Page 10 of Closer Than You Know (Vera Boyett #2)

Owens Residence

McDeal Road, Fayetteville, 6:00 p.m.

Bent wouldn’t have been surprised when Vee called him even if she’d told him she had landed on the moon. He’d learned to expect the unexpected when it came to the Boyett sisters, especially this one. He glanced at her, and she pretended not to notice.

They waited while the paramedics struggled to strap Owens to a stretcher. The man hadn’t moved or said a word when he was picked up and loaded onto the gurney, but as soon as the first strap was pulled over his chest, he came to life.

A half minute was required for the sedative to take effect. As suddenly as he’d started, he stopped fighting.

“We’re gone,” Paul Graves, the lead paramedic, said to Bent.

Bent gave him a nod and watched as they navigated out of the shack. After they’d loaded him into the ambulance and headed to the hospital, Bent turned to Vee. “Start from the beginning.”

Somehow Vera Mae Boyett just didn’t get the concept of teamwork. When they worked together, he kept her informed, and she was supposed to do the same.

Except she never did—not fully.

She stared at him. “Do you mean from when I arrived here?”

She knew damned well what he meant, but that was another thing about Vee: she never made this sort of thing easy.

“From the moment I last saw you today, shortly after eleven.”

“Oh.” She glanced around. “We need more light in this place.”

She moved about the room, opening blinds—the ones that worked anyway. Not that it did that much good, considering the sun was setting. The evasive tactic warned that she was attempting to decide what she intended to share and what she planned to keep to herself. If he’d learned anything from his adventures with the Boyett sisters, it was that they worked very hard to keep their secrets. As well as he believed he knew Vee, he recognized there were things she didn’t tell him. He was okay with that—unless it involved his investigation.

She dusted off her hands. “I went to see Eve.”

“You had lunch together,” he reminded her, since she appeared to have forgotten the story she’d told him.

“But we couldn’t really. Have lunch, I mean.” Seeming to gather herself, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “There was a car crash, and three family members were killed. She was working on preparing them for a family-style funeral. She couldn’t take a break.”

He nodded slowly. “I heard about that. The accident happened in Hazel Green, but the family is from Park City.” Bad, bad situation.

Vee shrugged. “I didn’t ask about the specifics. But anyway, she couldn’t leave for lunch, so we talked there.”

“I tried calling you.” He watched her closely. “I spoke with Nolan’s friends at work.”

“Sorry, I got caught up on a lead of my own.” Her expression closed completely then.

“Was this lead about Baker or the Time Thief?”

“It wasn’t about this investigation, no. Sorry. The call came and I had to check it out.”

The fact that she held his gaze steady without flinching made him smile. No matter that he was certain what she’d just said was not the whole truth, he couldn’t help himself.

Her face became lined in confusion. “Why are you smiling?”

“Because I know you’re evading the question.”

She exhaled a put-upon breath. “Fine. Eve told me about a friend Nolan had—a possible boyfriend. I went to see him. He said Nolan was focused on the Time Thief, but he had no idea about last night’s meeting or anything else about the case. My impression was that they don’t spend a lot of time talking when they’re together.”

Bent nodded. “You’re confident he knows nothing we need to hear.”

“I am.”

“All right.” He glanced around the room. “If he didn’t tell you about Owens, how did you end up here? Alone? ” He would think she’d learned her lesson about taking chances like this, but then again, this was Vee he was talking about. Chance was her middle name.

She laughed. “You mean Boggie didn’t call you and blab about my visit to her?”

“She did not.” Now there was a shocker. Elizabeth Baker generally liked to share anything she knew—particularly if the person with whom she intended to share with didn’t already know the details. Then again, she wasn’t herself, under the circumstances.

Vee glanced around the shabby room. “Which means she had an ulterior motive for sending me here.”

Maybe. Like Vee, Bent wasn’t completely convinced this Time Thief business was what the perp wanted the world to believe. Did he suspect Nolan Baker? He did. Vee’s analysis of the situation was brilliant—as always. Still, until he had more, it was only one of a couple of possibilities.

