LET ME BREATHE, page 12
The number of possible reasons for Wyatt’s troubled behavior was countless.
Wyatt shoved his phone back into his pocket and stood motionless in front of the SUV as though he was considering his situation. Maybe he was pondering his next move. Whatever he was doing, Ashley felt fairly certain that Wyatt wasn’t thinking about the homicide case.
He must have used the moment to regain his composure because when he climbed back into the driver’s seat, his poker face had returned. He stared straight ahead as he started the SUV’s engine, avoiding Ashley’s gaze. If he was worried that she’d ask questions, he could rest easy.
Ashley planned to keep her mouth shut.
With the awkward silence hanging between them, she focused her attention outside the passenger window as the SUV glided back onto Main Street. They’d only traveled two blocks when Wyatt’s cell rang again.
Ashley felt the tension radiate from his body as he fished in his pocket for the phone. She realized that they both assumed it was Kaylee calling back.
“Clark,” he answered, a bit of the tension fading.
The fact that Wyatt had used his last name as a greeting let Ashley know that the call pertained to business.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said into the phone.
Ashley could hear the muffled tones of a male voice on the other end of the line.
“Thank you for letting us know.”
As Wyatt ended the call, he met Ashley’s gaze.
“Another person spotted our suspect,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Daphne Lochridge shoved the kitchen door closed with her foot as she balanced the chef salad and two Styrofoam glasses of iced tea in her arms. Tilting her head, she blew a strand of her dark brown hair out of her face. The realization that each of her days proved indistinguishable from the one before weighed on her. Mundane cases occupied her mornings. At lunch, she ate the same meal from the same restaurant. Watched the same soap opera on television. And she spent the majority of her afternoons staring at her office wall and surfing the internet.
In the city, she’d never had time to watch TV or play on the computer. She’d worked long, grueling hours—sometimes missing lunch all together. But she’d loved it. The cases crowding her docket in Nashville had merited her diligence. They’d contained substance. And closing each one had filled her with a sense of accomplishment.
Here in Sparks County, Daphne barely had enough work to keep the doors of her law practice open. There were no friends to fill her free time. And her only excitement was gleaned from following the fictional lives of the characters on a daytime soap.
Daphne sighed and unloaded her lunch on top of the kitchen’s eating bar. Lacey’s toenails clicked against the hardwood floor as the Maltese ran toward her.
“Hi, baby. Are you ready to go out?”
Wallace had called Daphne earlier to let her know that Lacey was eating a treat off of the floor. Which hit her as no real surprise considering their pantry was stocked full of canine delicacies. Daphne wished her husband would pay as much attention to her needs and wants as he did to those of their dog.
But Wallace had developed the habit of discounting her feelings as though they were of no real importance.
As Daphne knelt down to give Lacey a cuddle, the Maltese licked her cheek. The dog’s breath reeked. What kind of treat had she managed to find? Daphne scooped Lacey into her arms and carried her through the kitchen into the family room.
The dog squirmed as Daphne opened the French door. The second Lacey’s feet hit the concrete patio, she shot off across the back yard.
Returning to the kitchen, Daphne washed her hands.
Sometimes she felt jealous that Wallace had found happiness in Sparks County. It was childish, she knew. The wish that her husband would grow to hate the area as much as she did plagued her thoughts. But at this point, a change of heart on his part seemed an impossibility. After all, he’d been born here. Mountain blood coursed through his veins.
Wallace had begged her to move for a solid year.
“We can build a larger home and raise our children in the fresh air,” he’d said.
After a repeat offender had raped one of her colleagues in the parking garage of their Nashville law firm, Daphne had given in. She’d allowed the fear of crime in the city to dictate the course of her life.
And now, she was paying for it.
Uttering another sigh, Daphne pushed aside the measly packet of dressing furnished by the restaurant and grabbed a giant bottle of creamy ranch from the refrigerator. She dumped a hefty portion of the dressing onto her salad. As she returned the bottle to the refrigerator’s shelf, a strange noise echoed from the direction of the family room.
Was Lacey pawing at the back door?
She moved to the kitchen window and peered outside. Lacey romped across the rear corner of the fenced backyard, playing with one of her pink tennis balls.
What had made the noise?
Daphne inched toward the doorway leading into the family room. The house lay quiet and still. Nothing seemed out of place. Maybe she’d heard the central heat kicking on.
Despite all the wide-open space, the fresh mountain air, and the uncrowded streets, there were times when Sparks County scared her more than the city ever had. It felt as though the small town of Tomlinson had robbed her of the person she used to be. Like it was choking the life out of her.
Daphne realized that if she didn’t escape, she’d die a slow death here.
As soon as she wrapped up the business with Hoyt Hollis and his granddaughter, Trina, Daphne planned to make a change.
She would announce to Wallace that she was moving back to Nashville. If he refused to join her, she’d file for divorce. A part of her still loved him. But he wasn’t the same man she’d married. And it wasn’t just due to the tryst she’d caught him having last winter.
