Nicole walked through the glass doors and stood with her hands on her hips as the warm air pressed against her skin. She turned and looked through the windows toward the horizon. Nothing yet. Sunrise was still a few hours away, but when it touched the sky and warmed the air, snow would fall from the banked clouds.
Her team was scrambling over the ice, preserving evidence. Still, much would be lost, destroyed by the weather. And there was nothing they could do about that. She had depleted her department of manpower and borrowed from MHP. Even Border Patrol had sent over dogs. She looked at her watch. They’d have arrived by now. A handful of German shepherds and their handlers prancing through the snowy woods. They would scent off the gloves easily. Where would it lead them?
The rapist-turned-murderer and the watcher.
Who was Beatrice Esparza? Why had she caught the attention of two predators?
Nicole approached reception and smiled at Daisy Le Duce. The woman had worked at the Huntington as long as Nicole had been in Toole County, but she was also the matron of the arts for the Summer Sunlit Festival and volunteered one evening each month at the lockup. She read Bible verses or recipes from the Betty Crocker All-American Cookbook—the only reading material currently allowed at the jail.
“The Esparza family,” Nicole said. “What room are they in, Daisy?”
The older woman was slow to move. The papery skin around her eyes crinkled and she leaned against the counter, closer to Nicole’s words. “She never came back, did she?” Daisy asked.
“Who?”
“The girl. Beatrice.”
Nicole removed her gloves and tucked them into her coat pockets. Then she leaned against the counter and studied Daisy’s open face. She was solid. She fussed some but stepped up more. “You saw her leave?”
“Yes. And I haven’t seen her since.”
“When was that?”
“Yesterday, around four, I think. When the family left for Christmas dinner.”
Twelve hours had passed. “And she didn’t return with the family?”
“No. I asked Dr. Esparza about her. Beatrice was a talker. Real friendly. She would have stopped by to say good-night.”
“But not yesterday?”
“No.”
“And you’ve been on shift?”
She nodded. “A double or swing every day this week and next—for the families, you know.”
Daisy’s husband had passed away two years ago and her children lived out of state. She visited them every spring, but they seldom came north to see their mother. Daisy filled in so others could spend time with their families over the holidays.
“Dr. Esparza? That’s Beatrice’s father?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say when you questioned him?”
“He said that Beatrice was tired,” Daisy informed her. “That she’d been on the slopes, in the hot tub, that the whole family had gotten up early to open presents, so a long day.”
Plausible. But it was 4:00 AM. The parents had to know their child was missing, and yet they hadn’t called the police. That was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
“When did the Esparzas check in?”
“December twenty-first. They’re staying through the New Year.”
Nicole nodded. “Call their room.”
Daisy dialed and handed the phone to Nicole. It rang only twice before it was picked up, and the male voice on the other end was crisp, clear, and bore no evidence of sleep.
“Dr. Esparza?”
A long pause, and then the single word—“Yes”—wavered in the thick, slightly accented voice.
“My name is Nicole Cobain, sheriff of Toole County.” She waited. She let the moment draw out a full thirty seconds without a response and felt the tension gather on the other end of the line. She heard the exhale of breath, a steady, almost measured movement. She heard a voice behind him, in the room—muffled, rapid speech. “Sir?” she prompted.
“Yes, Sheriff?”
He put weight on her title, spoke louder than he had before. The changes weren’t subtle. He was sending someone in the room a message: police.
This wasn’t a first-time experience for Nicole. A call from the police made a person edgy. In the early-morning hours it intensified fear, narrowed purpose. Something was wrong, and it would be life changing.
“I’m on my way up, sir,” Nicole informed him. “Could you wake your wife, please?”
“She is awake,” he assured her.
Nicole took the elevator to the third floor and, following Daisy’s directions, turned right into a corridor that was more window than plaster. Outside, scattered light poles pressed back the shadows of evergreen trees. The courtyard had been shoveled, and the stone tables and benches were ready for seating around fire pits that were ignited at dawn and extinguished at 10:00 PM. Inside, the walls were covered in local art. Mostly landscapes, but there were a few canvas portraits. Nicole recognized Standing Bull and Asiniiwin, the Chippewa leader who had managed, through much strife, to keep peace during the Land Act years. Artifacts from the cowboy life were mounted on the walls—a frayed and obviously used lasso; a collection of spurs dating back, according to one placket, 118 years; and a series of shots of the once-famous Jim Shoulders, the sixteen-time pro-rodeo world champion, in full motion atop a Brahman bull.
The Wild West was a best seller.
She found the room and knocked on the door. She let a moment pass and then identified herself through the solid wood, keeping her tone even. She was aware of three things: their daughter was dead; if Beatrice Esparza had gone missing, the family had neglected to alert police; and Dr. Esparza was a careful man.
He answered the door wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a hooded sweat shirt. He stood an inch or two shorter than Nicole and was slim and graying. A small dagger of hair grew under his bottom lip.
“Come in.” He stepped back and allowed Nicole into the suite.
Mrs. Esparza sat on the couch, perched on the very edge of it, with her hands clasped between her knees. She was wrapped in a fleece robe but hadn’t removed her makeup. Their son, whom Dr. Esparza introduced as Joaquin, slouched in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
None of them looked like they had slept.
The tension in the room vibrated with a frequency Nicole wasn’t able to tap into. It was more than the arrival of bad news. This family had been awake and alert long before Nicole arrived. If the exhaustion around their eyes and the tightness of their shoulders and limbs were anything to go by, they’d been waiting for Nicole about as long as they’d been waiting for Beatrice.
“You have a daughter,” Nicole began.
“Yes, Beatrice,” the mother said. She leaned forward, and Nicole recognized the look of hope in the woman’s eyes, the defeat in her flat mouth. And Nicole felt a tremor in her own limbs, an unsteady connection to this woman, this mother, who was not unlike Nicole herself, whose worst nightmare would be the loss of her son. Her stomach churned with the news she would impart. There were no soft words, there would be no promises. Simply an end.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Esparza,” Nicole began.
“Have you found her?” the mother persisted.
“You knew she was missing?” Nicole countered. “But you didn’t call the police.”