Lizzie
Lizzie stood on the rotting porch and peered through the half-open door. “Hello?” No one answered.
Murphy, beside her, had her gun in hand. “Push it open.”
Lizzie tried calling again. “Isabella? Ethan sent us.”
Still nothing.
Lizzie hesitated and then she glanced at Murphy. “Maybe you should put away the gun before we go in.”
Murphy shook her head. “Petersen is a dangerous son-of-a-bitch.”
“If he was here, he’s gone. If he’s not here, you could scare someone. And you know what people do in Texas when they’re scared.”
“Darling, you worry too much.” But Murphy slid the gun back out of sight.
“We’re coming in.” Lizzie pushed on the door. It creaked open. Her first sight confirmed Ethan’s description of the place—a weekend home for an older person. It had that kind of decor and feel—with a musty smell that mingled with something else, something fresh that Lizzie took a second to identify. Then she did.
“Goddamn. Smell that?” she asked Murphy.
Murphy didn’t answer, but the gun came out again.
The body wasn’t visible until she turned around and saw it on the floor in front of a window, blood pooling on the floor from a gunshot in the middle of his chest. An older man lay with his eyes half open, a hunting knife in one hand.
Lizzie should have dealt with Petersen the previous night the way she’d dealt with killers in Germany. Instead, she’d had sex with him, rooted through his files, and found nothing. She used to know what to do with monsters, and then she’d put all that behind her.
As a result, an old man had been murdered.
She glanced over at Murphy and saw an expression that probably mirrored her own: anger and sorrow. They’d both failed.
Murphy knelt, felt for a pulse, and shook her head. “He’s still warm, but he’s gone. We’re too late.”
“I should have killed Petersen last night.”
Murphy glanced at her, with an expression that Lizzie found hard to read. “You didn’t know he was going to murder someone.”
“We knew he was holding a woman and her child prisoner. From that to murder isn’t that far a leap.”
“It’s not your fault.” Murphy’s gaze remained trained directly on Lizzie. “And it would still have been murder if you’d killed Petersen. It’s not what you do, Lizzie.”
Maybe not what she did anymore. But she used to. “He must be the good Samaritan that Ethan mentioned. Ethan didn’t give a name. We should find out who he is.”
She started to reach for his pocket to check for a wallet, but Murphy grabbed her hand. “Don’t touch anything.”
Lizzie looked over her shoulder at the door. “Too late. We touched the door coming in. You touched him to check his pulse.”
“We’ll borrow something to wipe the door down when we leave.” Murphy straightened and stood. “And my fingerprints won’t be on his wrist. Just don’t touch anything else.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lizzie knew the drill. Don’t leave fingerprints. Don’t leave DNA. She just hadn’t needed to think about it for a few months. “Don’t call it in. Yet.”
“Not planning on it. Not until I can use a burner.”
While they might not be suspects, if they called it in to the authorities now, they’d have to use their cell phones—which meant the police would have their identities. Which meant, they would need to wait for the arrival of whoever would be in charge. She and Murphy would be detained and questioned. They’d have to say what they were doing there. Which meant either lying or explaining about Isabella’s ex-husband kidnapping her to stop her leaving the state for an abortion. If they told the truth, that could mean that even if they found Isabella, the health care she needed to stay alive would be delayed if not prevented altogether. If they told a lie, it could be even worse. But the police wouldn’t know about the old man’s murder until someone notified them—which gave her and Murphy a little time. “I want to take a look around before we leave.”
The kitchen area, with a loaf of bread on the counter and books on a table, was neat and undisturbed. Lizzie barely gave it a glance. She strode from there to the other rooms on the floor, followed by Murphy.
“What are you doing?” Murphy asked.
“Just looking.”
“They’re not here. Petersen took them.”
“I’m just making sure.”
Two bedrooms on the first floor. In one, a double bed looked as if it had been slept in. The other had a twin bed, a drawing desk, and a sewing machine.
Stairs led upward. Lizzie resisted the urge to place her hand on the rail. She walked through the two upstairs bedrooms. One was pristine, bed made, cowboy artwork on the walls. The other was in a state of disarray, a lamp overturned, clothes and shoes strewn in front of a closet, as if someone had been dragged out.
But no sign of Isabella or her four-year-old child.
“They didn’t go quietly,” Murphy said.
“No.” But they were gone. “Ethan said that she had been held at a cabin a mile up the road from this house, right? Do you think they’re stupid enough to go back there?”
“Worth a try.”
But they weren’t.
A mile up the road, the cabin was unlocked, and no vehicles visible, not Petersen’s Ram 1500, no car or truck of any kind. Just an empty dark cabin. In what was the combination living room and dining area, they found a few games geared towards young children. Two suitcases were in a back bedroom, one with woman’s clothes, one with a child’s clothes. In another bedroom, a suitcase that contained men’s clothes.
Murphy rifled through the man’s suitcase. She found a folded paystub in a pair of jeans and handed it to Lizzie.
Wyatt Hanson.
“Now what?” Lizzie asked. “Beyond knowing that Isabella’s husband and John Petersen are working together, what do we have? Fucking nothing.”
“They need a new hiding place,” Murphy said. “Someplace where they won’t have to use a credit card.”
Not fucking nothing. Maybe sleeping with Petersen had given her some indication of where to start.
“Someone sympathetic to what Petersen is doing. There’s two obvious possibilities.”