Amanda’s stomach had been growling the entire time she was with Lance Crane. How she could have an appetite at a time like this was beyond her. She and Trent were back in their respective cubicles talking over the partition.
“Just think of it this way, we’re down one suspect,” Trent said.
“And not up any. Unless you count any number of people who may have been employed at Corey’s Grocer or still are.”
“Hmph. Way to deflate a man.”
“And if I didn’t tell you already, Brad Stevens recognized our mystery man. But he just said he’d seen him as a customer in the store.”
“You didn’t tell me that, and I forgot to ask.”
“I think we need to give ourselves some forgiveness. There’s a lot weighing on us.”
“Namely Leanne and Gracie Reilly. I know I’m not the only one wondering how they are… whether they’re still…”
“Alive?” Amanda finished, and Trent nodded. “I can’t stop thinking about them.” While Trent hadn’t said much about it today, she bet he was doing a lot of thinking about his aunt too.
“Detectives,” Graves called out and hurried toward their cubicles holding her cell. “Bring me up to speed. I missed the interrogation. This thing has been ringing”—she held up her phone—“and I’ve been trying to do damage control.”
“Regarding what?” Amanda asked, sorry she had the second the question left her lips. The sergeant’s mouth turned downward into a scowl.
“Word about Leanne and Gracie Reilly has reached the media. Now every news outlet in a hundred-mile radius wants to know what PWCPD is doing to bring them home.”
“Not that returning them home would be any sort of rescue,” Trent inserted.
“You know my point,” Graves said drily. “They’re calling me. Ronald Topez from the department’s Public Information Office is too, needing direction on handling the inquiries.”
“How did they hear about it?” Amanda hated that the possibility existed for a leak with every person they spoke to along the way. Even being careful about who they mentioned names to wasn’t always enough.
“Does it matter? The damage is done.”
“And it’s not like any of those reporters are going to name names. They protect their sources,” Trent said.
“Bingo.” Graves pointed her now-ringing phone at Trent. She looked at the screen, slid a finger across it, then leveled her gaze at Amanda. “The interview with Lance Crane. How did that go?”
“His handspan and finger size aren’t a match to the bruising impressions on the victims,” Amanda said.
“But those were provided as an estimate. Could still be him.”
“Except we’re not seeing it after speaking with him,” Amanda said firmly. “And Lance Crane doesn’t have access to any properties where he could hold the victims. We suspect our killer has somewhere isolated and rural.”
“And that he has an affinity for Prince Park? The same place Lance walks his dog regularly.”
Amanda didn’t remember specifically mentioning the affinity aspect to the sergeant. But with so many balls to juggle it was hard to know what she told anyone. “We assume so given two graves were there.”
Graves’s phone rang again. She shook her head but glanced at her phone. Another finger swipe. Amanda suspected another call was sent to voicemail purgatory. But the sergeant did something else on her screen. “There. It’s silenced. I should have done that a long time ago.” She pushed her phone into a pocket and crossed her arms.
“I don’t think I mentioned the change in the killer’s behavior with the Reillys. With the Riggs and Archers, he seemed to take precautions. He took Jill Archer’s car, or in the least did something with it. The Riggs didn’t have one. He just left Reilly’s behind.”
“The killer also didn’t leave Jill Archer’s phone for us to find, like he did with Leanne Reilly,” Trent interjected.
“And with Leanne, he let himself get caught on camera,” Amanda added.
“I didn’t think we had a clear shot of his face.”
It was feeling like the sergeant was fighting forward movement. “We don’t, but he approached Leanne and Gracie within its view. Then again, maybe he didn’t even consider the cameras.” Amanda was spinning and second-guessing herself now.
“Are you able to tell from the video what vehicle the Reillys were taken in?”
“That might be a tall order, but we’re going to watch all the video from Corey’s Grocer. We’ll cross reference any vehicles that show up this past Tuesday and the one from two weeks ago,” Amanda said.
“Good way of narrowing down the possibilities,” Trent said.
“It might help.” She wasn’t getting too attached to a positive outcome though.
“Are we even sure that this Leanne Reilly went with the man under duress?” Graves asked. “You told me she seemed to know him. And why leave her phone behind? If she was in trouble, why not take it along and call for help when she got a chance? We could be jumping the gun. This man could be her lover and someone she was leaving her husband for.”
“Trent and I debated that, but it doesn’t explain why she shopped first.”
Graves worried her bottom lip. “Hmm.”
“I’m curious if his behavioral changes tell us he wants to be stopped?” Trent said. “He might not have known about her phone, but he left her car behind.”
“I don’t know… That may be stretching things,” Graves said.
“I’m not saying consciously, but—”
“Detective.” Just one word, and Graves shut down that theory. “If he wanted to stop killing, he would.”
Apparently, their sergeant didn’t buy into the mind being a mysterious universe. “Whatever the case, Sarge, I’m quite certain the Reillys need our help.” Enough talk. Time for more action.
“Another reason I came over here is to give you an update. Officers spoke with staff working in the plaza, apart from the clinic. We missed them. They were closed and open again on Monday. No more cameras to afford you more coverage of the parking lot. No one recognized that man.” Graves nodded toward Amanda, indicating the mystery man from outside of Dumfries Elementary. “So next steps? Do we have any other potential suspects?”
“We’ve just have that man from the plaza surveillance,” Trent said.
Graves glanced at him. “Well, watch it in full. Let me know if you find anything. Maybe you’ll get lucky and his face will be buried in there somewhere.”
“Will do.” Amanda’s stomach rumbled loud enough that Graves stepped back and looked at her wide-eyed.
“Might be time to grab something to eat?”
Amanda stiffened. “Doesn’t feel important right now.”
“Suit yourself.” With that, the sergeant left, pulling her phone from her pocket. Amanda just had time to think she was turning the volume back on when it rang.
“The sarge is right.”
She met Trent’s eyes. “About…?”
“You should eat something. If only to make it quieter around here.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” As if to talk back, her gut growled. “Fine. But it’s going to be something from the vending machine. Load up the video. When I get back, I want to start watching.”
“Hey, I’ve got no plans for my Friday night.”
That admission had her lost for how to react or respond. She gave him a smile and put her back to him as fast as possible. She didn’t want to give one thought to his dating life.