Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [127]
She called Trace on his cell phone and was sent straight to voice mail; he was probably still doing his chores. Quickly, she gave him Eli’s update and then said she had called the police and told them about the microphones.
That done, she drove to the clinic, whose parking lot was thick with new snow. Stepping outside, she heard the scrunch, scrunch, scrunch of her boots as she stomped through the thick white powder to the front door. Inside, she met up with Heather, who was brushing snow off the shoulders of her jacket.
“It’s snowing like a son of a gun out there,” Heather said, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m going to try to leave early,” Kacey said. “Would you check the afternoon schedule? I don’t think I have much, and maybe I can move some people around.”
“Because it’s snowing?” Heather asked as she sat down at the reception desk and turned on her computer. “It’s supposed to quit before the afternoon.”
Not even close, Kacey thought, but said only, “I’ve got some issues to take care of.”
“Well, you’ve got Herbert Long with a possible sinus infection. His wife said he’d leave work early to come by. Around four, maybe. He didn’t want to come at all.”
Kacey inwardly groaned. “Maybe Martin can take him.”
“Maybe. That’s the only appointment holding you up.”
“Let me know when Martin gets in.”
Kacey headed into her office. She wanted to confront Gerald Johnson as soon as possible, and that meant a trip to Missoula, which was a quick trip in good weather, a little longer with the white stuff accumulating outside.
Her mind jumped to the vision of Trace returning to her house from his foray with Bonzi, snow melting in his hair. She recognized something was happening between them, something that could lead to something more.... The idea both thrilled and alarmed her. The man was up to his eyeballs with the look-alikes. Was she an idiot to trust him? Was that what the other victims had done?
She didn’t believe it. Not for a minute. She trusted her instincts enough to trust Trace, but even so, as she settled into work, she kept running Trace’s involvement with several of the victims through her mind on an endless loop.
“So you don’t know where your wife is?” the taller detective asked Trace, her eyes never leaving his face. An imposing woman with reddish hair clipped away from her face, she sat on the opposite side of the small, battered table in the small interrogation room at the sheriff’s department. Her expression gave nothing away, but her gaze kept traveling to her watch.
“Ex-wife, and no,” Trace said emphatically. “I’ve lost touch with Leanna.”
Trace had driven to the offices at the top of Boxer Bluff to “answer a few questions” after Pescoli’s partner, Alvarez, the shorter Latino woman with the intense dark eyes, had left him a message on his cell phone, asking him to come in.
He’d gotten that message and one from Kacey in short succession. Kacey’s had been welcome; she’d told him the antibiotics had taken hold and Eli was on the mend, something he’d seen for himself when he’d dropped by the hospital after he’d fed and watered the stock and taken Sarge for a walk outside in the falling snow.
He’d spent some time with his boy, who did seem much more animated, before speaking with the doctor, who had informed him that Eli would be released in the afternoon, as soon as all the paperwork was finished. It just relieved him to no end, and so he’d made his next stop the police station.
Upon his arrival, Detective Alvarez had escorted him to this windowless room with its concrete walls, small table, and three molded plastic chairs. After telling him she was recording