“The forensic team is on the way,” Bent said. If this was a setup, he wanted to know ASAP. Why the hell couldn’t people just tell the truth?

Like you always do?

He dismissed the voice that haunted him all too often. He did what he had to do to get the job done. At least that’s what he told himself.

Vera walked back into the bedroom. Bent followed. She opened the blinds there and then stood a few feet from the wall Owens had decorated with information about the Time Thief and his victims. Mostly newspaper articles and crude drawings. Nothing they didn’t already have—other than his drawings, assuming they were his.

“Do we know anyone Owens hangs with?” she asked. “Who his supplier might be?”

“Owens is a loner. I have ideas on who supplies his needs. I talked to both of those guys as well. The consensus was that Owens is a head case.” Bent purposely left out the names. He was not about to have Vee trying to question those two deadbeats. Though he couldn’t prove anything related to their activities, both were dangerous.

“Apparently you’ve looked into Owens.” She pointed an accusing look at him then. “Why didn’t you tell me about him? Why wasn’t he on your case board?”

Good of Elizabeth to pass along her son’s concerns. Bent wouldn’t have expected less. “Because there was nothing here. No reason to consider him a person of interest and certainly no reason to have you showing up here alone.” Which was why he’d taken Owens off his case board before he invited Vera to consult on the case. He had known she would do something exactly like this.

“I suppose I had that one coming,” she tossed back.

“Our missing reporter,” he went on, grateful for the reprieve, “came to me last week. He’d been here, and I guess Owens made a comment that led Baker to believe he was hiding something. He wasn’t real clear on the details. Anyway, I came that same day and talked to Owens. Most of this,” he gestured to the wall, “was not here then. There were a couple of articles from the local paper. Nothing else. Anyway, he talked the same stuff most of the folks who believe in alien abductions spout. The stuff he sees on television or reads.” He nodded to a pile of books and magazines on the floor at the head of the stack of mattresses that served as a bed.

“What now?” Vee turned to him.

“I get forensics to do their magic, and we see from there.”

“They’ll find my prints,” she said. “I had a look around after I called you.” She shrugged. “He appeared to be down for the count, and I wanted to see if there was anything hidden that might be useful to the investigation.”

“We usually get a warrant for that sort of thing,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, well, I felt there were exigent circumstances. For all I knew, he’d OD’d on something. In that situation it’s always helpful if the medical staff knows what they’re dealing with when they get the call.”

“Works for me.” Bent eyed her cautiously. “Did you find anything?”

“No cell phone.” She shook her head. “No drugs. No nothing. Not even a business card from Baker, which I totally expected to find.”

Bent figured if she was keeping anything from him, she would tell him eventually. “While we wait for Conover to arrive, we could have a look around the yard before it gets too dark?”

“Good idea.”

Outside, he grabbed flashlights from his truck, handed his extra one to Vee. They started with the vehicles parked out front. He’d had a look in those when he came last week, but a follow-up wouldn’t hurt. The trunk on the car was held closed with a bungee cord. Same as last week—nothing but trash inside. A plastic gas can and a couple of bags of trash were piled in the bed of the truck.

“I’ll have Conover’s people go through all the trash,” Bent mentioned. If he was going to waste resources, he might as well do it right.

“Someone’s going to love that detail.” She looked toward Bent. “I’ve been assigned to it plenty of times myself.”

“You don’t know dirty details,” he warned, “until you go through the army’s basic training.”

“You win,” she agreed.

Vee was the only reason he’d survived those weeks and then the years that followed. Knowing that he’d done the right thing by Evelyn Boyett’s daughter had gotten him through. He’d owed Vee’s mother that. The woman had been far too good to Bent for him to risk ruining her daughter’s life.

Vera Boyett had done well for herself. He was grateful to have her in his life again.

