Page 77 of Last Girls Alive

Thirty-Three

Monday 0745 hours

Katie drove Chad’s extra Jeep to the sheriff’s department, her mind whirring with fresh ideas. Chad hadn’t let her lift a finger to do anything for the entire Sunday as he fussed around her doing all the cooking and cleaning, sternly instructing her to rest. Even her uncle checked in twice to make sure that she was following explicit orders—his and the doctor’s. So thinking was all she could do under the circumstances.

Katie had to admit that she did feel rested, even with a few more bruises than usual, but she felt recharged and ready to tackle all the evidence and leads on these cases. She had jotted down a few notes over the past day and wanted to get started immediately.

McGaven had called her Saturday evening and told her that he was fine—no serious damage to his lungs or organs—just bruising. He was supposed to rest for a few days and he didn’t say for sure if he would be in on Monday morning.

Katie parked and made her way to the office, running scenarios of the case through her mind as always. She had some follow-up questions for Tanis Jones and wanted to talk to her as soon as possible, and she also wanted to get someone tracking Keller’s movements.

Opening the door to the cold-case office, she was surprised to see McGaven sitting, as usual, at his laptop keying in search parameters.

“Hi,” she said, amazed that he had decided to come to work.

“Hey, partner,” he said not looking up from the computer.

“I thought you’d be taking a few days off.”

“For what?”

“To rest.”

“Nah, I’d just be sitting at home thinking about stuff here. So at least I’m sitting here at work being productive.”

“Okay, great.” She put her things down and retrieved her notebook. “Have we heard anything from forensics taken from the bulldozer and container?”

“No. But I don’t think they’ll be much—at least according to John. I ran into him this morning.”

“Oh,” said Katie disappointed. She had thought they would have found something—anything—fingerprints—anythingof interest.

“I’ve been trying to find the other girls from the foster home and it’s been frustrating. Terry Slaughter has had so many aliases it’s next to impossible to track. And Heather Lawson moved to Kansas, but there’s no information found: death certificate, job, social security, owning anything. Nothing.”

“If she’s alive, it’s clear that she’s staying off the radar. Perhaps she’s homeless.”

“No arrest records either.”

“Hmm… she might have decided that she didn’t like Kansas and moved to another state.”

“I’m checking now. But it will take some time.”

“What do we know about her?” she asked.

“Not much.”

“I want to talk to Tanis Jones again—maybe she might have some answers?”

McGaven turned in his chair and grimaced.

“What’s wrong? You okay?”

“Yeah, just sore. The doc said I would be hurting for about a week to ten days.”

Katie sat down in her chair and rolled next to McGaven. “You sure you don’t want to go home and rest?”

“Katie, I’m fine. I’m just not going to be running for a while though.”

“Okay,” she said and stood up, studying her whiteboard. “What do we have now?”