“This place is something.” She gazed up as if expecting bats to fly out of a belfry.
“Agreed.” The house looked more like it belonged in Transylvania than at the borderline of private land and public wilderness in the state of Colorado. He pressed the bell, and it chimed out a few bars of “Edelweiss”—ah, much more Rocky Mountains.
The door opened, and he heard a quick intake of breath from Caity when she took in the woman in front of them. Her jet-black bob framed a heart-shaped face. Her unadorned lips were full, her eyes . . . columbine blue.
“Ms. Lisa Blake?” he asked.
She nodded.
He flashed his creds. “I’m Special Agent Atticus Spenser—I go by Spense. This is my partner, Dr. Caitlin Cassidy. May we come in?”
She didn’t unlatch the storm door.
“We just have a few questions for you.”
“Sorry, but I don’t have any answers. As you can probably tell by where I live, I like to keep to myself.”
Caity stepped forward. She shed her outer jacket and pushed up her sleeve, revealing her battered arm. She tucked her long hair behind her ear and turned a bruised cheek toward Lisa. “I’d like to talk to you about Grady Webber.”
Lisa touched her fingers to her mouth. “Grady did that to you?”
“He did. May we come in?”
“I—I’m sorry about whatever happened to you, but like I said, I can’t help you.”
“Lisa.” Caity’s tone was sympathetic and firm at the same time. “If this wasn’t important, we wouldn’t be bothering you, but we’re here on a matter of the utmost importance. So let me come straight to the point. We’ve been told that you once pressed rape charges against Grady Webber.”
“I dropped them.”
This was a good start. Lisa still hadn’t unlatched the door, but she had answered a question. Spense kept quiet and let Caity take the reins. He could tell she was already developing a rapport with Ms. Blake.
“We’d still like to ask you a few questions. We’re investigating the case of a missing coed, Laura Chaucer,” Caity said.
Lisa’s face drained of color.
She opened the door with a shaky hand.
He and Caity exchanged a glance. Lisa had seemed much more affected by the mention of Laura Chaucer’s name than by Grady Webber’s. And that was a surprise—after all she had a very real, and very troubling connection with Webber. She’d no doubt heard about Laura on the news, but it wasn’t as if she knew her personally—at least not as far as they were aware.
They stepped through the doorway. Inside, Lisa Blake’s home was every bit as imposing as outside.
“You have a gorgeous house.” Caity continued with the rapport building, not commenting on Lisa’s obvious reaction to the mention of Laura’s name. “Did you decorate it yourself?”
“I helped my mother before she passed.” The color returned to Lisa’s face and the composure to her voice.
“Well, it’s very impressive. Do you have professional training—as a decorator, I mean?”
“I studied interior design in college.”
“Before you dropped out.”
Lisa crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought this was about Laura Chaucer, and it seems you already know the answers to the questions you’re asking.”
“Look.” Caity touched Lisa on the shoulder. “I appreciate your straightforwardness. I’d like to be straightforward with you, too. Is that okay?”
Lisa’s eyes lowered. “Please.” She uncrossed her arms and led the way into a living area.
Spense sat down in a sturdy chair that looked like it had been used in the Spanish Inquisition, leaving the sofa and love seat for Caity and Lisa.
“I’m afraid these questions are going to get personal, but, as I mentioned earlier, they’re important,” Caity said.
“Will they help you find that missing coed?”
Lisa now referred to Laura as a coed, like she couldn’t even remember her name. Yet Spense was becoming more and more certain that she not only knew Laura’s name, she must have some personal connection to the young woman—a connection she wasn’t eager to volunteer.
“I want you to be honest with me, so I’m going to be honest with you,” Caity replied evenly. “I can’t say if your answers will help find Laura or not, but they might. I won’t know until I hear them. Now, if you’re ready, I’d like for you to tell me everything you remember about the night you were assaulted at an off-campus fraternity party.”
Lisa’s jaw relaxed out of its clenched position, her eyes opened wider, and her gaze softened. It took Spense only a moment to understand why. With that one simple question, Caity had made it perfectly clear that she didn’t doubt that Lisa had been raped. She was ready to take her at her word—a decency not always afforded women who were brave enough to come forward and report a sexual assault.