Bent forced his mind back onto the task at hand as they picked through the discarded appliances. They found nothing, so they moved on to the backyard. There was an old shed. Bent had looked inside it as well when he was here before. Owens had been completely agreeable to a thorough walk-through of his property. But the shed had been empty. No trash in there, which, looking back, Bent felt might have been a little suspicious, given the condition of the rest of the place. Could have been for no other reason than Owens being too lazy to walk that far to dump anything.

The last of the daylight was fading into the treetops as they reached the shed. It was one of the less expensive metal ones. Maybe eight by ten, with a few decades of rust showing. He slid the doors apart with an annoying screech and roamed the beam of his flashlight over the interior.

Not empty this time.

There was a sleeping bag, a couple of empty water bottles, and the wrappers from snack crackers and chip bags.

Vee crouched down at the door for a closer inspection of the ground. There was no floor in the old shed. It sat directly on the dirt.

“Well, well,” Bent noted, “looks like Owens has had some company. Maybe one of his junkie friends or a supply source who stepped on the wrong toes.”

Since the shed didn’t have a lock, they could assume whoever had been here wasn’t being held against his or her will.

“This wasn’t here last week?” she asked.

“It was not.” Bent put his flashlight under his arm and tugged on gloves before stepping inside. He picked up the sleeping bag by one corner and gave it a shake. An object tumbled out and hit the ground.

Vee’s flashlight highlighted the item before Bent’s. Black. Cell phone.

He picked it up, and the screen lit with a series of notifications, which included several calls and text messages from Mom and someone designated as LR . He showed the screen to Vee.

“That has to be Nolan’s phone,” she said without even touching it, her gaze colliding with Bent’s. “LR is probably the boyfriend.”

Bent pulled out his own cell and called the hospital. He identified himself and then said, “I need whoever’s in charge in the ER.” Half a minute later he had the doctor in charge on the line. “I need an update on a patient just brought in, Fisher Owens.” A few seconds were required for the doctor to get the information. Bent then thanked him and ended the call.

“Owens is conscious but in psychosis. They had to sedate him. We can’t talk to him until he’s on the other side.”

Vee bit her lip. “Which could take a few hours or a few days. Maybe weeks.”

“Meanwhile, we’ll search the entire property and the surrounding area.”

“Just one thing.” She cleared her throat. “There may be photos on the phone.”

Bent’s eyebrows went up. “I’m guessing so. Most folks have photos on their cell phones.”

“No.” Vee shook her head. “I mean photos with LR. Photos that could damage his career, as well as Nolan’s.”

Bent got it now. He looked at the phone. “We need a passcode. His mother may know it.”

“Is it all right if I check with the boyfriend first?”

Bent was stunned. Was she asking for his permission? Wow. This was a first. “Why not?”

Vee stared at him kind of funny. “Okay. I’ll give him a call.” She stepped away from the shed.

While she spoke quietly to the boyfriend, Bent spotted headlights bobbing through the trees. That would be Conover.

“It’s zero-zero-zero-zero,” Vee said, drawing Bent’s attention back to her.

He entered the passcode, and sure enough, that was it. He passed the phone to Vee. “You know what you’re looking for.” When she pulled on a glove and reached for the phone, he held on to it for a moment. “Just make sure you don’t delete anything we need.”

“Never,” she promised.

By the time she’d done a quick perusal, the forensic crew had parked and were climbing out of the vehicle.

“Nolan is smart,” she said, passing the phone back to Bent. “He has very few photos on there, and the ones he does have are related to stories he’s working on. FYI, he has a photo of the wall in that bedroom—exactly the way it is now.” She pointed to the shack Owens called home.

Which meant Nolan had been here since Bent’s visit.

Maybe the ambitious reporter was only following up on a lead. But then, Bent had already let both Nolan and Elizabeth know there was nothing to be concerned about with Owens. Evidently, someone wanted him to believe he was wrong.

Bent wasn’t particularly worried about that right now. Keeton had said in his statement that Baker had his phone with him last night when they’d arrived at the old hospital. Which would mean the device ended up at this location after his abduction.

There was only one conclusion to be reached from there: someone was lying.