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The first time he made it into Value town limits, Glen snorted at how ridiculously down-home hick the little town was. Whistling the tunes to older Texas country songs, he’d driven his old truck down the main drag, actually waving at the sheriff as he passed.
It took him a moment to put together just exactly who that sheriff was.
Clay Addy. Of course. The prick deputy who’d put Glen behind bars.
He’d googled the man during one of his times in the prison computer lab.
Clay had certainly moved up in the world. Maybe. Glen parked and took another look around before deciding that the man hadn’t ended up all that much better off than Glen had.
This town was seriously a piece of shit. Most of the houses were old relics. The buildings of Main Street were almost ragged in appearance.
There was a charm about it, he supposed. But not much of one.
Glen was not made for towns this small.
Finley Creek was much better for Glen’s need to blend in.
He was such a nice guy, after all. Quiet. Stayed to himself. He didn’t seem the type.
He snorted. Sheep like those in this small town would believe anything. They never thought anything bad could happen to them.
He got himself something to eat at the diner. Then he settled in to watch the denizens of Value, Texas, go about their day.
He could have stayed in Finley Creek. But today was his first day out from under the supervision of his parole officer.
Glen was officially a free man now.
And that meant he could go wherever in the hell he wanted. Finally.
He was going to celebrate by finding himself another blonde.
There was a pretty trio of blondes walking up the street now, a passel of children in front of them. They looked enough alike to be sisters. For a moment, he entertained himself with the idea of sisters.
He’d never dated two blondes at once, let alone three.
Most of Glen’s dates were spread out over a few years, anyway. He wasn’t an overly sexual man. He had needs, but he was good at servicing himself when needed.
It was safer for a man that way. Especially with the kind of whores that were out there now.
The blondes came into the diner, with their brood along with them. The blonde in the middle was obviously pregnant. The other two were near the same age. All had the same build and same blond hair. The eyes were light, his favorite kind.
He just watched them.
Two wore wedding rings.
The third didn’t. But she had a son. A boy of about five or so. The child looked just like her and like the other children who were far too loud for Glen’s peace of mind. Pretty children.
The women were obviously well taken care of as well.
Someone joked about one of the blondes and the mayor. He took it to mean the woman’s husband was the mayor of this little Texas shit hole.
Glen understood what fate was telling him. He could look. But he wasn’t about to touch.
Someone as well connected as those blondes would only bring a man like him trouble.
That was confirmed when the sheriff himself walked in and was greeted by two of those women easily. One even kissed Addy’s cheek.
No.
It was time Glen got himself out of Value before he did something stupid.
He wasn’t about to face prison because of Clay Addy again.
Chapter 31
Bailey should have been back a few hours ago. Clay tried not to be concerned, but other than a quick text to Jeremy saying she'd be in as soon as she could, he hadn’t heard anything from her.
The storms were picking up, and he still had to check the bridges over near Bracker’s Mill Road. He wanted to close them off before the damned creek flooded again.
Finley Creek was actually almost the size of a river in this portion of his county, and it flooded more frequently than he wanted to deal with.
Better to close the roads and be safe rather than sorry. Some not-so-bright county residents would try to go through the floodwaters if he didn’t. Hell, even if he did.
Clay hurried out and took care of that task. When he returned to the precinct, Bailey was in the parking lot, muscling a box from the passenger seat of her vehicle. Clay hurried up to her and grabbed it. The box was almost as big as she was. "Get inside. Rain's going to break any minute."
"I need to grab another box."
She grabbed a smaller box and started across the small parking lot. Clay followed, manfully not looking at how well the green TSP pants fit her rear. Well, not looking more than once or twice.
When they were back inside, he looked at her. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Speaking with Kevin Beck. He thinks there may have been a serial killer active in the area about twenty-five years or so ago. He had photos that were left out of the original files Elliot Marshall sent us. I suspect Detective Kimball did it on purpose. He’s an ass and has a problem with my father, apparently."
"Nice."
"I got copies and am going to go over them tonight. Did you hear from the ME yet? Those reports were supposed to be ready today. I think they had to send to Wichita Falls for part, though."
"Yes. A general estimate of time frame. We're looking at approximately twenty-five to thirty-five years ago. On the Chase ranch body." Which could match up with what Kevin Beck had said, Clay thought. He wasn’t jumping to any conclusions yet.
"That's a wide range. How are we to determine exact time?"
"I don't think we'll be able to. So we're looking at a time frame on both bodies of twenty to thirty-five years ago." He hated cold cases. For this very reason. Too hard to find a starting point. And even when they had one, it often turned out to be the wrong point, and they had to do an abrupt about-face.
"Unless we can find their identities and track their last known movements."
"Missing persons cases as well. I have Jeremy running those." He would have had her calling the other counties again, but she'd been missing half the day. He needed to know what else she’d found. "I would have had you on that, but you were gone too damned long."
"Sorry." She wasn't. It was in those blue eyes of hers. Bailey was starting to lose some of her insecurity. Before she’d been abducted, she’d looked for his approval for almost every task. His or Jeremy’s, when his chief deputy was in charge. But now...now she was just doing what she had to do. Asking forgiveness rather than permission? He had to admit he was glad to see that change. He liked this newer, confident Bailey. Probably too much.
"Kevin Beck had more than I thought, and I had to run out to his place to get copies of his case files. I ate lunch there with his daughter Brynna. And I had my appointment with my therapist this morning. It took longer than expected. I'm going to work on these files tonight, though. When I get home and after I put Liam to bed. Jake has a meeting of the historical society tonight. I’m on baby duty."
He ignored the reference to her playing mommy again. And that ass Jake. "What exactly are you looking for?"
"Anything that connects the cases. Kevin—Detective Beck—mentioned that he believed Missy Layne wasn't the killer's first victim. What if they are all connected? Twenty, thirty years ago, there were a lot of things that were hidden or overlooked by the TSP. What if this is part of that? Maybe a corrupt cop didn’t want it known that there was a possible serial killer in the area? Look at everything that happened with...your uncle. Sorry. I forgot that you were related to Handley Barratt."
The odds of a serial killer being active—even twenty-five or thirty years ago—in this small area of Texas was damned slim. The odds were that the victims had been killed in domestic violence situations and buried. Or any host of other things. Serial killings were just too rare to jump right in with both feet. "We have nothing to say that our two bodies are even related to each other. Let alone connected to these others. Don't jump to conclusions, Bailey."
"I'm going to explore every option, Sheriff. How can we not?"
She had him there. "Just don't hear zebras when we have horses. Help Jeremy on the missing persons. I'll come out to Bert's tonight, and we'll go over these photos of Kevin Beck's together."