All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [115]
The screen filled with an 800 number, one that Baldwin recognized as the FBI tip line. The number had generated hundreds of calls with leads that were going nowhere. It was time to make a change, to make something happen.
A hundred thousand dollars might help. Of course, it might hurt, too, because they’d be inundated with tipsters dolling out bogus information.
Baldwin looked down at the files in front of him. He went through the list again, covering Jake Buckley’s travel schedule for the past two months. The man had been on a junket, and had been in thirty cities in the past month. But the cities they needed to see him in figured prominently. Huntsville, Alabama; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; back to Nashville. Then on to Noble, Georgia; Roanoke, Virginia; Asheville, North Carolina, then Louisville. He was scheduled for a break back in Nashville that would last for a week. Maybe he was done killing, maybe he wasn’t, but he was coming home, and home was where they’d hopefully find him.
He was due back in Nashville last night. He had not arrived home, so the BOLO, Be on the Lookout, for his car had been issued, yet no one had reported seeing the car anywhere between Nashville and Louisville. It was time for Baldwin to talk with Quinn Buckley. He needed to get a better sense of who they were dealing with.
Forty-Three
He dug in the dirt like a carefree child, singing softly to himself under his breath.
“One little, two little, three little Indians…four little, five little, six little Indians…Don’t have the seventh or the eighth little Indian…but that’s okaaaaay for now!”
He spread the rich, loamy soil into the holes, then dusted off his hands and broke open a package of seeds he’d gotten at the local hardware store. Sprinkling the minute buds of life, he started to laugh. Pushing up daisies, literally. Really, he could be so funny sometimes.
He stood, brushing the dirt from his knees, and reached for a gentle misting hose. He started the water and stepped back to admire his newly sown garden. How very lovely.
Forty-Four
Quinn Buckley was starting to get worried. Jake was due home and had not shown up, the FBI was looking for him, a nationwide alert had gone out about his car, and nothing was happening. She was sitting alone, in her empty kitchen, nursing a cup of tea and a broken heart. She had not been able to reach her brother for several days, and she had not been able to make plans for her sister’s burial. The children had gone to play at a friend’s house. She barely remembered telling them that they could, but there was a terse note from Gabrielle telling her that the kids were down the street on a play date. The big house was silent and brooding, and she felt like she was losing her mind.
She knew there was no way Jake Buckley had killed all those girls. Jake may be many things, a poltroon, an adulterer, a bad husband, yes, he was all of those. But he was not a killer, and when she got the phone call from John Baldwin at the FBI she had readily agreed to have him come out and sit with her, to talk about some of the details about Jake Buckley that he had not been able to ascertain. Maybe she was just lonely and needed to have someone sit with her, hold her hand and tell her they understood.
She wandered into the study, the one room in the house that she felt she could call her own. Perhaps a book would cheer her up. She entered the room and took in a deep breath. Standing in the middle of the room was Reese, her little brother. She jumped and let out a startled cry. He just looked at her with unfathomably sad eyes.
“Jesus, Reese, you scared me to death. When did you sneak in here? I didn’t even hear the doorbell. Oh, it’s good to see you. When did you