* * *
The potatoes were in the oven, the steaks sitting on a platter in the fridge. He had promised to broil them rather than fry them, but DeeJay didn’t know how she was going to eat a baked potato without a lot of sour cream or butter. Maybe the diner wasn’t that bad at all. Sitting in one of those booths, they’d at least have had their ears to the ground.
She stared at the envelope on the table, the one that Sarah Ironheart had left with them. She ran her fingers lightly over it, wondering if she should make herself read it once more. She didn’t know if she could stomach it. She’d seen plenty of horrible stuff in the army, but kids? This was in a class of its own.
A chill snaked down her back and she went to get her new hoodie from the bag in the living room. She pulled it on as she walked back to the kitchen, where she found Cade as mesmerized by that envelope as she had been.
“Did we miss something?” he muttered as she took her seat.
“I don’t know. He’s got to be doing something that someone’s noticed. Nobody is that good.”
“But if he blends into the local scenery...” He left the thought incomplete. “Maybe we should talk to the old sheriff. You heard what Ironheart said. Nobody sneezes without him knowing.”
“If he knew anything, he’d already have said so,” DeeJay argued. “But I’m not opposed to talking with him if Dalton okays it.”
“Sometimes the right line of questioning can pull out stuff people don’t realize they know.”
“True. When you figure out the right tack to take, let me know. I feel like I’m blindfolded here, and I don’t like it.”
Neither did he. “With one hand tied behind my back,” he added.
“Of course. Undercover. It may make the perp feel safer, but it’s not making me happy.”
“He disappeared once before,” Cade reminded her.
“I know. We don’t want that to happen again. God knows how many kids he may have killed the last five years. We’ve got to stop him. A clue would be nice beyond the similarity of his victims.”
“And that damn cargo netting. I give him points for originality on that one. There’s all kinds of ways to keep trophies, but this one is unprecedented.”
“As far as we know, but yeah.” She drummed her fingers, resting her chin in her hand. “Was there anything unusual about that netting? And if he’s into displaying his trophies that way, maybe we should find out if anyone around here recently purchased netting of some kind. And lots of plastic.”
“I think they’re already looking into that, but let me check with Gage. I’ll ask him about the old sheriff, too. What’s his name?”
“Tate.”
Cade reached for the wall phone. Landlines were more secure. DeeJay listened to his half of the conversation and picked up most of what she needed to know. The cargo net had been sent for forensics and had revealed nothing. It had been out in the Wyoming weather for too long, plus it was a standard type of netting readily available for a lot of purposes. No sign that anyone in the area had recently purchased any kind of strong net, but that was being looked into. As for the plastic, standard paint drop cloths available at a million places around the country.
“God,” she said when he hung up. “This guy read the books.”