It’d been a good workshop, but now Dani was tired after two days of nonstop talking and demonstrating her techniques. She surveyed the few remaining pieces that hadn’t sold, thankful she didn’t have many to take back home.
“Ms. Collins!”
Dani’s dog stiffened as one of the university students hurried toward her. “Sit,” Dani said. Lizi obeyed but didn’t totally relax.
“Thank you so much for coming! Your technique is fantastic—I learned so much.”
Dani remembered the student from the classes. “I love teaching, especially to artists like you who are eager to learn.”
“Thank you. I hope you’ll come back.”
“I’d like to.” She encouraged the girl with a smile. “Just don’t ever stop learning.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.” She looked down at Lizi, who hadn’t moved. “What kind of dog is that? She looks like a mop with those dreadlocks.”
Dani got that question a lot. “She’s a Puli, and that’s the way her hair grows.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Is she a guard dog?”
“Yes, she is.” She patted Lizi’s side. “And a good one.”
She hesitated. Lizi thought she was on duty, and Dani didn’t want to confuse her. “Let me release her first.” She patted Lizi’s side. “Break,” she said softly, telling Lizi she could play. The Puli wagged her tail.
The student gingerly felt the cords of Lizi’s coat. “Do you have to do these yourself?”
“No, they’re natural.”
The girl rubbed Lizi’s back one more time and then nodded toward the pieces yet to be wrapped in newspaper for transporting. “Can I help you?”
“I’m almost done, but thanks.”
After the student wandered away, Dani finished packing and loaded the boxes on rolling tables the university had provided. It had been a really good workshop, and she liked connecting with the students. She also enjoyed talking about Lizi, but she was glad she didn’t have to talk to anyone until tomorrow, when she’d agreed to have breakfast with the director of the ceramic arts program.
Two hours later she let the jets from the spa bathtub massage her muscles and thought about getting one for home.
Home. The studio. Dani sat straight up. She’d been so busy she’d forgotten to check the shop’s voicemail. Hopefully she hadn’t lost any orders because of it.
As soon as she was dressed, Dani turned her cell phone on. There was a call and message from Keith thirty minutes ago. She quickly called him back. “Sorry,” she said when he answered. “I forgot to turn my phone back on after the workshops.”
“You never keep your phone on,” he complained.
“I forget . . . or I forget to charge it. It’s not like anyone is going to call me on it.” Until recently, her cell phone consisted of a cheap flip phone with prepaid minutes that she’d rarely turned on. No one had the number for the smartphone that Keith bought her a month ago. She knew how to turn it on and turn it off and that was about it.
“I thought you needed a better phone.”
“I liked my old phone. It was all I needed.” Dani hated that people thought she should be accessible 24/7. She had a computer and a tablet, so why would she want a smartphone that was expensive with an equally expensive plan when she only used a cell phone for calls and a few texts?
“How are you?” she asked, softening her voice.
“Good, now that you’ll be home by Monday. What time are you leaving in the morning?”
She never told him she’d be home by Monday—he’d assumed she would be. “I’m not sure what my plans are other than I’m having breakfast with Evelyn.”
“Oh.”
She narrowed her eyes at the censure in his voice. Dani had accepted long ago that he’d never liked her teacher and mentor. “I’ll call you before I leave.”
“Good. You sound tired. Get some rest.”
“I am, and I will, and thank you for caring.” And he did care, but sometimes . . .
She disconnected and padded to the coffee station in the room and picked up an herbal tea pod. Maybe that would help her sleep.
She suddenly remembered that she still needed to check her business messages. She dialed the number. The first two messages were people wanting to know about pieces featured on her website, mainly the price. The next three were people signing up for classes at her studio in June, and the last four were orders. Her eyes widened as she listened to the next one. A request from a deputy in Tennessee. Probably wanting money. Then she frowned. Scammers didn’t normally leave their badge numbers. The smooth-voiced deputy hadn’t left a landline number, only his cell.
This Mark Lassiter had credited her with having enough sense to be wary if he’d left a number claiming it was for the sheriff’s office. She listened to the message again, writing down his badge and phone number, then googled the Russell County Sheriff’s Office. They had a website, and even a Facebook page. She clicked on the website first.
The only photos on the site were of the sheriff, an older man, and the chief deputy, who was a woman. Both carried the last name of Stone. Interesting. Before she opened her Facebook app, she looked up the county’s location. Just north of Chattanooga. Why did a deputy in East Tennessee want to talk to her?
Dani clicked over to the Russell County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page and scrolled through the photos until she came to a photo gallery of deputies. She recognized the chief deputy’s photo. Alex Stone.
