Page 19 of Vanishing Point (Bent County Protectors #1)

Thomas hated defense attorneys on a good day, and the day Allen Scott tried to weasel out of a clear-cut domestic battery case was not a good day. “I hate that guy,” Thomas muttered as he walked out of the courthouse for a lunch break.

“He’s just doing his job,” Laurel offered. The prosecutor wanted her on the stand over a previous case she’d been involved with that tied Scott to the victim.

“You won’t be saying that this afternoon when you’re up there and he’s trying to trip you up on what can be proven on body cam footage.”

“I sure won’t,” she agreed with a smile. “You know we could take a lunch and stop by the jewelry store now,” Laurel said.

It was a good idea, but Thomas was distracted. His phone screen had no alerts. He didn’t have any texts or messages from Vi, and considering how long he’d been in the courtroom, he should.

“Vi didn’t text me what happened with the postal inspector.”

“Maybe she forgot.”

“Maybe, but that’s not like her.”

“Maybe it’s bad news she doesn’t want to text you. She wants to tell you in person.”

“Yeah, maybe.” But it still didn’t feel right. He called her. The phone went to voicemail. Then he clicked the location finder. She’d been fine with him tracking her phone, as long as she got to track his. The problem was, if the phone was off or in use, no location came up.

And that was exactly what happened. “I don’t like this,” he grumbled. He checked the time. “I’m going to swing by my house. I’ll just grab a sandwich there.”

“Sure,” Laurel agreed easily. “We don’t have time to split, so I’ll just come with if you’re worried.”

“Yeah. I’m going to call Franny. She was supposed to meet Vi for lu—” Before he even managed to go into his contacts, his phone rang. Sadly, it wasn’t Vi.

But it was Franny. Maybe Vi’s phone wasn’t working.

“Franny?” he answered.

“Hey, Thomas. Sorry to bother you. Have you heard from Vi? She was supposed to meet me at the park at noon, and she isn’t answering her phone. I could go by your house, but if she’s still meeting with the postal inspector, I didn’t want to barge in. She’s only ten minutes late, so…”

His whole body went ice-cold. If she missed meeting up with Franny and Mags, and wasn’t answering her phone, something was wrong . Even if it was only ten minutes.

He got in the patrol car, motioned for Laurel to do the same . “I need you to do me a favor, Franny. Just…stay put or head back to the ranch. I’ll catch you up once I get to the bottom of things.”

“Is something wrong?”

He wanted to lie, but there was no good lie for it. “I’m not sure. Look, I’m on it now. Can you just take Mags to the ranch and focus on taking care of her? I’ll focus on finding Vi.”

There was a brief pause, but he didn’t have time for it. “Please, Franny. I’ve got to go.” He hung up, prayed like hell Franny would listen, then pulled up the doorbell camera app on his phone.

He watched the footage in double time. “The inspector leaves.” He checked the time stamp. “Nine fifteen. Adds up. But then there’s nothing. Vi doesn’t leave.”

“Then she’s at home,” Laurel said. “We’ll drive out. In the meantime, who’s close by that’s home that could stop in?”

“I’ll call Zach and Cam.” He started the engine, pulled out of the parking lot. “Their office isn’t even a ten-minute drive from my place.”

“If they’re there and not out on a job. I’ll text them. You call…Lucy. Her and Zach are still above the general store, right?”

“Yeah, but she’ll have Cooper to wrangle.”

“You know what? I’ll send out a full Carson-Delaney family text. Someone will be free to go pop by and see if everything’s okay.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“She didn’t leave the house or it would have shown up on your doorbell camera. And no one besides the inspector went in the house, so… It’s just… Maybe something happened to her phone.”

And maybe something happened to her. But Laurel was right. There was no clear sign of anything…

“You know what? While I text, you call the postal inspector. Maybe see if she’ll tell you about the meeting.”

“Good idea.” He flipped on the lights and sirens, which would make a phone call impossible. “But we’re going to get to my house first.”

He drove like hell from the courthouse, and toward his house. When his phone sounded—a sign that someone was at his front door on the doorbell camera—Laurel picked up his phone.

“It’s just Lucy and Cooper, ringing the bell.” Laurel watched the screen and Thomas focused on the road, since he was running code. They were maybe fifteen minutes out still.