Although Wallace claimed to love her and had even stated—only a few weeks prior—that he was ready to start a family, something was missing between them. Over the course of their five-year relationship, he had transformed from understanding and supportive of her career and her feelings to indifferent.
And indifference felt much colder than hate.
Daphne kicked off her leather pumps, grabbed her lunch, and padded into the family room. She placed her drinks on the coffee table and sank down onto the sofa. Stuffing a bite of salad into her mouth, she switched on the giant TV Wallace had purchased during their last trip to Nashville.
On the screen, a pair of young lovers danced to a haunting ballad, their bodies swaying in the moonlight. For a second, Daphne allowed her mind to drift back to a time before the move to Sparks County. When she’d first fallen in love with Wallace and thought they had the whole world at their feet.
As the camera panned away from the dancing couple, the image faded to black.
Daphne caught sight of her reflection in the darkened screen.
A man moved in behind her.
Daphne screamed as fear sliced through her heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Ashley arranged the twelve mugshots in two rows atop the dented metal table in the interview room at the Sparks County Sheriff’s office. Although the meeting wasn’t an interrogation, the atmosphere in the tiny room with pale green walls seemed to have set the witness’s nerves on edge. Or rather than the stark surroundings, maybe it was the fact that inmates were housed just down the hallway that made the woman appear uneasy.
Whatever the reason, Ashley hoped the young brunette’s anxiousness wouldn’t interfere with her recollection.
“Is one of these men the person you saw at the preprocessing center?” she asked.
Along with the host of fortyish-year-old criminals who fit their supposed profile, Ashley had added Curtis Crick’s mugshot into the mix.
Joelle Neave chewed her bottom lip, her navy-jacketed arms hugged tight around her body, as she leaned forward and scrutinized the photos. She took an unusual amount of time as though agonizing over each face.
Maybe Joelle needed a nudge to remember, to transport herself back to the previous day.
“Can you tell me exactly what you witnessed yesterday?” Ashley asked her.
The young woman nodded. “Well, I’d just gotten to work,” she began, “And I was walking across the parking lot when this car pulled in. It was going real slow. Like the guy was checking the place out or something. When he seen me, he pulled his hat down, kinda close to his eyes, and looked the other way. He just gave me a real creepy feeling, ya know?”
“The man was wearing a hat?”
Ashley wondered whether it was a cowboy hat or some other distinguishing garment they could add to the suspect’s description.
“A ball cap. It was blue.”
“Did the ball cap have any type of logo or emblem on it?
“I don’t think so.”
Ashley had hoped the suspect had worn something unique. It was likely that half the male population of Sparks County owned a plain blue ball cap.
“Do you remember what type of car the man was driving?”
“I ain’t real good with cars. Of knowing what kind they are, I mean. But it was dark blue and seemed real old.”
Joelle’s description matched the previous reports of their suspect’s vehicle.
“What time was it when you saw this man?”
“Early. About a quarter till seven. That’s what was so weird. We don’t take deliveries until eight o’clock. It says so right on the sign out front.”
Ashley waited to see if Joelle would elaborate, but the woman’s gaze snapped back to the photo lineup. She seemed to have relaxed a bit.
“If I had to say who he looked the most like,” the woman said, tilting her head. “It would be this man right here.”
Joelle picked up Crick’s mugshot and handed it to Ashley.
“Is this the man you saw?”
Crick had provided an alibi for the prior day, and it had checked out. But that didn’t mean someone hadn’t lied for the man.
“Naw, it ain’t him. There’s something different about the guy I seen. But this man here favors him.”
“What’s different about the person you saw at the preprocessing center?”
Joelle shrugged. “I ain’t really sure. He was just—different.”
Based on her statement, Joelle had obviously encountered the same man who’d been seen leaving the parking lot of the waste treatment facility.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about the person you saw?”
“About the man?” Joelle shook her head. “Naw. But I do remember something else about the car. It had a sticker on the back.”
A bumper sticker?
“What kind of sticker did it have, and where was it located?”
“It was on the passenger side. On the bumper. It was old and kinda peeled off, but I could still read it. It said: See Rock City.”
Hope stirred in Ashley’s chest. Although the attraction located on top of Lookout Mountain in northern Georgia still hosted tourists, the last time Ashley recalled seeing a bumper sticker advertisement was during her childhood. The rare sticker should enable them to issue a BOLO for the vehicle.
“Would you be willing to work with a TBI sketch artist to come up with a drawing of this man?”
“I guess so.”
Ashley heard a knock on the interview room door. She assumed it was Wyatt. They’d been coordinating the details of the coming night’s stakeout of the preprocessing center with the sheriff when Joelle had arrived. As soon as they’d finished, Brenda had called Wyatt wanting an update on their progress. Deciding to give her partner some privacy—just in case the deputy director issued harsh words—Ashley had begun the interview with Joelle alone.
“Come in,” Ashley called.
Wyatt pushed through the door. He introduced himself to Joelle and then slipped into the metal chair next to Ashley.
“Any luck identifying the man you saw?” he asked Joelle.
“He ain’t in these pictures,” she stated, motioning toward the mugshots spread across the tabletop.