She clicked on each photo, smiling at the one of a beautiful German shepherd, then Dani noticed the man standing beside the dog. The caption read “Mark Lassiter and Gem.”
So the man really existed. And not only existed, but by anyone’s reckoning ought to be a model for one of those calendars of firefighters and law enforcement officers showing off their pecs and biceps. Not that Mark Lassiter was shirtless, but the black T-shirt fit his torso like a glove.
She clicked out of the photo. What was she doing, ogling the man like he was eye candy? Heat crawled up her neck, and Dani clicked out of the Facebook page and back to the website to get the number for the office. She hesitated before dialing. It was after eight. Would they be closed? Then she shook her head. Of course not—law enforcement offices didn’t close.
“Russell County Sheriff’s Office,” a woman’s voice answered.
Dani gave her name, then said, “I had a message from Mark Lassiter, who said he was a deputy there.”
“Yes, ma’am. We have a K-9 officer by that name.”
That fit the Facebook photo. She read off the cell phone and badge number she’d written down. “Can you verify that those belong to the deputy?”
“If you’ll hold, I’ll check and see.” A minute later she came back on the line. “Both numbers are correct.”
“Is he there now?”
“He’s off duty, but if he left his cell number, feel free to call him. Or I can take a message.”
“Thank you. I believe I’ll give him a call.” Dani disconnected and grabbed a bottle of water from the hotel refrigerator. So, the call wasn’t spam. She punched in the area code. But what if the call is bad news?
Dani brushed that thought away. How could it be anything bad when she didn’t know a soul in East Tennessee? She finished dialing and held her breath while it rang.
“This is Mark Lassiter.”
The voice was even smoother than on the message and sent a shiver over Dani. The man ought to be in radio or TV. She cleared her throat. “This is Dani Collins. I believe you left a message for me on my answering machine.”
“I did. Can you give me a minute? I’m just leaving Pete’s Diner.”
“You want to call me back?”
“No, if you’ll just hold on a sec while I pay.”
Voices mixed with the sounds of silverware clinking on plates. Two minutes later, everything was quiet. “Sorry, but the diner was kind of noisy. I could barely hear you.”
“It’s fine. Why did you call me?” The brief silence on the other end of the line had her gripping her phone tighter. Then her stomach dipped when he sucked in a deep breath. “Has something happened to my uncle?”
Stupid question since her uncle was nowhere near Tennessee, but it was her first thought.
“Your uncle? No. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know your uncle.”
Her muscles relaxed slightly. “What’s so difficult about telling me why you called?”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “And it’s been more than a day since I called you, and I just worked a really bad accident. Give me a second to collect my thoughts.”
“I’m sorry. I hope no one was—”
“It was only by the grace of God there were no fatalities.”
“Good.” She didn’t often run into a man who talked about God with a stranger so easily. “Would you like to call me back when you get it together?”
“No. Now that I have you, I don’t want to let you go.”
She couldn’t keep from chuckling.
“Oh, man,” he muttered. “That didn’t come out right.”
“It’s okay. I know what you meant. So, what’s complicated about it?”
Again, he took a deep breath. “I’m working a cold case, and maybe if I give you the background, it’ll be easier for you to understand.”
“Okay.” A compulsive note-taker, Dani put the phone on speaker and then picked up a hotel notepad and pen from the nearby desk.
She printed the deputy’s name at the top of the page and circled it. Then Dani wrote down key words as he described an unsolved murder case, her writing slowing as he moved on to the disappearance of a nine-year-old girl.
She tried to swallow but suddenly her mouth was bone dry. She uncapped the water and took a long draw. “How old . . .”—she kept a tight rein on her thoughts—“would this girl be now?”
“The murders happened twenty-five years ago, so she would be thirty-four.”
“Her name?” She barely got the question out.
“Danielle Bennett.”
Danielle. Dani covered her mouth with her hand. The name was only a coincidence. The story didn’t have anything to do with her.
A groan escaped her lips, and Lizi padded over and put her head on Dani’s thigh. “Why are you telling me this?” She forced the words through her lips.
“The grandmother, Mae Richmond, is a friend of mine. A few days ago, she showed me a magazine with your photo in it. She’d brought it to the sheriff’s office along with a photo of the nine-year-old girl and asked us—my boss, Alex Stone and me—for help. We submitted the photos to a facial recognition company in Chattanooga.”
Dani’s head felt like there was a spinning gyroscope inside it. “The results?” she whispered into the phone.
“There’s a 95 percent chance you’re my friend’s granddaughter, Danielle Bennett.”