked on the door three times.”

“Did you go inside?”

Fingerprints, Chyna thought quickly. She wasn’t wearing gloves. “I tried the doorknob. The door was unlocked, so I stuck in my head and yelled for Gage. No answer. I also opened the door to that aluminum building over there. That’s where he keeps his motorcycle. I wanted to see if he was out riding this morning.” Chyna hoped her color wasn’t rising to betray her lie. She hadn’t even known until a few minutes ago that Gage still owned his motorcycle. “It was there.”

“So where do you suppose he is?”

“We have no idea.” Scott shifted the car into drive. “Sorry we can’t be of any help, Officer, but we really should be getting home,” he said almost curtly.

Scott didn’t wait for an answer. He simply drove past the police cruiser and out the long drive to the highway. “We made a big mistake going into Gage’s house without his or the police’s permission,” he said finally.

“If either the house or the aluminum storage building was a crime scene, it would have been marked,” Chyna returned. “I think the police just wanted to question Gage.”

“Or arrest him.”

“With what evidence? His house hadn’t been searched.”

“Until we came along.”

Chyna made a derisive face. “I’d hardly call that little glancing around we did a search and we certainly didn’t disturb evidence.”

“Didn’t we?” Scott asked. “What about that blanket in the shed? You said Deirdre had been wrapped up in it. She wasn’t one of Gage’s girlfriends like Nancy. You said you felt her fear. She was held in that building, Chyna. Gage took her and he kept her prisoner in that building. Somehow, she managed to get loose and make it to the cemetery. Gage didn’t know. I saw the police scanner in his room. He must have had it on, heard that Deirdre had been found, and run. It’s obvious.”

Chyna thought for a moment. “I don’t think it’s obvious at all, Scott. In my vision, Gage was asleep. He was awakened by someone knocking on his front door.” She paused. “But if you’re right and he ran away, why isn’t there any sign of hurried flight in his house? His wallet was lying on his dresser. He’d need money. His truck was there.”

“He wouldn’t take his wallet with all of his identification in it, Chyna. And he sure wouldn’t take a truck with ’Ridge-way Construction’ plastered on the side of it.”

Chyna had to agree with Scott, yet some things didn’t add up. She’d seen two fifty-dollar bills in Gage’s wallet. He would have needed cash. And naturally he wouldn’t have taken the truck, but what about the motorcycle? Chyna made up her mind. Whether or not Gage had abducted Deirdre, he had not made a run for it after she was found. Something else accounted for his disappearance—something terribly wrong.

When Chyna and Scott reached the Greer house, both garage doors had been raised and she saw Rex’s car sitting beside hers. “I didn’t even notice earlier,” she said. “When we left this morning, was Rex’s car here?”

Scott shook his head. “The garage doors were down and my car was in the driveway. I didn’t notice, either. I’m sure he didn’t stay out all night, though.”

“I’m not,” Chyna fumed. “Honest to God, if he spent the night with some woman and left me here all alone …”

Scott looked troubled. “Don’t blow a gasket yet, Chyna. You said he was going to Owen Burtram’s, probably to prevent trouble between him and Rusty. Maybe something happened. …”

Chyna fumbled with her key, suddenly nervous, more frightened than she’d been invading Gage Ridgeway’s house, and burst through the house. “Rex!” she yelled. “Rex, are you here?”

“In the kitchen,” he called, but he didn’t sound right. He sounded weak and … she didn’t want to think about the possibilities. She grabbed Scott’s hand and dragged him behind her as she ran for the kitchen.