“She didn’t answer,” Laurel said. She kept her voice perfectly calm, but Thomas knew her well enough to know she wasn’t as breezy about this whole thing as she had been.

Ten minutes speeding up to and then through Bent felt like hours with this worry making his muscles so tight they ached .

He pulled up to the house with a screech. Lucy was playing with Cooper in the yard, Mr. Marigold was standing on his side of the fence, clearly chatting with her. “Call the postal inspector,” he told Laurel, already out the door and jogging up the walk to his front door.

“Thanks for trying, Lucy,” he offered somewhat half-heartedly. He had his keys out and unlocked the door in record time. “You guys should go home,” he called.

Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it wasn’t dangerous, but it was no place for a kid.

“Vi?” he called out. Too many thoughts assaulted him. Calls he’d answered as a deputy—falls, accidental deaths, natural deaths. Always a family member who’d just…stopped responding.

But she didn’t answer, and as he moved through the house, it was clear she wasn’t in it. She wasn’t here .

He forced himself to stop. Breathe. Look around. Was anything out of place?

Not really. It looked exactly like he’d left it. The kitchen was sparkling clean, but she’d no doubt stress-cleaned before the postal inspector had arrived. She’d even put the highchair away so that it looked like a kid didn’t live here.

“Damn it, Vi. Where are you?” he muttered. He went through one more search, ending up right back at the front door.

Which was when he realized Vi’s purse was still on the hook by the door, and when he opened the purse, her phone was in there.

Laurel came to stand in the front door. “I sent Lucy and Cooper home.”

“Good.”

“She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I talked to your neighbor, and he didn’t see anything either. Postal inspector’s phone was off, but I left a message.”

Thomas nodded. “Vi’s stuff is still here,” he said, pointing at the purse.

Laurel eyed it. “Well, maybe—”

“Her phone is still in it.”

Laurel cursed again. “Okay. Let’s look through the house. Not just big things, even the tiniest things. Kitchen’s as clean as I’ve ever seen it.”

“She cleans when she’s stressed,” Thomas muttered. He didn’t want to go through the house again. He wanted to go around in a rage, screaming for her from the rooftops. But Laurel was right. The smart thing to do was to go over the house one more time.

“She must have cleaned before the inspector got here. Everything out here looks pristine.” He took the hallway, pointed into the bathroom.

He studied the sink, the shower, the towel hanging on the rack—where he’d put it this morning.

“Her stuff is where it usually is. So is mine, and Magnolia’s.

” He moved down to the bedroom. Flipped on the light.

“Bed’s made—that’s all her. Closet is closed, just like she usually closes it.

” He paused, then heard something odd. And saw the curtain flutter.

“Wait.” He strode over to the curtains, jerked them back. The window was open. “I didn’t leave this window open.” He peered out, realized it wasn’t just an open window, the screen had been popped out. And carefully leaned against the side of the house.

He and Laurel swore in unison.

Thomas was about to jump out the window himself, but Laurel grabbed him. “We’ll call in Copeland. Have him bring out the fingerprint kit. So go around the front. We don’t want to contaminate the scene.”

She had her phone out and was dialing already. “Breathe, Thomas. Breathe,” she said, and then Copeland must have answered, because Laurel started barking orders. She reached out to him, squeezed his arm.

“Any idea what she’s wearing?”

“No. She would have changed for the meeting with the inspector.”

Laurel put her mouth back toward the receiver. “No purse. No phone. We’re going to canvass the neighborhood. You get what you need to print the house, then get out here. Call the postal inspector on your way. As far as we know, she would have been the last one to see Vi.”

Copeland must have agreed, because Laurel ended the phone call, then turned to Thomas. She was calm. She was in control, and it helped him remember he needed to find that calm and cool too.

Maybe it was Vi. Maybe he was terrified, but it was a case like any other.

He had to think of it that way.

V I LAY IN the back seat of the postal inspector’s rental car in stillness and tried to see what she could out of the window as the inspector drove. Mostly, she just saw sky, but if she could catch a glimpse of the tops of mountains, she at least would know what direction they were driving in.

