“I guess I’ll just give him a call, then.” My smile was as fake as a three-dollar bill.
“Whatever. Let me know if you find out anything about Liam, won’t you?” She moved to the door, head held high. “Have a nice day, Sheriff.”
She left the room, leaving behind the scent of her sickening sweet perfume and a sour taste in my mouth.
****
Saturday, the Rotary Club sent over the footage I’d requested of their parking lot for Thursday night. The actual meeting and slideshow had lasted four hours, and I’d need to carve out a chunk of time to watch all the footage of the parking lot. But first, I’d focused on the time that Lincoln had left the club. I’d wanted to see if maybe someone had followed him home from the club.
As if I hadn’t had enough stress trying to solve Lincoln’s murder, Liam James now appeared to be officially missing. He hadn’t shown up for work at the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office since Thursday morning. No one had seen or heard from him sincehe’d finished his patrol shift Thursday evening. The hospitals had no record of him being brought in, and there were no accidents reported with his vehicle. The last known location of his phone had been somewhere between Dallas and Rainy Dale, Thursday evening.
Already feeling overwhelmed, I could have screamed when my digital guy, Steve, happened to knock on my door at the same time the ME sent over the autopsy report for Kyle Segrott. Distracted, I barely gave the report a glance and waved Steve into the room.
“What’s the word?” I asked distractedly.
Steve plopped down in the nearest chair. “Lincoln Johnson didn’t have a secret life.”
“Okay.”
“The man was as pure as the driven snow. There wasn’tonepornographic photo on his hard drive. It was disconcerting, if I’m completely honest.”
“Why?” I gave a confused smile.
“What red-blooded man doesn’t have any porn on his computer?”
I frowned. “I don’t have porn on my computer.”
He raised his brows. “Seriously? What are you, a monk?”
I smiled at his horrified expression. “Well, no, I’m not a monk. If I want to look at something like that, I’ll go look. But I don’t download it to my computer.”
“Really?”
I scrunched my face. “Why would I? It’s not like there isn’t plenty more where that came from. Why would I need to… save it?”
“What if the internet goes out?”
I laughed gruffly. “I guess I’ll just have to make do with the real live man who sleeps in my bed?”
Steve grinned. “How archaic.”
I chuckled, crossing my fingers over my stomach. “What about Lincoln’s phone?”
“No threatening messages. No weird voicemails. I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt him. He seemed to have a ton of friends, and he didn’t have money problems. I seriously don’t see why he’d be a target.”
I frowned. “Yeah, I’m having the same problem. I can’t find anyone at the Rotary Club or anywhere else who didn’t like the guy. His neighbors loved him too. He wasn’t burgled, as far as I can tell.”
“Did you have any luck with the red truck?”
“It went nowhere. Henry’s Car Rentals does have a red truck, and the last three numbers on the license matched the ones Jesse Daley gave us. Problem is, the kid who runs the front desk told my deputies that truck hasn’t been leased in over a month.”
“Could he be lying? Maybe he takes it out for joyrides.”
I squinted at him. “How would that connect to Lincoln’s murder?”
“Maybe they knew each other.”
“Did you see any calls to Henry’s Car Rentals on Lincoln’s phone?”