Ashley said, “Joelle has agreed to meet with a sketch artist.”
Wyatt nodded. “Good. I’ll get that set up. Are you available tomorrow afternoon?”
“I reckon that’ll be okay,” Joelle said. “As long as it’s after four o’clock.”
“Let’s plan on five-thirty then. We’ll do it here at the station.”
Maybe they would get lucky, and Joelle would remember enough about the man’s facial features to construct an accurate drawing. One that would lead to an identification of their suspect.
“Is that all y’all need today?” the young woman asked, pulling her jacket tight around her body in what appeared to be an attempt at emotional self-comfort rather than to ward off a chill.
Wyatt glanced at Ashley. Probably to make sure she had finished her questioning.
“We appreciate your help,” he said. “You’re free to go. But if you remember anything else, call us.”
“Okay, I will.”
Wyatt stood and opened the door for Joelle. Once the young woman had disappeared down the hallway, he turned back to Ashley.
The expression that crossed Wyatt’s face let her know that something had gone wrong. She wondered whether it was related to the homicide case or if it concerned his personal life.
He sighed. “You know those drums in the back of Crick’s truck?”
“Are you referring to the toxic waste that almost killed us when it hit the windshield of your SUV?” she replied in a facetious tone. “Yes, I remember them.”
“One of the barrels leaked. The EPA had to send a hazmat team up to the mountain.”
Ashley’s stomach sank.
“I’m guessing that Brenda’s not very happy with the situation,” she said.
“You got it.”
Although she didn’t want to ask him, Ashley wondered whether the toxic waste spill would affect Wyatt’s “on notice” status with Brenda. She hoped that it wouldn’t jeopardize his job. They’d had no other alternative than to chase Crick. If the man had proven to be the killer, and they’d let him go, things would have been much worse. Brenda had to understand that.
Ashley heard heavy footsteps outside in the hall.
The tall frame of Sheriff Pickens crowded the doorway, his weathered face lined with worry.
“We just got a call,” Pickens said. “It looks like it’s connected to your homicide case.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Ashley snapped on a pair of latex gloves, slipped protective covers over the soles of her hiking boots, and then followed Wyatt into the foyer of the two-story brick home on the outskirts of Tomlinson. The home’s owner, Wallace Lochridge, had reported his wife missing, stating that he believed she’d been abducted. And the Sparks County deputy who’d responded to the 911 call had spotted a clue in the home possibly linking Daphne Lochridge’s disappearance to the homicide of Hannah Kemp.
At this point, Ashley and Wyatt had no idea what type of evidence the deputy had found that connected the two women.
Hearing a male voice, Ashley turned toward her right and peered into the adjacent dining room. An attractive, dark-haired man, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, paced behind the mahogany dining table. Concern masked his face as he spoke into a cell phone. Ashley assumed that the man was Wallace. A sheriff’s deputy stood nearby. She couldn’t tell whether the deputy was waiting for Wallace to conclude the phone call, or if he was just keeping an eye on things.
Wyatt leaned toward Ashley.
“Let’s check out the scene first,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “Then we’ll get the husband’s story.”
With a nod, she crossed the foyer and edged through a wide doorway into the family room. A mahogany accent table sat askew against the wall to her left as though it had been bumped into and moved. Three burgundy pillar candles and three black metal holders lay strewn across the hardwood floor. Ashley knelt down next to a silver-framed photo of an older couple, a diagonal crack running along the glass. The items had obviously been knocked from the table, possibly during a struggle.
Wyatt met her gaze, seeming to share her thoughts, and then headed through the doorway on the right. The garage was located on that end of the house, so she guessed that he’d entered the kitchen.
As Ashley stood, she heard a soft whining sound. Her eyes flew toward the back French doors. A little white dog stared back, its face pushed against the glass. Ashley wondered whether the dog had been inside the house when Wallace had discovered his wife missing. And if the little fluff ball had contaminated evidence.
Pulling out her cell phone, Ashley shot several photos of the accent table and the items that littered the floor. A team of TBI forensic techs would arrive soon, but she wanted to go ahead and document the scene just in case the dog squeezed its way into the house and disturbed things.
Satisfied with the photos, she advanced into the family room. She made her way down the length of one arm of the sectional sofa, her gaze sweeping left to right, and then back again.
A jolt of surprise hit Ashley.
White footprints marred the hardwood floor at the far end of the sofa.
An overturned Styrofoam box and the remnants of a salad, slathered in dressing, rested nearby. Someone had stepped in the salad, tracking the creamy dressing across the floor. From the size of the footprints, the suspect appeared to be a man. And from the shape of the print’s heel and toe, it looked as though he’d been wearing cowboy boots.
Just like the print found at Hannah’s murder scene.
Ashley realized the footprints must be the reason the deputy believed Daphne’s abduction was linked with the homicide case. And he was likely right.
If Wallace had killed his wife and staged the scene, he wouldn’t have allowed his own prints to be left behind. And no one outside of law enforcement knew their homicide suspect wore cowboy boots. So, a frame-up job by Wallace seemed almost impossible.
