Page 58 of Night Hawk
Blake leaned over the seat. “You should know, there wasn’t anyone on the list with the initials RSL.”
Toni nodded, but her heart was heavy. She’d foolishly hoped the last initial could have stood for Long, even if it made no sense. Her sister would be in her early forties, far too old to be trafficked. Assuming she was still alive.
Clay glanced at Blake. “Do you think Ziegler has any info about trafficking in the area?”
“Not likely. He was retired before we had any issues in the county. And even then, it was mostly enforced labor, not sex trafficking.”
“When did that change?”
“Three years or so before I retired. Was one of the reasons I called it quits. When something so ugly makes it to small-town America, you know things have changed. Wasn’t hard to give the job up to be with Emory.” Blake’s dreamy smile spoke to his love for his wife.
A bolt of jealousy stabbed Toni. Surprising? Not really. She didn’t want to go through life alone. She just didn’t know if she was the marrying kind. With her mom dying when she was ten and her grandparents never in her life, she didn’t have a good frame of reference for what made a strong marriage. She remembered her parents arguing frequently. Now she had to wonder if Lisa was the reason.
Toni had seen similar tragedies tear marriages apart. Often one spouse blamed the other. But who do you blame when a child disappears from their grandparents’ house? Clearly her dad believed she’d been taken and had been doing everything he could to find her. But did Toni’s mom think Lisa had drowned? Since Toni’s father killed her granduncle, she had to think he’d believed Andrew was involved. That was the only thing that made sense.
Clay glanced at Blake. “Tell us what you know about Rader’s wife.”
Blake took a long breath. “Her name’s Ursula. She’s a Russian immigrant. Rader once farmed his land for Christmas trees, and Ursula had married a Hispanic guy who traveled as a migrant worker. She traveled with him, and they came to work tree farms in the area in October to harvest trees for shipping out of state.”
Blake shifted in his seat. “The husband was knifed in a bar fight and died. She was terrified of being on her own, and Rader took a liking to her. Asked her to stay on, and he married her within a month. She was a real looker, and there were rumors of her messing around behind Rader’s back. But then they had Jason, and she settled down for a while. When the kid got older, she started up with other men again.”
“You think she ran off with one of these men?” Clay asked.
Blake shrugged. “Since she was never reported missing, an investigation wasn’t opened, but I know Ziegler made casual queries. From what others told him, she liked to go bar hopping in other towns and pick up random men. Many of the men were married, so they didn’t volunteer a lot of information.”
“What about twine?” Toni asked. “Anything unusual around that?”
“You can find twine on most farms, but like I said, they didn’t investigate so I doubt they looked for it. And of course, they had no idea of what Rader was into.”
They fell silent for a moment and Toni looked at Blake. “Any chance we can get ahold of the file for Lisa’s abduction?”
He glanced back at her. “It’s possible Ziegler made copies of his unsolved cases. I thought about doing the same thing. Figured I might have some free time to work them. But then I decided if I had any free time, it would be spent with Emory. No more living for the job only. Leads to a very lonely life.”
At the finality in his tone, she settled back. He was not so subtly telling them both to consider how they were letting work consume their lives. She got that, but she not only had her father’s death to investigate, but her missing sister and a long list of girls counting on her. Now wasn’t the time to back off. It was the time to do more. Much more.
Clay swung the vehicle onto Rader’s gravel drive and killed the engine.
She reached for her handle, but Clay had already gotten out and was opening her door. “You’ve got me, Drake, and Blake here, but keep your head on a swivel, okay?”
“Sure.” She walked beside him toward the backyard.
Blake fell into formation on her other side as if he were part of their team. A law enforcement officer might retire, but the cautious outlook remained. Always vigilant. Always carrying. Always protective.
They stepped through the tall grass and weeds toward Drake, who stood at the corner of the house. He’d already spotted them and nodded an acknowledgment.
“What’s happening?” Clay moved past his brother and cupped a hand over his eyes against the sun to survey the property stretching out ahead of them.
“Looks like Kelsey’s gotten six hits,” Drake said.
Toni stared at him. “Six? You’re kidding, right?”
“No. She’s been flying the drone since we got here and pounded in six markers.”
Toni scanned the area, counting the markers, all but one grouped in a far corner of the property. The sticks made her think of crosses in a cemetery. Was one of these markers resting over Lisa? Her sister? Killed at a young age and buried here like trash. Thrown away with five other girls. Or maybe with Rader’s wife.
“Wonder how it works.” Toni watched Kelsey pilot the drone over a marker-free area, trying to focus on anything but the possibilities of who was buried there.
“I asked Kelsey, and she was more than happy to tell me.” Drake chuckled. “She said the thing uses infrared imaging to detect bodies both above and below ground. She said even if a body has been moved, the technology can find where a corpse was once buried and removed for up to two years afterward.”
