Chapter 9
As Walker drove his route,he used his radio and Bluetooth to make calls. Just because he was 99% positive he’d proved his father had died on this mountain didn’t mean he could shirk his official duties to investigate his personal concerns. He made his usual stops, talkedto the people along the route he was there to protect, and drew satisfaction from the basic task. These past years, he’d distanced himself too much from his original purpose in pursuing a career in justice. This job was a good reminder, although it offered a few too many opportunities to brood about what he’d lost and how he would move forward. Having Sam’s case to work on was arelief.
Once he was off duty, Walker pulled into the sheriff’s office in Baskerville. He checked his desk for the coroner’s report, but it still wasn’tready.
Sheriff Brown came in and caught Walker’s scowl. “The body’s been up there for twenty years or so. Coroner figures another few days won’t hold us up. He’s got a fresh victim to workon.”
“I’d be good with that except this skeleton isstirring up the locals. They’re only at the finger-pointing stage now, but you know how quickly that escalates.” Especially with the Lucys chanting and beating thebushes.
“That’s what we have you for, de-escalation. Don’t see how your amnesia victim fits in, though.” Brown threw a stack of papers on hisdesk.
“You’d have to understand how superstition and gossip work in a placelike Hillvale. Half the town believes in ghosts. Some of them are trying to hold exorcisms. And the Kennedys are out to sweep the whole scene out of sight. And for reasons beyond my understanding, Miss Moon is in the thick ofit.”
“Well Jennifer has the clinic lined up, like you asked. And she’s done some basic research on the family. We can’t place them in Hillvale, but the Moons are originallyfrom ’Frisco, not Utah. You might be ontosomething.”
“That’s a start, thanks. I’m going to treat Miss Moon as a missing person and run her through the database, along with Cassandra Tolliver. Two people in town have filed a missing persons report on her too.” —After he’d persuaded Harvey and Dinah that he couldn’t search without one. Legalities tended to elude the village inhabitants.“Weird to have two essentially missing persons in one smalltown.”
“Plus the skeleton, if he’s your father as you suspect. He went missing too. Not that any of this connects as far as Isee.”
The sheriff hurried off, leaving Walker to commune with his computer. It wasn’t as if he had a life after work. Once upon a time he thought he had—but that illusion had ended badly. He straightenedhis aching leg, kneading the muscle as he typed one-handed.
He dug into Samantha’s history first, since it would be the shortest and easiest. As he’d told her, she was pristine clean. She didn’t even have traffic tickets. Her driver’s license photo matched her appearance, so she was definitely the Samantha Moon in her textbook. Amazingly, she’d sought a TSA Pre-check recently, so she hadfingerprints on file. Had she planned on doing a lot of traveling? On whatmoney?
The address she’d given to the TSA was different from the one on her license. He looked it up—just graduate student housing. He sent a message to the Provo police department asking them to question the residents, but unless she was in danger or a murder suspect, they wouldn’t actquickly.
He could sendone of his investigative firm’s agents, but the downside of working corporate level research was that they were accustomed to paid travel expenses and billable hours. As CEO, he could order them to do as told, if he had good reason. But he was supposed to be taking asabbatical.
Sam’s credit bureau report showed one credit card with little activity. Her only employment history was at theuniversity. With date and place of birth, she could apply for her birth certificate. Then she could get a new social security card and driver’slicense.
Sam was only six years younger than he but her sheltered life escalated thedifference.
He sent all the information to his research assistant back inLA.
Walker noted recent credit inquiries. Often, employers would check thebureaus when they were considering a new hire. Sam must have driven to California for a reason. For a recent grad, a job made most sense. Of course, not enough employers did due diligence, so these could be dead ends. He wouldn’t make inquiries until he’d shown them toSam.
Since he’d identified Sam, he didn’t have a good excuse to investigate her parents, so he started on Cass. CassandraKennedyTolliver—Walker’s eyebrows rose over that—had been born sixty-seven years ago. She’d lived in San Francisco in her early years. She’d gone to Berkeley, and her address after that varied between Hillvale and Berkeley. Cass was practically the stereotype of the hippies who’d inhabited the commune over forty years ago—except for that Kennedy part. With that name, she could have been livingwith family at thelodge.
He’d have his assistant do a genealogy search to see how she was related to the current Kennedys. He noted Cass moved into the house on Cemetery Road when she was in her early twenties, but no mortgage or deed was filed. That indicated no ownership transfer— a family trust, perhaps. At the time, she appeared to be working for a charitable foundation as director.If she was a Kennedy, then her wealthy family had enough connections that they could have found the job and given her the house. Or they could have funded the charity for all heknew.
She married Tolliver when she was twenty-three, and he died not long after she moved into the house, when she was barely twenty-five, so she wasn’t living at the commune. They appeared to have one child—whichwas a surprise to him. None of this was helping him find her—unless he wanted to blame the Kennedys for Cass’s disappearance. She had a history of being a thorn in their collective sides—but if she was family, it was hard to imagine they’d hurther.
He found no credit cards in her name. She had no known employment these days, so there were no workplace inquiries. She kept a bank accountat one of the private banks the wealthy used, so he had to assume she’d come into money at somepoint.
She had no frigging driver’s license. How had she left the mountain?Broomstick?
Without even a driver’s license photo to use, Walker had little to enter on a missing persons bulletin, but he sent one out, then called the Monterey police to have them start questioning at the restaurantin Sam’sGPS.
He’d have to look for her sonnext.
A little after eleven, a report of shots fired in Hillvale dragged him from his desk. If the Nulls started shooting at the Lucys, he’d need to permanently rent a room at thelodge.
Sam woketo an odd howling moan that halted when she sat up, as if she’d startled an owl into silence.Rubbing her sleepy eyes, she glanced at the clock—it wasn’t evenmidnight.
The mountain air was chilly at night. She slept in heavy socks and sweats. Pulling on a cardigan she’d been using as a robe, she abandoned her bed. A cup of warm milk might relax her shattered nerves and put her back tosleep.
She wished she had a computer. A mindless game alwayshelped...
Wait, what?She remembered playing mindless computergames?
