Then another idea got in her throat and choked her like a fish bone. Cayman had spent the past decade as her protector. If he had been here all along, because her parents had kept him on the payroll behind her back, which definitely seemed like something they would pull, then why hadn’t he done his job?
Cayman was smart, and he was good at being a bodyguard. Too many times, she’d tried and failed to escape his watchful eye. She simply could not believe that if he’d been watching her, he wouldn’t have seen someone follow her home on Monday night . . . because Cayman, himself, would’ve been on her tail.
Tears stung her eyes at an idea she wouldn’t allow to fully blossom.
Cayman was her friend.
Cayman would never hurt her.
She thought of all the times she’d confided in him about how much her father’s rules chafed. That time he’d snuck a neighbor kid in to see her when she was on lockdown. The night she’d been sick, and he’d gone out at eleven p.m. for her favorite lobster bisque because she finally felt like eating.
Had it all been an act?
Could a man she’d trusted, and yes, even loved . . . could the man she’d considered an uncle be the monster that brought evil into her life?
No!
It wasn’t Cayman.
It simply couldn’t be.
“Here’s my card. If you see her, call me first.” Cayman handed something off to Ben.
“Shouldn’t I call the cops first?”
“Then call me right after. I guarantee I’ll get here first.”
Ben went back inside, and Cayman approached a young woman walking toward the building. He showed her something. Probably Laura’s photograph. She shook her head.
Cayman turned a corner, and Laura slid, as quietly as possible from behind the bushes. She pulled her hoodie far over her face. Cayman moved down the sidewalk, showing the photograph to everyone he encountered. Each time he was answered with the shake of a head.
Using her best tracking skills—thank the lord for that damn wilderness survival class—she tailed him.
More than once he turned around, as if he’d heard something behind him, but he always kept moving forward. At the bottom of the hill, he got on a beat-up blue bicycle that looked like it should belong to a college kid and pedaled away. It was easier to get around campus with a bike than with a car and that made her wonder again if he’d been following her around for a while.
She waited until he was completely out of sight before making her way to the bike rack. One bicycle remained. It was chained up. But there was a hardware store around the corner.
Five minutes later, she returned with wire cutters. She scanned the area around her and saw an old woman coming up the street with a bag of groceries. Laura tossed the cutters behind a tree and when the woman got close, Laura waved. The woman waved back and went into a nearby home.
Laura checked the area again, and this time, saw no one. She cut the chain. Got on the bike—a green ten-speed—and rode, following the dirty tire track Cayman’s bike had left on the sidewalk, all the way to Elm Street.
She got off the bike and parked it behind a tree.
Then, heart pounding in her chest, she walked up and down the street until she saw it.
There, chained up on the porch of a two-story brown frame home, with a tall elm tree growing in the front yard, was a beat-up blue bike.
She found a good hunter’s blind, from which she had a clear view of the front door.
Cayman would never hurt her.
Cayman was her friend.
Chapter 27
Friday, October 25
9:00 A.M.
Task force headquarters
Highlands Hotel
Denver, Colorado
Hatcher rushed into the war room, his face bright red. He shoved his spectacles to the top of his head and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. Something had gotten him worked up in a big way.
“Are the Chaucers here?” Spense asked, wondering if that alone was enough to produce such a copious amount of sweat on one man’s forehead.
Hatcher mopped his entire face before responding. “Yes. And there’s been a change of plans.”
“Which plans?” Caity asked.
Spense, too, was confused. Hatcher had been summoned for a conference call with his commander a good forty-five minutes ago. There must’ve been a new development in the case, or maybe Hatcher had decided to inform the parents about the discovery of the body on his own. “Should we leave you to it?”
“Oh, hell no. The Chaucers are waiting for us in the interview room. I want you both there when I tell them we found a young woman’s corpse in the Eagles Nest Wilderness—and it is not their daughter.”
Caity’s pupils bloomed. “You’re sure?”
“Dental records don’t match. Blood type doesn’t match. The press conference is back on—in less than an hour.”