She was pretty sure they’d headed south-ish out of town. She could be wrong, because really there wasn’t much south of Bent. Ranches and small towns. Sunrise, eventually.

Her wrists and ankles were zip-tied, so she knew there was no getting out of the bonds, but if she could have some idea of where she was, then she still had a chance.

Except, small towns and ranches meant plenty of places to hide.

Plenty of places to dump a body.

She blew out a breath. We’re not going to think like that , she told herself sternly.

A trick she’d learned in therapy when her thoughts spiraled to blaming herself for Eric’s abuse.

Usually she said it out loud, but with the postal inspector right there in the driver’s seat, Vi kept all words internal.

Maybe she should have fought her. Maybe she should have taken the chance. But the inspector had given her a choice—leave with her out the bedroom window, or they could sit there and wait for Thomas to come home and she would shoot him in the head when he walked in the door.

Maybe it had been a bluff. Maybe Vi should have called it.

But she thought about his story with the dime, how he’d already narrowly escaped a gunshot wound to the head once. She just hadn’t been able to take that kind of chance.

So, she’d let the zip ties be put on her wrists. The only thing Vi had bothered to ask was if the woman was really a postal inspector. Dianne had just laughed and tightened the zip ties.

Vi didn’t know what that meant, really. She supposed it didn’t matter.

She’d let the lady pull her through the house, into the bedroom, then the woman had opened the window and pushed her out.

Vi’s ankle had rolled on impact and it ached even now, but she was well-versed in aches you had to just live through.

She was going to find a way to live through this. She had a daughter. She had a man who loved her. She had family , and even if she’d made a mistake in being allowed to be taken to a second location, she would fight.

Because wherever the inspector was taking her was hopefully away from Thomas and anyone else who might get caught in the crossfire.

Maybe she didn’t know what the inspector wanted, or why Vi was the target, but she’d fight her like hell…as long as no one else could possibly get hurt.

She tried to keep track of time or miles or anything about the car ride, but in the end, she had no idea how long they drove. How far. Even when the inspector pulled the car to a stop, opened the back seat door, and then pulled Vi up and out of the car, Vi didn’t know where they were.

Deep in a wooded cove. Mountains seemingly all around them, blocking out the sky. There was a dilapidated-looking cabin a few yards away.

“I don’t know why you bothered to bring me all the way out here just to kill me.

Thomas is going to find you.” Vi was going to believe that was true.

She’d been purposefully rude to his neighbor who had stopped her and Dianne, because she knew Mrs…

well, whatever her name was, was a bit of a busybody and always bothering Thomas with silly neighborhood disputes.

If the neighbor didn’t go running to tell him about the car and the woman with her, Vi would eat her hat. She’d only wished the inspector had put the zip ties on her ankles at that point, but the inspector had made sure it looked like she was walking around of her own volition.

The inspector didn’t really say anything as she pulled Vi out of the car. She just pointed at the cabin, gave Vi a careful nudge—because too hard of one would send her toppling. “Let’s go.”

The inspector had her elbow and was trying to move her forward at the snail’s pace required of having her ankles tied together.

Vi eyed the cabin. It looked like it had been abandoned decades ago.

“I’m not going in there.”

“Yes, you are,” the inspector said, pulling her by the elbow.

But Vi had a one-year-old. She knew all about dead weight. So she simply dropped to the ground. When the inspector just grabbed her by the wrists and began to painfully drag her across the ground, Vi bucked and wriggled and did everything she could to get the inspector off her.

The woman just grunted and fought right back, and since she had free hands and apparently impressive strength, she kept making progress toward the cabin.

Vi tried not to feel defeated, but by the time they reached the one stair up to the porch, and the inspector used two hands to painfully jerk her over it and onto the porch, Vi didn’t know what she was going to accomplish trying to fight anyone, all tied up the way she was.

“On your feet.” The inspector jerked her up. Vi considered just flopping back on the ground, but what did that do? Maybe if she was upright there’d be some way to kind of throw herself into the inspector. Push her in some way.

The inspector shoved the cabin door open and pulled Vi inside behind her. Immediately, Vi heard someone else. Someone already in the cabin. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw a figure sitting at the table.

“Hello, Vi.”

Vi didn’t say anything in response. She immediately turned and tried to escape.