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SIXTY-THREE

CROOKED CREEK POLICE STATION

Sunday, November 29

The team met in the conference room at eight-thirty the next morning. Ellie rubbed her tired eyes and filled a mug with coffee then joined her boss Captain Hale, Derrick, Sheriff Waters, Deputies Eastwood and Landrum. Cord strode in, his shaggy hair and rugged appearance giving the impression he’d come from the woods. She wondered if he’d gone back to Modelle’s.

Their gazes locked but he didn’t say anything and she decided not to share their conversation the night before. But he might have found something important to the case, so she’d have to inform Derrick.

“Thanks for coming, everyone,” Ellie said as she stood in front of the whiteboard. “I’m afraid we have another murder.”

A collective sigh rumbled through the room. “Another child?” Shondra asked.

Ellie hesitated. “No, a counselor named Delilah Short but we have reason to believe her death is connected to our current case. That Barbara Thacker knew her from a support group.”

Ellie used the whiteboard to add photos of the crime scene. “Dr. Whitefeather is conducting Ms. Short’s autopsy this morning, but her initial assessment is that the woman died of blood loss due to stab wounds.”

“Looks pretty violent,” Sheriff Waters commented.

Ellie nodded. “We think the killer may have tortured her to extract information.”

“What kind of information?” Shondra asked.

“About Barbara and a group of her friends.” She added photos of the women and children together. “I found these on a thumb drive from Barbara Thacker’s house. Which, by the way, had been ransacked.” She displayed pictures she’d taken at the scene then pointed to one of the group photos.

“Our victims, the twin girls, are here.”

Ellie continued to plug in details, adding the questions and theories she and Derrick had discussed, the ones that had kept her awake half the night.

“So you think Barbara is the biological mother of the twins?” Shondra said.

“That’s what DNA tells us,” Ellie said. “Although both Barbara and her ex-husband Thomas claimed to be childless.” She added a picture of Thomas Thacker. “Thacker works at a car dealership but so far we don’t have much on him. He and Barbara divorced shortly after she delivered a stillborn baby.”

Shondra made a face of disgust.

“Was the divorce amicable?” Sheriff Waters asked.

Ellie shrugged. “He didn’t seem to hold any animosity toward her, but who knows?” She shifted. “Deputy Landrum, I want you to dig deeper into Mr. Thacker. Also see if you can access his phone records and dig around there. Sheriff Waters, obtain a warrant for Thacker’s DNA so we can determine if he was or was not the little girls’ father.”

“On it,” the sheriff said. “If he’s not the father and his wife told him he was, that might give him motive to hurt her.”

“True,” Ellie agreed. “Although they’ve been divorced for years so why kill the girls now?”

Derrick tilted his head. “Maybe the truth was about to come out and Thacker didn’t want it to. Or maybe he didn’t know the twins were his and he found out and wanted to keep it quiet.”

Ellie added his suggestions to the whiteboard. “Check into that angle, Sheriff. Agent Fox and I plan to go to Ms. Short’s office and question her coworkers.”

“I’ll work on obtaining warrants for her work files and study those,” Derrick added.

“Our prime suspects at this point are Thacker and Larry Modelle, a man arrested and convicted of killing his nine-year-old daughter.” She presented the details of his case and watched everyone’s faces sour.

“What connection does he have to the twins or Delilah Short?” Shondra asked.

“That we’re unclear of,” Ellie said. “But Barbara Thacker taught his daughter in school and reported him for child abuse.”

“Ahh,” Sheriff Waters said. “So he wanted revenge against her?”

“That’s possible,” Ellie said. “Although we have no idea how he’d connect the twins to Barbara.”

A smattering of murmurings passed through the room at the question. Ellie had no answers at the moment.

“I collected a sample of blood from Modelle’s barn and sent it to the lab,” Ellie said. “Shondra, you’ve been canvassing the town. Have you seen Modelle?”

“Yeah, he’s creepy. Yesterday, he stood by Santa’s workshop watching the kids.”

Ellie went still as she remembered what Cord had discovered in the woods by the man’s house. “If he approaches one of the children or acts suspicious, let me know.”

Cord tilted his head toward her as if to ask if she wanted him to reveal his findings, but she shook her head. The sheriff wouldn’t appreciate him nosing around on his own.

“Angelica should be here any minute,” Captain Hale said.

Ellie nodded. So far going public had elicited no viable information. But hopefully the announcement about Delilah’s murder would yield more information.

As everyone left the conference room, Ellie motioned for Cord to stay.

“Derrick, Cord has something to show you,” Ellie said.

Cord looked skeptical about sharing with Derrick, but Ellie couldn’t withhold a possible lead from him, not when lives were at stake.

“What is it?” Derrick asked.

Cord crossed his arms. “Last night, I took a look around Modelle’s property.”

“You did what?” Derrick barked.

Ellie pressed a hand to his arm to calm him. “He found something, Derrick.”

Derrick’s disapproving look chilled the air.

Ellie gave Cord a nudging look and he continued. “I saw Modelle returning from a wooded section so after he drove away I went to see where he’d been.” He laid his phone on the table and let Derrick scroll through the photographs. First of the necklace dangling from the tree limb then the children’s items in the tackle box.

Derrick tunneled his fingers through his hair with a scowl. “This doesn’t prove anything.”

“No,” Ellie agreed, “but in the photos of the twins, they were always wearing these little gold heart-shaped lockets. Laney said they weren’t with the girls when they were brought in.”

“Which means the killer may have taken them,” Cord said.

Derrick released a long-winded sigh. “That may be true, but the heart pendants aren’t here, McClain.” He straightened, his jaw clenched. “And even if they were, we couldn’t do anything with it. Not since you illegally obtained this information.”

“It may not be concrete,” Cord said. “But it definitely raises suspicions.”

“He’s right,” Ellie said.

“And if you look close, it appears there might be blood on that beaded friendship bracelet.”

Derrick made a low sound in his throat and examined the photo more closely.

“Again, McClain, even if there is, I can’t do anything about it. You need to stay out of it and let us do our jobs.”

“I have a bad feeling about Modelle,” Cord snapped. “He’s going to kill again.”

“We need concrete evidence of that,” Derrick said. “Just leave the investigating to the pros.”

Cord’s eyes shot daggers at Derrick.

“We need all the help we can get, Derrick,” Ellie said, her voice tight. “What if he’s right?”

Derrick squared his shoulders. “Are you willing to cross the line, put your career in jeopardy, Ellie, on a hunch from a hothead like him?”

“I can take care of myself, Derrick.” Ellie curled her fingers into her palms and glared at him. Derrick strode from the conference room in a cloud of anger.

A thick strained silence fell between Ellie and Cord in the seconds that followed.

Finally, Cord spoke. “He’s right, El. I don’t want to get you in hot water with your boss or jeopardize your job.”

Ellie wanted to scream. Instead, she sucked in a breath. “To hell with the job and protocol,” she said, seething with anger. “Two little girls are dead. If we can prevent another, then we do whatever we have to.”

His brown eyes darkened to slits, then he gave a small nod of understanding.

Whatever he found, she’d use it and make it work. And if she suffered the consequences, she’d deal with it.

Better that, than another child’s death on her conscience.